The glamour of everyday: Hollywood designers and the endorsement of 'ordinary' products in the studio system.

This article explores how Hollywood costume designers during the studio era functioned as cultural intermediaries by endorsing everyday consumer products, thereby shaping consumer culture beyond their film work. Through archival research, it highlights designers such as Adrian and Travis Banton who leveraged their fashion expertise and celebrity status to promote products like Lux Flakes washing powder and Mojud Hosiery, positioning these goods as aspirational and linked to Hollywood glamour. The study emphasizes the strategic use of costume designers' authoritative voices in advertising campaigns orchestrated by agencies like J. Walter Thompson, illustrating how the studio system extended their influence into marketing and taste-making. This dual role contributed to the commercialization of Hollywood style and helped establish American fashion's global presence, revealing the multifaceted labor of costume designers as tastemakers and legitimators within both cinema and consumer markets.