An interesting discovery of a sketch by the British costume designer Dolly Tree within Leonard Stanley’s book Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art and High Fashion
I was browsing through Amazon and took a look at the listing for Leonard Stanley’s book Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art and High Fashion. I decided to ‘Look Inside’ and scanned some of the pages. To my huge surprise on page 21 there was a full page costume sketch attributed to Adrian within the context of the chapter (I think) about Adrian’s sojourn in Paris in 1922. What was interesting is the sketch reproduced was most definitely not drawn by Adrian but by Dolly Tree. The style of the drawing is unmistakable not least of all the signature on the bottom righthand side. The signature frame of a ‘T’ has the centre letters “ree’ erased or removed. The drawing itself can be dated to about 1921-1922.
For reference, I attach an image of the Leonard Stanley sketch (on the left) and another sketch (on the right) with a completed signature and also from the period of about 1921-1922. The similarity is, as you can see, inescapable.
Seemingly, what is not detailed in Leonard Stanley’s section of Adrian’s stay in Paris in 1922 is the fact that he did meet Dolly Tree. She was at the time largely responsible for costuming the 1922 Folies Bergere show Folies Sur Folies and contributing to the Concert Mayol show T’en as Du Vice.
The Leonard Stanley collection of drawings is housed in the Margaret Herrick library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, and they do have a few drawings that have been clearly identified as being drawn by Dolly Tree. Now it looks like they have another.
If anyone knows Leonard Stanley please forward this post to him.
To see the Dolly Tree category with numerous posts on the Jazz Age Club website click here
All images (unless specified in the caption) and text © copyright Gary Chapman / Jazz Age Club and must not be re-used without prior consent
