Most Oscars for Best Costume Design

The designer who has won the most Academy Awards for Best Costume Design is Edith Head (USA), who won a total of eight statuettes between 1949 and 1973.

Edith Head was hired as a sketch artist in the wardrobe department at Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount Pictures) in 1924, and went on to work on more than 500 films during a career that spanned six decades. She apprenticed under noted costume designer Travis Banton, whose bias-cut, form-fitting dresses defined the look of Paramount’s 1930s musicals, before taking over as head of the studio’s wardrobe department in 1938.

Over the course of her long career, Head earned 35 Oscar nominations, worked on 432 films and designed for almost every leading actress of her time – including style icons such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor.