Elizabeth Haffenden

Elizabeth Haffenden (18 April 1906 – 29 May 1976) was a British costume designer. She is best known for creating the costumes for most of the Gainsborough melodramas in the 1940s and for her longstanding collaboration with Joan Bridge on many notable film productions in latter years. Her accolades include two Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award.

Elizabeth Haffenden
Born	(1906-04-18)18 April 1906 Croydon, Surrey, England
Died	29 May 1976(1976-05-29) (aged 70) London, England
Occupation	Costume designer
Years active	1934–1975

Life and career

Elizabeth Haffenden was born in Croydon to wholesale draper James Wilson-Haffenden and Edith Carruthers. Elizabeth Haffenden trained at Croydon School of Art and the Royal College of Art. After working as a commercial artist she entered theatre costume design working with Laurence Irving.^[1]

Haffenden's first film costume designs were for Colonel Blood (1933, working alongside art directors Laurence Irving and John Bryan.^[1] In 1939 she joined Gaumont British film studios, and from 1942–1949 she was in charge of the costume department for the popular cycle of Gainsborough melodramas, produced at Shepherds Bush.^[1] These included The Man in Grey (1943) and The Wicked Lady (1945). Costume historian Pam Cook has described Haffenden's Gainsborough projects as "visually splendid ... and the company promoted several of the films on the basis of their costumes". Haffenden's designs for Caravan (1944) and The Wicked Lady (1945) anticipated the post-war new look fashion style, and offered "extravagant sexual display" through low cut bodices and translucent fabrics.^[1] Costumes from The Wicked Lady were acquired for the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.^[2]

In the 1950s Haffenden worked as resident costume designer for the British branch of MGM-British studios, Elstree.^[3]

From the late 1950s Haffenden worked as a freelance costume designer with Joan Bridge, who had worked as a Technicolor consultant at Gainsborough in 1946, where the pair met.^[3] Haffenden and Bridge worked together on period dramas, comedies and thrillers, starting with Ben Hur (1959), which won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Haffenden and Bridge were frequent collaborators with director Fred Zinnemann. They worked on five films for Zinnemann, across a range of periods and locations that required thoughtful costuming, including The Sundowners (1960), set in 1920s Australia, the Spanish-set Behold a Pale Horse (1964), Tudor drama A Man for All Seasons (1966) and the recent history of Day of the Jackal (1973).

Haffenden and Bridge were jointly nominated for British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) for The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) and Half a Sixpence (1967), and were awarded a BAFTA and Oscar for A Man for All Seasons (1966).

In subsequent decades Haffenden and Bridge designed costumes for notable films including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971).^[1]

Haffenden died in London on 29 May 1976, while she was prepping costumes for the film Julia.^[1]

Filmography

Costumes from Ben-Hur (1959)

Year	Title	Director	Notes
1936	The Last Waltz	Leo Mittler
1942	The Young Mr. Pitt	Carol Reed
1943	The Man in Grey	Leslie Arliss
	Dear Octopus	Harold French
1944	Fanny by Gaslight	Anthony Asquith
	Give Us the Moon	Val Guest
	Two Thousand Women	Frank Launder
	Love Story	Leslie Arliss
1945	Madonna of the Seven Moons	Arthur Crabtree
	A Place of One's Own	Bernard Knowles
	I'll Be Your Sweetheart	Val Guest
	The Wicked Lady	Leslie Arliss
1946	Caravan	Arthur Crabtree
	Bedelia	Lance Comfort
	The Magic Bow	Bernard Knowles
1947	The Man Within
	Jassy
	Uncle Silas	Charles Frank
1948	Call of the Blood	John Clements Ladislao Vajda
	The First Gentleman	Alberto Cavalcanti
1949	The Bad Lord Byron	David MacDonald
	Christopher Columbus
	The Spider and the Fly	Robert Hamer	Haffenden only designed costumes for Nadia Gray
1950	So Long at the Fair	Terence Fisher Antony Darnborough
	Portrait of Clare	Lance Comfort
1951	The Late Edwina Black	Maurice Elvey
1953	Laughing Anne	Herbert Wilcox
1954	Beau Brummell	Curtis Bernhardt
1955	The Dark Avenger	Henry Levin
	Footsteps in the Fog	Arthur Lubin	Haffenden only designed costumes for Stewart Granger
1956	Bhowani Junction	George Cukor
	Moby Dick	John Huston
1957	Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
1958	Davy	Michael Relph
	Carve Her Name with Pride	Lewis Gilbert	Haffenden only designed costumes for Virginia McKenna
	I Accuse!	José Ferrer
1959	Ben-Hur	William Wyler
1960	The Sundowners	Fred Zinnemann
1962	I Thank a Fool	Robert Stevens
1964	Behold a Pale Horse	Fred Zinnemann	with Joan Bridge
1965	The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders	Terence Young
	The Liquidator	Jack Cardiff
1966	A Man for All Seasons	Fred Zinnemann
1967	Half a Sixpence	George Sidney
1968	Chitty Chitty Bang Bang	Ken Hughes
1969	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Ronald Neame
1971	Fiddler on the Roof	Norman Jewison
1972	Pope Joan	Michael Anderson
1973	The Day of the Jackal	Fred Zinnemann
	The Homecoming	Peter Hall
1974	Luther	Guy Green
1975	Conduct Unbecoming	Michael Anderson

Awards and nominations

Award	Year	Category	Work	Result	Ref.
Academy Awards	1959	Best Costume Design – Color	Ben-Hur	Won	[4]
	1966		A Man for All Seasons	Won	[5]
British Academy Film Awards	1965	Best British Costume Design – Colour	The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders	Nominated	[6]
	1967		A Man for All Seasons	Won	[7]
			Half a Sixpence	Nominated