Travilla Style: Fashion: Travilla 1962-63 Africa

Grandmother Estelle in 1910.

Travilla's love of travel can be traced back to his maternal grandmother, Estelle Ryan Snyder. Snyder was an early female travel journalist/author whose career took her and her family across North America, Europe, and Africa. A young Billy would accompany his grandmother to the church and auditorium exhibitions of her film Tragic Africa, which she used to raise funds for the missions in Kenya. He also accompanied her and his two aunts on cross-country excursions to the 1933 World's Fair and Niagara Falls, plus a trip to Hawaii and Tahiti.

Ginger Rogers bird-covered ball gown in Dreamboat.

Marilyn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Marilyn in The Seven Year Itch.

Ann Sheridan in Kind Sir.

The designer used animal prints like leopard, tiger, or zebra and patterns of birds, footprints, or tropical foliage throughout his film costumes almost from the beginning for Ginger Rogers, Marilyn Monroe, and others. Yet, he'd never set foot on African soil by this point. "My bookshelves have only two kinds of books on them," he told Maggie Savoy: "Adventures of the South Seas and everything on Africa from Osa Martin to Tarzan."

To appease his wanderlust, Travilla and Dona collected a menagerie of animals. One 1961 story told of a menagerie of pets that included 500 birds, a parrot, an ocelot, a German shepherd, a few alley cats, and a couple of poodles. When he returned from a fashion show tour with a Saint Bernard puppy, Dona put her foot down. "It's not that she doesn't like animals," Travilla explained, "but I took advantage of her earlier in our marriage."

"The best way to find inspiration for women's clothes is to go someplace where they don't wear any." Travilla's upcoming travel plans were announced in the December 4 issue of the Hollywood Reporter. "Travilla to Nairobi via SAS polar route. Athen, Paris, and Zurich are also on his itinerary. The Bills were photographed with the SAS logo, announcing their trip. Sarris' title was business manager, with both his and Travilla's family home address posted. Dona saw the duo off with, "You're just trading one jungle for another."

Travilla later wrote extensively about the adventure for Harper's Bazaar.

Staring in Athens, Greece, where the Sarris family sprang, the couple flew into Nairobi, Kenya's capital. The pair almost refused entry as customs needed clarification about the jewelry mounds and loose stones in their luggage. Travilla intended it to swap with the natives. "I gathered up all the junk jewelry leftover in our designing rooms; rhinestone bracelets, odd earrings, colored pearls, and discarded geegaws." "I had this junk in small sacks, which caused a delay at the customs. For a brief time, I was suspected as a jewelry smuggler. But it paid off when I doled it out in exchange for taking pictures. Most of the tribes, even in the remote villages are very hep about revenue of one kind and another."

Driving from the airport to the New Stanley Hotel, the designer found the city "reminiscent of our small midwestern towns." If middle America were populated with "a mixture of East India women in glittering saris, African natives, carrying their wares on their heads and the imperturbable British."

Early January monsoon rains had washed out the roads, necessitating a small plane rental. With the savings in time was a bonus enabling further travel. The Bills and their pilot left at the next morning's dawn to head southwest of Nairobi to Arusha Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and the Masai's home. Landing three hours after a pass by Mount Kilimanjaro, a forty-mile Land Rover trip brought them to a roadside market and four hundred men, women, and children of the Masia Tribe. Travilla desired to photograph the warriors, "the men are tall and wrapped in a sort of toga, marvelously draped. They wear their hair in an intricately braided style that takes months to achieve."

The men rejected the handfuls of "junk jewelry" as payment for posing. With insufficient money to pay all of them, the Bills returned to the truck, soon surrounded by the Masai. Travilla took this moment to try to steal a shot with his Polaroid. Hearing the mechanism when the photo ejected, "they all started screaming and shaking the car, and although the doors were locked, several tried to climb in."

Handing the undeveloped print to their interpreter, he told the boy to show the photo and say, "Magic." As the photograph developed before the warrior's eyes, their anger turned to amazement. They had seen cameras before but never instant film. Two warriors suddenly charged at the designer, spears held over their heads. He thought it was an attack until their guide explained they wanted their photo taken in that pose.

The following day, they left for Isiolo in northern Kenya after a refuel in Nairobi. Landing on a plateau in the mountains, the Bills find the village of Marsabit, inhabited by the Borans. "I met the most beautiful people. Their skin is a rich chocolate color, and their eyes, rimmed with long lashes, are almond-shaped and tilted slightly. Their teeth are perfect, and their effect is breathtaking. They wear traditional turbans and great burnooses of Ethiopian descent and Mohammedans, sometimes over rich brocades, and the women cover their faces.

Of all the people he saw, these were the ones Travilla desired to photograph the most. But a raised camera brought screams and turned backs as the Borans believed the camera took part of their soul in the photograph. The only image he managed to get was of the house servant and, for just a few, in one of many home movies.

Their next stop was a private lodge in the village of Loi Yangalani on Lake Rudolf, a fisherman's paradise. Travilla got his first glimpse of the Samburu. Several warriors and children had wandered in to see their new guests fishing.

After a hearty dinner, the Bills traversed by flashlight to the Samburu's village, just a couple of miles from their camp. They found the natives dancing by firelight, which intrigued Travilla, who took a flash photograph, causing one terrified warrior to rush in for an attack. It took two other men to wrestle him to the ground. "Good God, man," one of the lodge owners exclaimed to his guest, "you should have told me you were using a flash. They've never seen one before." Once the men realized how harmless they were, both Bills were invited into the dance circle, where they stayed until three in the morning.

Arrangements were made for the tribe to meet Travilla at nine the next morning wearing their full regalia so that he could photograph them in full sunlight. For their troubles, they would receive a bag of grain. "They are a handsome people, and their bizarre costumes are dramatically elegant.

They women, many of the quite beautiful with Egyptian rather than Negroid features and rich brown skin, shave their heads and pour over them a mixture of ochre and mutton fat which they also smear on their faces. Often, they further decorate their cheeks with patches of bright colors such as a triangle of poisonous green, dotted in orange. They wear enormous earrings and great collars of Indian beads, strung on wires that encase the neck, extending from the ching to the tops of the shoulders. Metal band adorn their arms and ankles, and they wrap their bodies in prints of cotton saris.

Their warriors also glitter with ochre and fat, but they wear only a toga knotted over one shoulder, a think necklace of beads, perhaps a single ivory armband, ivory plugs in the lower earlobes and through the upper part of the ears, which are also pierced, a tiny spear of goat rib." The warriors noticed the small colored plastic swords used for olives in martinis Travilla pulled from his cache; they gleefully "threw aside their bone spears and thrust the plastic through instead."

Traveling by plane to Wamba, he met up with 20^th Century Fox producer Sam Engel, who was interviewing dancers for a film. With his four cameras on his person, they figured Travilla for a crew member, allowing him to photograph many more Samburu and other various tribes. Before leaving the country, he returned to the village a few nights ago to see about acquiring a spear for his daughter Nia. Even after finding the same two warriors, he was unsuccessful in his quest. After he "took all the jewelry I had left and poured it into the hands of the few women bystanders," he was hustled onto the plane by Sarris and the duo departed for Nairobi en route to Athens.

While in Sparta, Travilla visited the city of Tripi, where he discovered expert weavers of hand-loomed cloth and a cache of antique belt buckles with silver and gold filigree and jewels. They then spent some time in Rome, then came Madrid and Marrakesh, before a week in Paris, where Travilla selected fabrics for his collections. "We have always used imported materials extensively. And by visiting some of the small mills in France, real treasures can be found."

1963 Africa Sketches (l-r) silk chiffon evening dress, sheathed in a veiling over-drape, a cocktail dress sleek as an elephant tusk in ivory wool and the swallow drape in black crepe.

Four sketches from Travilla Estate Archies.

An afternoon frock in cherry pink with an “arched godet” skirt.

l-r) The yellow print dress in a heavy burlap-type fabric featured a cutaway drape. The sequined Grecian gown was designed with a cowl-draped neckline that dips low in the back. A three-piece ensemble of a white jacket and skirt with a pale blue overblouse.

A white silk suit with an embroidered yellow cotton lace overblouse. The jacket is faced with matching yellow lace.

Short version of African-inspired Samburu-draped dress in banana silk linen. Swallow drape of a scarf tied high over a shoulder, lifting the drapery in a swallow-tail manner.) It also comes in silk dupioni, the color of a glass of Galliano.