Notes

One: French Rules

  1. Didier Grumbach, Paris interview in his office, 2012.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Hubert de Givenchy, Paris e-mail interview, 2013.

  5. Grumbach, 2012.

  6. Givenchy, 2013.

  7. “Babe Paley,” Vogue.com, www.vogue.com/voguepedia/Babe_Paley.

  8. Marylou Luther, New York interview in her home, 2012.

  9. Lynn Wyatt, Houston telephone interview, 2013.

10. Timothy Long, London telephone interview, 2013.

11. Jonathan Reynolds, “Gowns or Butter?” New York Times, April 20, 2003.

12. Givenchy, 2013.

13. Christopher Petkanas, “The Hostess with the Mostest,” New York Times, November 9, 2008.

14. Enid Nemy, “Marie-Helene de Rothschild, 65, Worldly Hostess Extraordinaire,” New York Times, March 7, 1996.

15. Deeda Blair, New York interview in her home, 2013.

16. Dreda Mele, Paris interview in her home, 2012.

Two: Copycats and Salami

  1. Marc Levin, director, Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags, 2009.

  2. Into the 1960s, the garment unions continued to wield great clout. During John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, Jacqueline Kennedy was pressured to break her expensive French fashion habit in order to satisfy the union bosses. The new first lady turned to fashion editor Diana Vreeland for counsel and Oleg Cassini for clothes, not because he excelled at design, but because he excelled at “being inspired” by French couture. He could re-create the French fashions for which Mrs. Kennedy longed, and she could still “buy American.”

  3. Madelyn Shaw, “Hattie Carnegie,” Contemporary Fashion (Detroit: St. James Press, 1995), p. 85.

  4. Margaret Case Harriman, “Very Terrific, Very Divine,” The New Yorker, Oct. 19, 1940.

  5. John Tiffany, Eleanor Lambert: Still Here (New York: Pointed Leaf Press, 2011), p. 20.

  6. Louis Dell’Olio, New York telephone interview, 2013.

  7. Ibid.

  8. Luther, 2012.

  9. Tiffany, Eleanor Lambert, p. 19.

10. Joan Kaner, Florida telephone interview, 2013.

11. Pierre Bergé, New York interview at the Pierre Hotel, 2013.

12. Alexandra Palmer, Couture & Commerce (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001), p. 77.

13. Bergé, 2013.

14. Ibid.

15. Timothy Long, London telephone interview, 2013.

16. Ibid.

17. Nina S. Hyde, “Paris ‘Originals’ at Ohrbach’s: Fashions by ‘Monsieur X’ a Hit with Kennedy Women,” Washington Post, September 26, 1972.

18. Nina S. Hyde, “Paris ‘Originals’ at Ohrbach’s.”

19. Long, 2013.

20. Oscar de la Renta, New York interview in his Seventh Avenue studio, 2011.

21. Stan Herman, New York telephone interview, 2012. Herman began his career in 1961 at a business typical of the time, Mr. Mort, a successful ladies’ apparel brand, founded by Mortimer Goldman. It was known for its pleasant midmarket frocks until Herman, a small-framed, dapper man, was hired as a backroom designer. He had been attempting to make a go of a career in show business, but he wasn’t making much headway. With an eye for translating the rhythms of contemporary life into jersey dresses, Herman clawed his way up the workroom ladder until the label finally read MR. MORT BY STAN HERMAN. It was the beginning of a lucrative but quiet career. “I bit the edges off fashion,” Herman says.

Three: Four Gentlemen and a Powerhouse

  1. Tiffany, Eleanor Lambert, p. 53.

  2. Tiffany, Eleanor Lambert, p. 30.

  3. Herman, 2012.

  4. Luther, 2012.

  5. “The President: February 1968. MP893,” YouTube video, LBJ Library.

  6. Eugenia Sheppard, “Style Show to Make History,” Deseret News, Feb. 28, 1968.

  7. “The President: February 1968.”

  8. Barbara Cloud, “The First and Last White House Fashion Show,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 26, 2006.

  9. De la Renta, 2011.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Angela Taylor, “Coty’s Winnie Given to Oscar,” New York Times, June 30, 1967.

13. No author, “Francoise de la Renta,” Women’s Wear Daily, June 20, 1983.

14. No author, “Heart of Blass,” Women’s Wear Daily, June 24, 1982.

15. Ibid.

16. Bill Blass interviewed by Charles Gandee, “1950s,” Vogue, April 26, 1999.

17. “Heart of Blass.”

18. Bill Blass interviewed by Charles Gandee, April 26, 1999.

19. Enid Nemy, “A Decade Ago, Bill Blass Wouldn’t Admit He Was a Designer,” New York Times, April 1, 1970.

20. Elaine Gross & Fred Rottman, Halston: An American Original (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), pp. 7–8.

21. No author, “The Halston Looks,” New York Times Magazine, February 11, 1973.

22. Lisa Belkin, New York Times Magazine, March 15, 1987.

23. Bill Blass, Bare Blass (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 20.

24. Luther, 2012.

25. Ibid.

26. Dell’Olio, 2013.

27. Frances Patiky Stein, Paris telephone interview, 2012.

28. National Institutes of Health, “Cancer,” October 2010, http://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/viewfactsheet.aspx?csid=73.

29. Tomio Taki, New York interview at Parsons The New School for Design, 2013.

30. Stephen Burrows, New York interview in his studio, 2011.

31. Ibid.

32. Vy Higginsen, transcript of interview with John Robert Miller, 1999.

33. Burrows, 2011.

34. Ibid.

35. Diane von Furstenberg, New York interview in her showroom, 2013.

36. De la Renta, 2011.

37. Ellin Saltzman, Florida telephone interview, 2013.

Four: Cities in Flames

  1. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, p. 1.

  2. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, p. 7.

  3. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, p. 133.

  4. Report on the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, p. 386.

  5. In the contemporary fashion industry, the low number of black designers is a regular cause for despair among those who track and attempt to encourage diversity. Educators note that the paucity begins with the fact that black students are underrepresented in design school. African Americans make up 13–14 percent of college students in general, but in 2010 they comprised only 4.7 percent of fashion design students, according to Joel Towers, dean of Parsons The New School for Design. Striving black designers lament the difficulty in attracting financial backing from banks, venture capitalists, or angel investors. And most are unable to rely on family wealth or community connections, as white and Asian designers often do. And the few established black designers have watched with dismay as Seventh Avenue is more enthusiastic in its embrace of black musicians and athletes who use fashion for branding purposes than it is of those folks who have devoted their professional lives to the métier.

  6. Margaret Crimmins, “Designed with Soul,” Washington Post, May 21, 1969.

  7. Judy Klemesrud, “Bergdorf’s Gives Boost to Fashion by Blacks,” New York Times, May 21, 1969.

  8. John Lichfield, “Egalite! Liberte! Sexualite!: Paris, May 1968,” The Independent, Feb. 23, 2008.

  9. Pamela Golbin, Paris interview at the Musée des Arts Décoratif, 2012.

10. Robin Givhan, “Fashion Great Saint Laurent Hangs Up Hat,” Washington Post, June 9, 1998.

11. Lizzy Duffy, “Parisian Women Now (Officially) Allowed to Wear Pants,” NPR.com, February 4, 2013.

12. Joseph Carroll, “Police Move on Student Barricades,” The Guardian, May 25, 1968.

13. Joseph Carroll, “Paris Students in Savage Battles,” The Guardian, May 7, 1968.

14. Givenchy, 2013.

15. Lichfield, “Egalite! Liberte! Sexualite!”