Julie Adams, The Creature & Her Costumes

Every summer, I have a tradition that marks the start of the season. I watch two very specific movies. Jaws and The Creature From The Black Lagoon! It just doesn’t feel like summer, unless I’ve watched them at least once. In today’s video, I am going to be talking about the latter, as well as Julie Adams’ style and how you could recreate it.

When you hear the words The Creature From The Black Lagoon, you automatically think of the creature known as The Gill-man. For us vintage gals, we are usually drooling over the fabulous 1950s stylings of Julie Adams. Who, by the way, is the perfect ingenue for this movie? Her entire wardrobe is what I consider to be the most incredible summer capsule wardrobe. Julie Adams’ character, Kay Lawrence, is one of the reasons I decided it was time to make shorts for myself.

Before I get into the costumes, let me chat a bit about what this movie is about.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American black and white monster style horror movie that was originally done in 3D. I’ve seen this movie many times and both in 3D and regular screenings, and to be honest, I do prefer the regular screenings over the 3D.

This movie was produced by William Alland, and it was directed by Jack Arnold. it stars Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, and Whit Bissell. Many of you might be familiar with Julie Adams and Richard Denning, as they did do quite a lot of television in the 1950s. Richard Denning is also very well known as being the sassy detective in the television show Michael Shayne.

I am going to mention just a little bit about the movie plot. If you don’t want to know anything about it, skip to the next paragraph. I am going to attempt not to have too many spoilers. The movie’s plot is about a group of scientists who encounter an amphibious humanoid-type creature in the Amazon. They go to the Amazon to hunt down this creature to research it, and of course, along the way, this creature fights for its life. That’s all I’m going to tell you about it, as I do want you to watch this movie if you’ve never seen it. It’s so much fun! If you can, I highly recommend you see it on the big screen. If you live in a city or town that has at least one rep theater, they do tend to show it at least once a year in the summer. If they haven’t shown it, I would suggest it to them. If there’s enough interest, I’m sure they would show it. Otherwise, it is available on a variety of different formats, including DVD and Blu-ray, so it is a pretty easy movie to get hold of.

I have done a video about the creator of the Gill-man, Milcent Patrick. You can check out that video here.

Before I talk about the specific costumes in the movie, I want to talk a little bit about who designed the costumes for this movie, Rosemary Odell. Rosemary was a costume designer for Universal Studios from 1945 until 1967. She was especially well known for designing the costumes for movies such as Bend of the River (1952), It Came From Outer Space (1953,) Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), The Island Earth (1955), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and several of the Ma & Pa Kettle movies.

Now it’s time to talk about the fabulous costumes that Julie Adams wears throughout this movie. As I mentioned in the opening, this is visually a great movie to watch if you want an easy-to-wear to wear, easy-to-make summer capsule wardrobe. Another movie that also has great costuming is the 1960 version of Little Shop of Horrors, and though in that case Jackie Joseph used for own wardrobe, it is also a great type of inspiration for another capsule wardrobe. I do have a video planned in the future for that movie.

As I talk about the outfits, I am going to pop up photos of those particular outfits, as well as images of patterns that I think would be perfect, especially if you can get hold of some of them. As I’m able to, I will post patterns that would be available to buy online as PDFs.

I am going to begin with the costume that is possibly the one that shows up second most in stills from this movie, and I will end with the most iconic one.

First up is not only one of the cutest outfits from this movie, but it is the outfit that inspired me to make shorts. Julie Adams is wearing a handkerchief-style halter top with white shorts. I think of all of these outfits, it is also probably the easiest to make. A handkerchief halter top would be pretty easy to sew; you can probably even self-draft it yourself, or simply sew handkerchiefs together from below your cleavage to the waist. Basic shorts are very easy to make as well. If you want to create your draft-at-home pattern for this, I do have a video where I talk about making shorts as part of a tiki capsule wardrobe. I’m going to link that in the show notes below, as well as the blog post that I’m going to have over at http://www.killerkitschdesigns.com.

Shorts:

Drafting Shorts with the Haslam System of Dresscutting https://youtu.be/kVheSjW_PMw

Handkerchief halter top:

I found this really easy tutorial to make a 1930 style handkerchief halter top on the website https://thedreamstress.com/. It would work for the halter top and shorts outfit.

1950s https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1552833064/pdf-vintage-1950s-sewing-pattern-set-of?ref=shop_home_active_6&logging_key=88088d0841cf1801e4abbb05d1a6312bac62624f%3A1552833064

1930s https://thedreamstress.com/2015/03/tutorial-how-to-make-a-1930s-style-handkerchief-halter-top/

Next up is the polka dot blouse and what I’m assuming are white capris, and the reason I’m assuming that is that during the 1950s, white capris were incredibly popular. I would not wear white pants; I would go with a different color, even red. I just can’t keep anything white. It would end up with horrendous stains all over it.

Polka dot blouse:

Subversivefemme.com has the Maxine Blouse. The sleeve option could be lengthened to a ¾ sleeve easily! https://subversivefemme.com/patterns/1950s-maxine-blouses-1033/

White capris:

If you can get your hands on a coffee, the Butterick 7557 sewing pattern is the perfect Capri pattern. I was fortunate and I was able to find a PDF version of this pattern, it is only in one size, please note that, so you will have to grade it up or down if you’re not that size. But it’s convenient to have the pattern.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1786756190/1950s-tapered-pant-boxy-top-vintage?ref=shop_home_active_2&crt=1&logging_key=028e435c41c6b010b0069486ea0a0297c2733a61%3A1786756190

For the next two pieces, I am assuming it’s a khaki color. Unfortunately, many black and white movies don’t do colored stills; instead, they colourize their stills, and it’s not necessarily the actual color of the garment. Both of these patterns are pretty basic sewing patterns. Almost any blouse or trousers from the late 40s into the 50s would work for this. Two patterns that I have and are amazing, though, just warning you, would have to grade both up or down depending on your size, are from subversivefemme.com again. I adore the knitting and sewing patterns from Subversive Femme.

Long-sleeved blouse

For the long-sleeved khaki blouse, you can very easily use this as a blouse. Now, the Zelda blouse does have a poof at the bottom of the sleeve, but you can easily remove the extra fabric from what the pattern piece has and straighten it out. In that case, it would work perfectly.

Zelda Blouse https://subversivefemme.com/patterns/1940s-zelda-blouses-in-size-36-simplicity-1728/

Trousers:

For the trousers, the Rosie work set is perfect. As a matter of fact, you could also use the fitted jacket as a blouse, simply by using shirting-weight fabric. It also works for this outfit. https://subversivefemme.com/patterns/1940s-rosie-work-set-in-size-46-vintage-sewing-pattern/

Turtleneck:

I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be to find a 1950s women’s turtleneck sewing pattern. There is a plethora of knitted ones, but if you’re doing a summer capsule wardrobe, I don’t think you want a wool turtleneck sweater. I did find several versions of modern patterns that could easily be used as a 1950s pattern, and Mood Fabrics has a free pattern on their website when you subscribe to them. If you’re interested in that pattern, here is a link. I am not associated with them in any way.https://www.moodfabrics.com/blog/the-crimson-turtleneck-and-the-voltage-midi-skirt-free-sewing-patterns/

Additionally, Gertie has a pattern on her Patreon called the Barbie top, and there is an extension to do a mock turtleneck for it. If you are a member of her Patreon, you can easily do that pattern. I haven’t made it myself, but I’ve heard that it’s super easy to make. I can’t imagine wearing a turtleneck in the summer.

And Julie Adams is wearing the same white shorts again that she wears with the halter top with this turtleneck.

White bathing suit

And of course, the most iconic of all of the outfits from this movie is that absolutely gorgeous white bathing suit. I highly recommend the Ester bathing suit from Charm Patterns. The reason I’m suggesting this it is size inclusive and has a very large range of sizes, so almost anyone can make this bathing suit. As well, the instructions for any of the term patterns are incredibly easy to follow. Sometimes Gertie has tutorials on her YouTube channel, though I don’t think there is one specifically for this bathing suit. However, it is a great option. It looks very similar to the bathing suit that Julie Adams is wearing in the movie.

Hopefully, this gives you a little bit of an idea of what patterns you could use to recreate the Wardrobe from the Creature from the Black Lagoon. To be honest, you could use any basic blouse or trouser pattern and then from those two pieces recreate this entire wardrobe. I’ve turned trouser patterns and shorts before, and I’ve added long sleeves to sleeveless blouses before. That is really how you create a capsule wardrobe without having to buy a ton of patterns. Use what you have and hack them.