03/19/2026
Please join Fashion History Club, Costume Design Club and Film Club for a screening of The Women (1939, MGM, dir. George Cukor), introduced by fashion historian Raissa Bretaña! 💅🎥🎞️
🗓️Thursday March 26th
⏰5:30 Pm
📍Pomerantz Room D523
Bretaña will examine the dazzling costumes worn by the film’s all-female cast, designed by MGM’s head costume designer Adrian. She will draw parallels to contemporary fashion during the time of the film’s release, and chronicle Adrian’s legacy as a pioneering American designer from his tenure at MGM (1928–1941) to his career as a couturier in the 1940s.
Raissa Bretaña is a New York-based fashion historian who works as a writer, researcher, lecturer, and educator. She hosted a popular video series for Glamour in which she fact-checked historical costumes in film and television, and also appeared as a guest on Follow the Thread—a special programming series for Turner Classic Movies that explored the relationship between fashion and film. Raissa received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Costume Design from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Fashion and Textile Studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she has served as adjunct faculty in the History of Art department. She currently works at the Museum at FIT and continues to freelance as a consultant to costume designers for period film and television productions. Raissa is the author of Shoes (2021), Moxie: The Daring Women of Classic Hollywood (2024), and the forthcoming Fashion of the Gilded Age (2026).
RSVP on FitLink:
https://fitnyc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/12320362
Image Credits:
Image 1:Costume designer Gilbert Adrian and Joan Crawford on the set of The Women (1939). Via IMDb
Image 2:Film promotional poster for The Women (1939) directed by George Cukor. Via IMDb
Image 3: Eight of the one hundred and thirty all female cast members. Via IMDb
