Donald Brooks (1928-2005). Coat, ca. 1966-1967. Museum of the City of New York, 98.62.1.

The Museum’s Costumes and Textiles Department recently completed a thorough assessment of all 1960s garments in the collection, identifying those pieces that exhibit design and craftsmanship of the highest quality, add significant insight into the interpretive stylistic trends of New York City fashion, and are the finest examples of the type of costume. These garments, worn by notable women and created by legendary designers, vividly bring to life an intriguing  era and include afternoon dresses, evening gowns, miniskirts, coats, and jackets. Women’s fashions of the 60s underwent radical transformations, in fabric, form, and fabrication, reflecting the great societal changes of the time, including the emergence of a youthful counterculture and the women’s liberation movement.

Attributed to Norman Norell (1900-1972). Sailor Dress, 1968. Museum of the City of New York, 84.14.16AB.

The Museum has submitted a proposal to digitally photograph approximately 146 dresses from this decade in order to share them publicly on the Collections Portal, and is now a finalist the Heritage Trust project, a social media contest sponsored by EMC Corporation – please vote for us here! New York City has long been recognized as an international fashion capital and access to this collection will provide a window into styles and trends that proliferated throughout the nation. Phyllis Magidson, Curator of Costumes and Textiles, recently  shared accounts and observations of the dresses featured in this post, which represent just a small sampling of the highlights proposed for inclusion in this project.

Norman Norell’s designs were dualistic in personality, a fusion of wholesome American fashion metaphors and worldly sophistication. Recipient of the first American Fashion Critic’s Award (commonly remembered as the Coty) in 1943, Norell was instrumental in elevating the stature and credibility of American design during World War II.

Norman Norell (1900-1972). Evening dress, “Tissue of Diamonds,” 1963. Museum of the City of New York, 86.154.1

At a time when the couture houses in Paris were shut down by the war, Norell’s basic designs were customized to the American taste, honoring its preference for clothing to wear rather than pose in. Norell resuscitated the sheathe, a 1920s fashion mainstay, as his preferred fabric-conserving solution to the government’s  restrictions on fabric yardage. The style remained popular, and two decades later he designed his one-of-a-kind “Tissue-of Diamonds” sheathe for his favorite on-stage and off client, Lauren Bacall, to glorify the wearer’s body in the manner of his signature “mermaid” dresses. Epitomizing his American clientele, Norell felt that Bacall “has that throwaway thing about clothes…she puts on a dress and forgets it. She’s not precious about fashion.” The feeling was mutual: Miss Bacall loved wearing Norells because she felt comfortable in them, and was particularly fond of “those famous spangled dresses.”

Halston (1932-1990), for Bergdorf-Goodman. Evening dress and mask, 1966. Museum of the City of New York, 67.24AB.

Yet another dress in the collection with celebrity provenance is this Halston evening gown worn by Candice Bergen to Truman Capote’s storied 1966 “Black and White Ball” at the Plaza Hotel. Twenty year old Candice Bergen had only recently made her film debut in “The Group” when she found herself amongst the 540 guests invited to attend author Truman Capote’s “Party of the Century.” This dress was a gift from Bergdorf-Goodman, a dress exclusive for their Boutique On the Second Floor.

Emilio Pucci (1914-1992), for Saks Fifth Avenue. Evening costume, mid 1960s. Museum of the City of New York, 95.148.3.

Laura Johnson, a significant donor to the Museum’s Costumes and Textiles Collection and wife of Saks Fifth Avenue Chairman of the Board and CEO (1969-1978) Allan Raymond Johnson, orchestrated the selection of her wardrobe to reflect the array of labels available on the store’s sales floors.

Geoffrey Beene (1927-2004). Dress, late 1960s. Museum of the City of New York, 88.44.3.

Although she dressed heavily from the collections of such iconic New York designers of Geoffrey Beene, James Galanos, Ben Zuckerman, Donald Brooks and Pauline Trigere, she added international intrigue by interjecting such labels as Andre Courreges and Emilio Pucci. Johnson once addressed the boggling quantity of her acquisitions by stating that in his position, Mr. Johnson did not permit her to wear a garment after she had been photographed in it. Judging by the front row perch she occupied at the city’s most notable fashion shows, it is clear that she was quite successful in commanding the photographer’s lens.

Geoffrey Beene (1924-2004). Evening ensemble, “American Beauty Rose,” 1967. Museum of the City of New York, 67.131AB.

Johnson’s dress above, a design of Geoffrey Beene, represents another notable designer of the period. One of the inaugural group of eight designers immortalized on Seventh Avenue’s Fashion Walk of Fame in 2000, Geoffrey Beene directed his technical skills as well as creative prowess to the production of clothing that worked for the needs of the American woman. Acclaimed for his versatile, highly functional designs, Beene sought to create a lighter, more modern breed of garment.

He is cited as “a designer’s designer…one of the most artistic and individual of fashion’s creators” on Seventh Avenue’s Fashion Walk of Fame. Geoffrey Beene’s designs blurred the distinction between comfort and luxury, naivety and sophistication. Although soft-spoken in manner, Mr. Beene’s unfaltering command of his art is clearly evidenced here by the strong design and startling palette of this ensemble.

Pierre Cardin (b. 1922). Coat and skirt ensemble, ca. 1969. Museum of the City of New York, 78.26.12AB.

Despite a new found confidence in the creative prowess of New York’s 7th Avenue, Americans of the 1960s were still entranced by Paris fashions, specifically the designs of Pierre Cardin and Christian Dior. The impact of the space-age and its sci-fi aesthetic is obvious in the design and fabrication of this mini-ensemble by Pierre Cardin to the left. Not only is its geometric cut and shape consistent with the reductive aesthetic the day but the high-gloss red vinyl used for its execution is quintessentially 1960s.  Already recognized for his superb tailoring, Pierre Cardin succumbed to the experimentalism of the youth culture, responding with this cutting edge (and water repellent) vinyl tour-de-force .

Marc Bohan (b. 1926) for Christian Dior. Evening dress, 1968. Museum of the City of New York, 79.71.

The Dior dress to the right belonged to Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, one half of arguably the most highly publicized romance of the 20^th century, in which the King of England surrendered his throne in order to marry his beloved. A fixture on International Best Dressed lists throughout the 1940s and 50s, and  periodically criticized for her extravagant shopping sprees – particularly during the Second World War – women worldwide emulated the Duchess’s polished style. As Dior’s Creative Director, Marc Bohan resisted new fashion trends of the late 1960s to create this regal timeless gown, befitting the composure of his Best-Dressed Hall of Fame client.

Marc Bohan (b. 1926) for Christian Dior. Mini dress, 1968. Museum of the City of New York, 71.79.3.

Bohan designed this dress to the left for Sunny von Bulow, another half of an infamous couple.  Nicknamed for her childhood disposition, heiress and socialite Sunny was tragically associated with one of the most notorious trials of the 1980s—that of her husband, Claus von Bulow, who was convicted but later acquitted of her attempted murder. The story of adultery, wealth, and  murder in high society dominated the headlines, and the case was the first criminal trial to be televised in the United States. This dress harkens back to brighter moments following Sunny’s 1966 marriage, when she and von Bulow were considered amongst this country’s most socially glamorous couples. Dior’s Marc Bohan selected a confectionery palette appropriate to Mrs. Von Bulow’s pale coloring for this billowy-sleeved mini dress.

These garments represent just a handful of items that will be digitized a result of a successful Heritage Trust award.  If you like the designs you see here, please help the Museum move forward with this project by voting here.  The photography generated by this project will be of the same detail and quality as that produced for the online exhibition – Worth/ Mainbocher: Demystifying the Haute Couture.  Stay tuned to our Facebook page, for more highlights from this collection.

Theatre is a space that grants opportunity for collaboration, inviting artists of different medias to join together to create something much larger than themselves. It is an opportunity to take an any idea–a fantasy, an historical moment, or a work of literature–and breathe life into it on a new scale. Costume design is integral to this transcendence. Whether glamorous or realistic, the craftsmanship and vision that goes into each garment transports the body of the actor into an alternate realm. The Art Deco movement exemplifies the crossover of the traditional role of the artist. Practitioners were not relegated to one medium: they designed sets and costumes, wrote scripts, and at times acted in the same production. We highlighted fashion in last week’s post – Mod Women: New York Fashion of the 1960s (if you haven’t yet voted for our project to digitize this collection, please do so here!); this week we will look at theater costumes.  At the Museum of the City of New York, we are fortunate enough to have many rare documents related to productions with costumes of spectacular artistry. Please enjoy the following selection:

White Studio. ["Broadway Nights" theater still.] 1929. Museum of the City of New York. 68.80.11730

Vandamm. [Katharine Cornell as Ellen Olenska in "The Age of Innocence".] 1928. Museum of the City of New York. 68.80.7649

White Studios. [Beth Dodge, A Night in Venice.] 1929. Museum of the City of New York. F2013.41.3724

Carl Van Vechten. Anna May Wong. 1937. Museum of the City of New York. 42.316.426

The above image depicts screen goddess Anna Mae Wong in costume (designer unknown) as the princess Turandot, in the dramatic adaptation of Puccini’s Opera Turandot, Princess of China: A Chinoiserie in Three Acts.

Bertram Park. [Diana, Viscountess Norwich (Lady Diana Cooper) as the Madonna in 'The Miracle'.] 1924. Museum of the City of New York. 47.86.118

['The Miracle'.] 1924. Museum of the City of New York. 51.116.137

[Tilly Losch in "The Band Wagon".] 1931-1932. Museum of the City of New York. 62.97.403

Vandamm. [Fred and Adele Astaire in "The Band Wagon".] 1931-1932. Museum of the City of New York. 68.80.19

Nickolas Muray. [Dorothy Arnold as the Duchesse in the ballet 'Nighingale and the Rose', Greenwich Village Follies.] 1922. Museum of the City of New York. 82.102.1

[Mae West as Catherine II in "Catherine Was Great".] 1944. Museum of the City of New York. F2013.41.1519

White Studio. [Eva Le Gallienne in the title role of "L'Aiglon".] 1934. Museum of the City of New York. 68.80.5967

Ira D. Schwarz [Ruth Page (left) in the Music Box Revue.] 1922. Museum of the City of New York. F2013.41.3768

[Jane Cowl as Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra".] 1924. Museum of the City of New York. 27.75.1

[Jane Cowl as Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra".] 1924. Museum of the City of New York. 52.248.20

If you enjoyed these fashion images, check out last week’s post  Mod Women: New York Fashion of the 1960s, and don’t forget to vote for MCNY’s project here! As always, we are grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services for their generous support of the City Museum’s project to digitize our Broadway production photographs, without which these fabulous images would have remained hidden.

The City Museum’s Costume Collection offers a unique lens not just on New York’s history and aesthetics, but its personalities, too. Our most fascinating acquisitions come from those who’ve lived in the city’s spotlight. And from my perspective, the most memorable figures share in one trait: they were beyond passionate about their clothing.

Occasionally, we can trace a garment back to its owner just through looking at the line, color, finishing techniques, plus the unmistakable evidence of scale and proportion. A seasoned curatorial sleuth can assimilate this physical evidence and write the script as to how a garment fit into the life of its suspected wearer.

Elsie Whelen’s lavishly embroidered 1906 white cotton mull dress

Recently, my colleagues and I solved an ongoing quest to identify the elusive “Elsie,” whose trove of breathtaking trousseau lingerie resided without attribution for decades within collection storage. (There are at least three Elsies whose fashions we know from our Gilded Age collections.) The puzzle pieces came together as we fitted a lavish 1906 white cotton mull dress on a period-silhouetted mannequin.

Physical clues led us to Elsie Whelen (1880-1959), daughter of Philadelphia banker Henry Whelen, who was described in the New York Times as being “…six feet tall and of marked beauty of face and person…” A popular debutante, Elsie walked down the aisle with Harvard graduate and future financier Robert Walton Goelet on June 14, 1904. She wore a bridal gown of lace over white chiffon and taffeta silk, its long train trimmed with swansdown. From examining her ravishing portrait in the 1904 “American Book of Beauty,” one can see she was the consummate Gilded Age trophy wife.

Elsie Whelen Goelet Clews (1880–1959)

As Mrs. Goelet, Elsie traveled to Japan, China, Scotland, Rome and Paris, assembling an enviable wardrobe produced by the finest couture hands and purveyors of the day. Among her acquisitions was a “summer white” dress, ultra-feminine in design, amplified by its accommodations to her surprising height.

A few years later, Elsie met Paris’s sultan of exoticism, couture innovator Paul Poiret. Poiret found her an obvious muse; her elongated hanger-like body reiterated the slim, sinuous lines of his designs. Under his influence, she assumed a far more daring fashion personality. During this era, Poiret designed for her a pearl-encrusted evening gown that he entitled “Homage à Rousseau” (ca. 1910) and a fuchsia silk opera wrap (1912). Both reside within our collection.

Two garments made for Elsie by Paul Poiret: Left, a tailored promenade ensemble, 1919, Museum of the City of New York, 56.234.2bc; Right: Homage à Rousseau (ca. 1910), MCNY, 52.35.3

Elsie continued to drift from her life as Mrs. Robert Goelet. In January 1914, she divorced her husband, captivating the press and public’s imagination. By December of the same year, she married Henry Clews, Jr., a marine painter and sculptor she had fallen instantly in love with upon meeting him at a Newport dog show. Throughout these proceedings, she remained a devoted Poiret client. The Costume Collection boasts 14 striking Poiret garments made for Elsie some years later, though she had changed her name to Marie Clews – rechristened by her new husband. The garments, dating from 1919 to 1930, attest to the perennial fashion flair of their wearer.

Elsie’s trousseau lingerie was embroidered with her name on the bodice, in various fonts and stylizations.

Return to our present-day dilemma of the unattributed trousseau lingerie. During routine collection maintenance some two years ago, we encountered a 20^th century suite of nightgowns, gorgeous camisoles with matching split drawers, corset covers and petticoats, all embroidered with the name Elsie in various stylizations. Of the 22 items, none had been assigned the accession number routinely given to objects as they attain formal status and enter the collection. Suddenly, the mystery made complete sense: who else from that early 20^th century period might have possessed and donated such impeccable underpinnings?  An immediate search of our records revealed that yes, a large body of trousseau lingerie custom-made in Paris by Mme. Lavail had entered the Costume Collection as a 1952 gift from Mrs. Henry Clews. Compared with the generous endowment of Poirets that spread over the following six years, the lingerie had not been considered important enough to assign formal status. Today, knowing the full story of our Gilded Age heroine, we beg to differ.

–Phyllis Magidson, Curator of Costumes, Museum of the City of New York