BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – The Rodeo Drive Committee and the City of Beverly Hills have announced that they will induct legendary costume and production designer Catherine Martin into the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style® on February 28, 2014 in Beverly Hills.

Martin will be the twenty-first recipient of the coveted award and the first Australian to receive the prestigious prize. She will also be recognized with her signature permanently embedded into the sidewalk of the famous street. The on-going award, inaugurated in 2003, honors style legends for their contributions to the worlds of fashion and entertainment. Martin joins such honorees as Giorgio Armani, Tom Ford, Gianni and Donatella Versace, photographer Mario Testino, costume designer Edith Head, and editor Diana Vreeland – to name a few.

“We are delighted to honor Catherine Martin with the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style® Award during our Centennial year,” says Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch. “As we look back on our own glamorous past, celebrating her re-creations of 1920s design while working with three of Rodeo Drive’s key luxury brands is particularly gratifying.”

Set in the 1920s, Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Martin collaborated with Miuccia Prada to design dresses for the big party scenes and researched the archives of Tiffany & Co. and Brooks Brothers to create ultra-luxe jewelry and menswear from the era. Her work in costume design and art direction for “The Great Gatsby” has been much heralded by press and critics around the globe and has garnered two 2014 Academy Award® nominations for Best Costume Design and Production Design. She has also collaborated with many of Hollywood’s brightest stars in her films including Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicole Kidman, Ewan MacGregor, Carey Mulligan, Claire Danes, Hugh Jackman, Tobey Maguire and Beyoncé.

“It is impossible to think of anyone in 2013 who brought together the worlds of luxury fashion and film in the way Catherine Martin did with her costume and production designs for “The Great Gatsby,” says Peri Elle Berne, Chairman of the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style®. “She created something totally new and refreshing working so closely with such amazing ultra-luxe brands yet being true to the period.”

Martin won Academy Awards® for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction – Set Decoration for “Moulin Rouge” in 2001. She was nominated for Best Achievement in Costume Design for “Australia” in 2008 and Best Art Direction – Set Decoration for “Romeo+Juliet” in 1996. Martin won Broadway’s 2003 Tony Award as Best Scenic Designer for “La Boheme. ”

An outdoor exhibition of Martin’s sketches for “The Great Gatsby” will be on view on Rodeo Drive from February 17 to March 2.

Past honorees of the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style® include Bulgari, Diana Vreeland, Missoni, Iman, Fred Hayman, Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco, Cartier, Valentino Garavani, Manolo Blahnik, James Galanos, Gianni and Donatella Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo, Edith Head, James Acheson, Milena Canonero, Herb Ritts, Mario Testino and Tom Ford. Giorgio Armani was the first recipient in 2003. Honorees are selected by an independent committee comprised of media, celebrities, past honorees and academics in the worlds of fashion and entertainment.

The induction ceremony and award will be presented at historic Greystone Mansion. Built in 1927 by oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny and perched in the storied and scenic hills of one of the most elegant neighborhoods in America, Greystone Estate is now a city park and recognized as a historic landmark in the national registry of Historic Places. At the time it was built, the 55-room, 46,000 square-foot Tudor-style former residence, cost over $3 million and was the most expensive home built in California up to that time. Long an iconic site for motion picture and television, Greystone has been featured in such films as “There Will be Blood,” “The Witches of Eastwick,” “The Bodyguard” and “The Social Network.”

Martin is currently in production on Baz Luhrmann’s “Strictly Ballroom The Musical,” set to have its Global Premiere at the Sydney Lyric in March 2014. It is the inspiring story of a championship ballroom dancer who defies all the rules to follow his heart. This uplifting and courageous tale originated as a stage play that Baz Luhrmann devised with a group of students at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) back in 1984 and became the subject of his first film of the same name that went on to garner the Prix de Jeunnesse at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992.

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