On October 26, 2025, Vogue World: Hollywood will celebrate the rich conversation between film and fashion, centering on the most inspiring characters in cinema history. The fashion and film tribute will take place on the Paramount Pictures Studios lot in sunny Hollywood—one of the oldest film studios in the world and the last still headquartered in the famed Los Angeles district. In the lead-up, we’ve been poring over all the glamorous lore that surrounds Paramount Studios, from its early-20th-century origin story to the cast of legendary characters who graced both its lot and its films.
The story of Paramount Studios begins, as many good stories do, with an underdog. Adolph Zukor was born in Hungary in 1873 and lost both of his parents by the age of seven. Nearly a decade later, he arrived in New York to chase his dreams. He began with a $2-a-week job sweeping floors at a fur store and studied English and business in the evenings, eventually investing in nickelodeon theaters. After securing the U.S. rights to the French-produced Queen Elizabeth—one of the first feature-length films shown in America—Zukor founded the Famous Players Film Company in 1912. He began distributing his films through a newly formed distribution company called Paramount Pictures. Around the same time, the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company (which counted Cecil B. DeMille among its founders) was also producing films in Hollywood. In 1916, Zukor orchestrated the merger of Famous Players and Lasky’s company, and together they took over Paramount Pictures. This unified entity eventually evolved into what we now know as Paramount Pictures.
In 1926, they broke ground on a new Hollywood studio that would bear the Paramount name. It cost $1 million to build and stood on a 26-acre lot that had four large soundstages. It also featured the Bronson Gate with a Spanish Renaissance belfry on top, crafting a striking entrance to the studio. A year later, Paramount won its first Academy Award for best picture for Wings.
The following few decades were a golden age for Paramount. Actors were contracted and traded by various studios, and it was throughout this period that legends such as Bing Crosby and Mae West came to prominence, and when films like Sunset Boulevard were gracing the silver screen. And the fashion! The first credited costume designer for Paramount was Clare West, and the studio’s wardrobe department—as one might guess—was a vital player in a film’s success. Many of the most lavish and extravagant costumes were seen in DeMille’s films, like the memorable feathered headdress worn by Gloria Swanson in Male and Female (1919) that was designed by Mitchell Leisen. The Paramount Archive for costumes and props contains tens of thousands of pieces that date as far back as 1914.
The 1960s and ’70s were marked by television’s rapid rise. Signaling a major turning point for the company, Paramount acquired Desilu television studios from Lucille Ball in 1967, and would also go on to produce hits like Happy Days, The Brady Bunch, and Laverne Shirley. But films weren’t falling behind. It’s during this era that Hitchcock’s Psycho was released through Paramount, as well as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Godfather trilogy.
It was also around this time that the studio began to loosen its grip on production occurring solely on the studio lot. As budgets grew and technical constraints eased, on-location shooting became much more commonplace. (Just look to The Godfather as proof, which famously shot in New York and Sicily.) That said, Paramount Studios now stretches across 65 acres and has 30 soundstages, with buildings in a range of architectural styles from Mediterranean Revival to Streamline Moderne. There’s even a five-acre back lot that serves as a stand-in for New York City, and an over-900,000-gallon water tank for films that require aquatic scenes.
Now, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, Paramount continues to celebrate its legacy as one of the most important characters in cinema history. From the early days of Marlene Dietrich and Mae West, all the way to Vogue World’s upcoming fashion-filled tribute, this prolific Hollywood studio lot continues to set the perfect scene.
