Edith Head (born Oct. 28, 1897,San Bernardino, Calif., U.S.—died Oct. 24, 1981, Hollywood, Calif.) was an American motion-picture costume designer.

Head was the daughter of a mining engineer, and she grew up in various towns and camps in Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. Sheattended theUniversity of California (B.A.) andStanford University (M.A.). After a time as a schoolteacher and some additional study inLos Angeles at the Otis Institute and the Chouinard Art School, she was hired (1923) by the head designer at Paramount Studios. For several years she worked her way up from sketcher to costume designer by way of apprentice assignments and such minor but memorable accomplishments as designing actressDorothy Lamour’s firstsarong (The Jungle Princess, 1936).

In 1938 Head became chief designer at Paramount, in charge of a costume department with a staff of hundreds. She was the first woman to head a design department at a major studio. From then on, at Paramount and later atUniversal Studios, she became America’s best-known and most successful Hollywood designer. She was noted for the range of her costume designs, from elegant simplicity to intricate flamboyance, and she also gained a reputation for being able toplacate temperamental actors and directors.

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Head was nominated for an unprecedented 34 Academy Awards, winning a record 8 of them for her work inThe Heiress (1949),Samson and Delilah (1949),All About Eve (1950),A Place in the Sun (1951),RomanHoliday (1953),Sabrina (1954),The Facts of Life (1960), andThe Sting (1973). She was the author of an autobiography,The Dress Doctor (1959), and a self-help book,How to Dress for Success (1967), and appeared as herself on-screen inThe Oscar (1966).