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THE RUDI GERNREICH BOOK |
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1956, Chinese waiter's jackets in cotton duck. (photograph © Christa, courtesy Life magazine) In July 1950, while watching a rehearsal at Horton's studio, Gernreich met Harry Hay, founder of the Mattachine Society, a 19505 forerunner of today's gay movement. From 1950 to 1951, Gernreich and Hay were lovers and Gernreich became one of Mattachine's seven founding members. (With typical wit, Gernreich suggested calling the Mattachine newsletter "The Gaily Homo Journal.") He and the other founders resigned from the society in 1953 after an ideological schism. In accordance with the Mattachine oath of secrecy, Hay never revealed Gernreich's membership in the society until after the design- er's death in 1985. Since that time, photos showing Gernreich with Hay and other founders have been published in Stuart Timmons's biography of Hay, The Trouble with Harry Hay, Founder of the Modern Gay Movement. That the man who tore up so many closets with his revolutionary clothes never came out of the closet during his lifetime says a lot about Gernreich and his times. In those years homosexuality was illegal and Gernreich himself had been entrapped before joining the Mattachines. Oreste Pucciani, Gernreich's life partner for thirty-one years, recalls, uRudi told me he was stunned when a guilty verdict was returned. He had insisted on pleading innocent and demanded a jury trial. He told me that he looked in the face of every jury member, and one woman, who had seemed sympathetic earlier and whose support Rudi thought he could count on, turned to the wall to avoid his eyes." Peggy Moffitt, the designer's model/muse, says she and Gernreich Utalked about sexuality a lot. His clothes were about sexuality. He told me about having belonged to the Mattachine Society, but not in a this-is-a-big-secret kind of way. He often told me that he felt a person's sexuality was understood and there was no way to hide it. I've known many gay men who seem compelled to underscore their homosexuality, as in 'I'II-order-the-roast-beef-but-of-course-I'm-gay: Rudi was not that sort of person. I don't think it ever occurred to him to come out of the closet because he felt his sexuality was self-evident. He wouldn't have called a press conference to discuss his sexuality any more than he would have called one to discuss his brown eyes."
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