Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis may have been a fashion icon in those perfect sleeveless sheath dresses, oversized sunglasses and triple-strand pearls, but she had nothing on her cousin Edie Bouvier Beale.
The improvisational way Beale could tie a scarf — or a sweater or a skirt — and fasten it with a brooch at the nape of the neck or the crown of the head is still a revelation.
If she were alive today, she would definitely be a stylist.
It’s no wonder that more than 30 years after the release of Albert and David Maysles’ 1975 documentary “Grey Gardens” about Edie and her mother, Edith Bouvier Beale, we’re still fascinated by the misfit pair who dropped out of society in the 1930s and lived the rest of their days in their decaying East Hampton estate.
Even after the gas and telephone services were shut off and credit dried up at the local grocery store, they were proud relics of the upper class, feeding their pet cats and raccoons “luncheons” and diligently assembling the best “costume for the day” from whatever was on hand, even when there was nowhere to go.
The quirky, codependent love story has been a source for countless fashion designers and a subject of many glossy fashion spreads. It has inspired songs, a Broadway musical and now a new film, which premiered Saturday and will run through May on HBO.
Directed and written by Michael Sucsy and starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, the film uses the 1975 documentary as a framework for telling the back story of how Big and Little Edie reached the point where all they had was each other.
Big Edie was a bohemian too. In stark contrast to her husband’s three-piece pinstripe suits, in the 1930s she wore all manner of loopy loungewear — velvet dressing gowns, kimonos, palazzo pants, wide-brimmed hats and ethnic-looking necklaces. She defied social convention by playing host to lively parties, which led to the downfall of her marriage and her isolation at Grey Gardens.
Even as their circumstances deteriorated, the Beale women never lost their vanity. By the late 1950s, Little Edie is never without a head covering — a disorder called alopecia had resulted in hair loss. (“Just think of all the hat opportunities,” her mother suggests.)
In the 1960s, when Big Edie is confined to her bed, they both dress in mourning black for John F. Kennedy’s funeral, which they listen to on the radio. In the 1970s, when the Health Department comes to the door to condemn the squalid house after the neighbors complain, Little Edie tells the officials she’ll be down “as soon as I put on my lipstick.”
Onassis eventually comes to their financial rescue, paying to have the house repaired.
For costume designer Catherine Marie Thomas, the task of re-creating the look of such beloved style icons was a daunting one. She began by looking at hundreds of photographs Sucsy had compiled for the project.
“Little Edie used what she had to make a very specific style for herself. She is a genius draper of fabric. You would never know she had 10 pieces of clothing on.”
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