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Miss 1966: Dobbie Coleman and Marc Bohan for Dior
In 2016, we received a phone call from a not-for-profit foundation with an offer almost too good to be true. They were looking to fund the donation of a set of sketches from the house of Christian Dior to a deserving institution; ‘might FIT Special Collections be willing to accept them gratis with no strings…
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The Tissue of Dreams: Paper Patterns in the Tailoring Trade
In the opening chapter of her book A History of the Paper Pattern Industry: The Home Dressmaking Fashion Revolution, curator and scholar Joy Spanabel Emery cites the October 1916 issue of Designer magazine: “There is nothing so cheap & yet so valuable; so common & yet so little realized; so unappreciated & yet so beneficial…
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Shoes to ‘Chutes: The Wartime Story of I. Miller & Sons
On January 12, 1945, the Grand Ballroom of the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City was packed full as a thousand pair of curious eyes looked on as shoe industry executive George Miller and Lieut. Col. Harold L. Lister of the US Army posed awkwardly for a photo op. The snapshot was forever immortalized…
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Emergency Mode: The Wartime Hats of Sally Victor
Promptly at 3pm on December 18, 1941, members of the American fashion press gathered at the legendary Rainbow Room in New York City and patiently awaited their introduction to emergency mode. A fundraiser to benefit the British Ambulance Corps, the event showcased the latest wartime fashions issued to accommodate, “the prospective new way of life…
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Egyptian Elegance: Youssef Rizkallah
One of the great pleasures of working with our collection is rediscovering the myriad of designers represented who—while well-known during their own time—have now faded into annals of history. The name Youssef Rizkallah will ring a bell with few, yet FIT Library Special Collections houses a formidable collection of both…
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In memoriam: Hubert de Givenchy
Hubert Taffin de Givenchy, 1927 – 2018 Born in Beauvais, France in 1927, the creative talents of Hubert de Givenchy were perhaps not unexpected. He descended from a long line of creative minds; his father was an architect and both of his grandfathers worked as designers in the renowned tapestry factories at Gobelins and Beauvais. …
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Fancy Dress à Paris!
While reorganizing a selection of miscellaneous engravings recently, we came across a set of plates depicting wonderfully whimsical fancy dress ensembles. The adoption of masks or other elements of disguise for festivals and celebrations is believed to date back to 1710 in London, when theaters and public gardens threw lavish fetes where anonymity reigned, open…
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Hot New Accession: La Femme dans la Décoration Moderne
Created in 1902, Julius Klinger’s book of design and ornament, La Femme dans la Décoration Moderne, is a graphic celebration of the feminine. The 30 pages of motifs contained within—which all feature women—were intended to be sources of inspiration for practitioners of the industrial arts: decorative painters and ceramicists as well as designers of jewelry, posters, rugs,…
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Couture Copies in America: A Case-Study
Over the last few years, Material Mode has frequently referenced the symbiotic relationship between Parisian couture and American fashion during the first half of the 20th century. US-based ready-to-wear manufacturers looked to Paris to set the mode, which they subsequently mimicked, with riffs and revisions. Inversely, the American dollar was a critical source of…
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Eleanor Lambert: The Empress of 7th Avenue
One of the most seminal figures in the history of American fashion was not, in fact, a designer at all. For more than seven decades, Eleanor Lambert (1903-2003) was American fashion’s greatest champion and advocate, pulling the strings behind the industry’s biggest names and organizations. Born in 1903 in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Lambert was raised by…