Vogue July 1, 1939
British Vogue had its editorial eye on Miss Leigh, even before Hollywood discovered her. At the left are photographs from British Vogue, 1935-1936.
Vivien Leigh, sulky, cool, with a flaunting face, stopped the nervous filming of Gone with the Wind, which has aready sent two directors out with a breakdown, to pose for Vogue in the entrancing corset cover of Scarlett O’Hara. As far back as 1935, however, Miss Leigh posed for British Vogue, exhibiting then, in a variety of fashion pages, her delicious beauty, her dark red hair, her green eyes slanting upwards. In those days when she was on the British stage, in British films, her clothes ran to queer colors, to barbaric jewelery, to leopard skin, and movie writers immediately called her exotic.
Now that is changed. Instead, she wears slacks to work, rarely goes to parties, and has switched her English accent to Southern, with the help of two coaches, one from Georgia, one from Mississippi. Hers is the most publicized part in the most publicized production in years. Hers is the difficult job of materializing the composite of hot willfulness, courage, and freezing selfishness that is the O’Hara, the heroine of the country.
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From VOGUE UK, 1936
Vivien Leigh–little gypsy. If you want a label for her type, call it exotic. She is slim and luminous. And she can get away with her type of clothes–which runs to heavy, almost barbaric jewelery, leopard skin, and queer colors. In her chartreuse green Stiebel evening dress with topaz jewelery, she is like a Persian gazelle in the dark studio forest of chains and planks.
“I always like to have my clothes just like me,” she says. “I never buy any model, but I have it sized and discuss it with the designer. I don’t like suits so much as dresses an coats, because I’m little, but I like rather plain quiet tweeds for the country, with very bright blouses and sweaters.”