Kitty Foyle

Kitty Foyle may refer to:

Literature

Entertainment

Other

Kitty Foyle (film)

Kitty Foyle, subtitled The Natural History of a Woman, is a 1940 film starring Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan and James Craig, which is based on Christopher Morley's 1939 bestseller also titled Kitty Foyle. Ginger Rogers won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Kitty Foyle, and the dress she wore in the film became a new dress style, known as a Kitty Foyle dress.

Plot

Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers), a saleswoman in a New York boutique working for Delphine Detaille (Odette Myrtil), faces a life-changing decision: marry doctor Mark Eisen (James Craig) or run away to South America with the man she has loved for many years, the already-married Wyn Strafford (Dennis Morgan). As she wrestles with her decision, the film flashes back to her youth in Philadelphia.

As a teenager, Kitty gawks at the city's elite "Main Liners" in a parade that precedes their annual Assembly Ball. Her father (Ernest Cossart) warns against getting carried away with her fantasies. Ironically, Kitty meets the embodiment of her dreams in an acquaintance of his: Wynnewood Strafford VI. Wyn offers her a secretarial job at his fledgling magazine. The two fall deeply in love, but when the magazine folds, he does not have the will to defy his social class's strictures by proposing to a woman so far below him socially.

Kitty Foyle (dress)

A Kitty Foyle is a dress style of the 1940s characterized by a dark fabric and contrasting light collar and cuffs, typically of navy blue and white. The shape of the dress is a shirtwaist with short or elbow-length sleeves. The buttons of the shirtwaist are in the same contrast colour used for the collar.

It is named after a dress worn by Ginger Rogers' character in the 1940 film of the same name, designed by Renié. The style has been explained as being deliberately intended for films, the large amount of white around the face reflecting the key light onto the face, giving a well-defined and flattering profile. As a modest and practical style that was easily copied at home, or could even be used to update an old shirtwaist dress to a new fashion by applying a new collar, it became popular during the wartime austerity period.

The style has returned to fashion at times since. The designer Jill Richards, herself a Hollywood actress of around the same era, favoured it in her collections of the 1970s, attracting a clientele of names such as Nancy Reagan.