From his earliest days working at the colossal movie studio MGM, at the young age of 24, Gilbert Adrian had a vision that would showcase a new era in costume design for the screen. So fresh were his ideas, so original were his designs, and so extraordinary the workmanship that Adrian quite rightly earned the elegant film credit sobriquet, "Gowns by Adrian." He was the first, if not the most publicized, of a Hollywood hybrid known as the costume designer/couturier.

Gowns by Adrian: The MGM Years, 1928-1941 is the first comprehensive look at this prodigiously talented designer in his glory years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The result of more than 10 years of research, access to previously unavailable MGM personnel files, and containing many unpublished photographs and complete filmography, Gowns by Adrian brings us into the design studio and onto the sound stage and makes us privy to the everyday give-and-take between designer and star. For the reclusive Garbo, Adrian was the only designer who understood her wish to avoid revealing necklines or fur; Shearer was particular in another way: two versions of every dress were de rigeur before she would choose one of them; and Crawford, was there ever a star more demanding or more determined? As Adrian once exclaimed, "Who would have thought that my entire reputation as a designer would rest on Joan Crawford's shoulders!"