“Gangster Squad”

Jan. 18, 2013

Emma Stone sure knows how to make an audience fall in love with her. Dubbed “Hollywood’s Reigning Golden Girl” by W Magazine, the actress, who plays Grace Faraday in Warner Bros. post-WWII mob flick “Gangster Squad”, once again has everyone talking — straying from her girl next door image and turning the heat up in a red dress that has fans and critics abuzz.

Grace is a social etiquette teacher and lover to West-Coast mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), but she has eyes for Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), member of a secret LAPD unit on a heroic mission to take down Cohen and his gang, and take back control of Los Angeles.

Costume Designer Mary Zophres, who describes Stone as a “sultry 40s glamour puss” in the movie, designed the dress based on inspiration from Rita Hayworth, one of Hollywood’s original bombshells.

“Although Emma has a different build than Rita, I designed the dress so it would enhance Emma’s body and conjure that hourglass sexy silhouette,” Zophres says. “Emma also has great legs so I elongated the slit to show them off.”

The designer credits Don Hook, who heads up the Warner Bros. workroom, for building the dress precisely to her sketch specifications.

“Because I wanted it to drape with the curve of Emma’s body, I knew we had to use a crepe back satin base with a silk chiffon outer layer,” she says. “We sourced the perfect red shade from a downtown silk company that had both types of silk in the same perfect shade of red.”