Goddesses in the Machine

An engaging exploration of fashion in silent film that uncovers the innovation, artistry, and entrepreneurship behind Hollywood costume design

In the first decades of the twentieth century, enterprising designers recognized the importance of dress as a powerful tool for expression within the new silent medium of film. As the definitive exploration of fashion and costume in early Hollywood, Goddesses in the Machine reveals an untold story that begins in a period when actors wore their own clothes on-screen and concludes with the birth of the professional movie costume designer. Although most American silent films have been lost and costumes from the era rarely survive, with new scholarship and compelling archival materials, this publication brings to light a dazzling range of cinematic innovations and reconstructs a nearly vanished world.

Featuring pioneers of film like Billie Burke, Irene Castle, and Valeska Suratt and of design like Lucile, Madame Frances, and Clare West, this book highlights the actors and designers-many of whom were women-whose work established a blueprint for modern movie glamour. It reconstructs their legacies through garments, accessories, film stills, sketches, and printed ephemera. Essays by leading fashion historians, film scholars, curators, and Hollywood costume designers examine a variety of ensembles worn on film, from dance dresses engineered for movement to gender-bending silhouettes that challenged social norms. Together, they trace the political, commercial, and social contexts behind fashion on the silver screen.

Distributed for Bard Graduate Center

Exhibition Schedule:

Bard Graduate Center, New York
(September 18, 2026-January 3, 2027)