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Art Deco and Hollywood

Film, the most powerful medium of the modern age, established Art Deco as a global style. In Hollywood Art Deco reached its full potential for fantasy, glamour and mass popularity.

In films such as Our Dancing Daughters, Grand Hotel, 42nd Street and the musicals of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Hollywood spun a magical web of luxury, youth, beauty, upward mobility, sexual liberation and rampant consumerism. Stars such as Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford played racy, modern heroines who embodied Art Deco chic.

Successive waves of European émigré designers, directors, writers, actors and producers brought the Art Deco aesthetic to Hollywood. However, the values and culture their films conveyed were thoroughly American. The Hollywood dream was played out against a backdrop of fantastic Art Deco hotels, night-clubs, ocean liners and skyscrapers. Offering a heady cocktail of modern themes and high style, the films proved irresistible to millions worldwide.

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