Van Smith, who worked on all of John Waters‘ films for more than 30 years, is headed to the Costume Designers Guild‘s Edith Piaf Hall of Fame. Smith will be inducted posthumously by his longtime director at the CDG Awards ceremony on February 6 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.
Considered one of the “Dreamlanders,” Waters’ ensemble of regular cast and crew members, Smith first worked with the quirky filmmaker on Pink Flamingos (1972), including the famous and often copied look of the film’s star Divine. Their legacy includes the extreme outfits of the flamboyant criminals and hairdressers in Female Trouble (1974) and the grotesque Mortvillians in Desperate Living (1977) Smith to Polyester (1982) and Hairspray (1988) to more mainstream films such as Cry-Baby (1990) and Serial Mom (1994).
Pink Flamingos and Hairspray were inducted into the National Film Registry in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
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“Van Smith’s costumes are one of the main reasons my films’ popularity with the twisted public has lasted over the decades,” Waters said in a statement. “I called him my ‘ugly expert,’ but his celluloid creations ushered in a new kind of radical beauty. You can’t think of Divine without giving Van the ultimate credit — he created this fashion monster’s look that still is alarming audiences all over the world.”
Smith also worked with Waters on Pecker (1998), Cecil B. Demented (2000) and A Dirty Shame (2004). His other credits include multiple Season 1 episodes of NBC’s lauded crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street the 1990 feature On the Block. He died of a heart attack in 2006 at age 61.
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