Christmas Movie Dress Advent Calendar Day 14: Rosemary Clooney in WHITE CHRISTMAS

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Surprise! Yesterday, a mysteriously seductive yuletide lady! Today, a total Christmas curveball. There’s a reason we kicked off this calendar with what would have to be one of the most iconic Christmas movie dresses of all time. It’s because this is an Advent calendar, not a countdown or a rating. The point to an Advent calendar is to be pleasantly surprised when you open that door and we could already tell a bunch of people were guessing that this dress would be the final one on the list. Well it’s not, but that doesn’t do a thing to dim its fabulousness or to put a question mark on its claim to iconicity.

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Do we really have to explain or give context to this one? Really? Okay, fine. In director Michael Curtiz’s White Christmas, Rosemary Clooney plays Betty Haynes, part of a sister singing act, The Haynes Sisters. After the sisters meet up with showmen Wallace and Davis (and strike up potential respective romances with each of them), Betty mistakenly assumes the worst of Bob and runs away to New York, where she gets booked in the Carousel Club for an engagement. Bob pursues her and is treated to one of the best torch song gowns in cinematic history, courtesy of the legendary costume designer Edith Head.

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There’s no hidden meaning to divine with this one. It’s all right there. Betty’s costumes were serviceable up to this point, but this is on a whole other level. Rosemary Clooney was never really a glamour girl and her forays into films rarely ever treated her like one, but in this moment, she has to be something Bob wants but can’t have because of the story reasons keeping them apart. This dress transforms Betty from a potential girlfriend to a drop-dead siren.

Next up: A doomed holiday romance!

[Photo Credit: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures]

• Costumes
• Movie Advent Calendar
• Movie Costumes
• Paramount Pictures
• Rosemary Clooney
• White Christmas