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THE RUDI GERNREICH BOOK |
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1952, first unconstructed swimsuit. (photograph © Tommy Mitchell Estate) It certainly did. Through Jimmy Mitchell, his first fitting model, Gernreich learned about Jack Hanson and his little shop called JAX. "I remember telling Jimmy I had to have a Saks or an I. Magnin to get the line off the ground, but she persisted. The three of us met, Jimmy and I showed him the Iin-.nainly loosely cut, tightly belted dresses in ginghams and cotton tweeds-and his reaction was instantaneous. I delivered the first shipment personally and in one hour everything was gone. " Buoyed by this success, Gernreich took the line to New York. "Walter didn't want to spend the money on the trip so I said I'd pay for it myself and it worked." Sally Kirkland, then fashion editor of Life magazine, persuaded Gernreich to try again with Marjorie Griswold at Lord & Taylor. "This time, she raved and carried on and said she must have the clothes. At one point she asked me if we hadn't met before. I couldn't bear telling her the truth, so I said no. Years later, I told her the story of how we really met. By then we both thought it was funny." After a year of quick and steady acceptance from stores, Bass asked Gernreich to sign a seven-year contract. "When I saw it I almost collapsed. We'd already had a history of success, but the contract didn't give an ounce in my direction. Iwas terribly annoyed with the way Walter's attorney treated me, and I boasted that one day I was going to be much more important than Mainbocher. I had a great deal of arrogance then and tremendous confidence, but it was shattered momentarily. 'When you're more important than Mainbocher: Bass told me, 'we'll negotiate again: And I signed." In March 1952, Gernreich created the prototype for the first bra-free swimsuit- a wool jersey with tank top-and its progeny earned him his first design citation, The American Sportswear Design Award, given in 1956 by Sports Illustrated. Gernreich was to spend much of the fifties freeing women of body-restraining clothes. His knitted tube dress of 1953, which won him his first magazine credit (Glamour, February 19531, was the forerunner of the stretch minis of the late eighties and nineties. The outfit that earned him his first Life magazine credit on April 27, 1953, could be considered the mother of the pop/op offsprings of the sixties. lt consisted of a black felt, cinch-belted tunic over red, orange, and yellow checked pants. It was modeled by Lauren Bacall. Although he designed his first swimsuits for Bass, the ones that were to make him famous were produced for Westwood Knitting Mills, the firm he signed with in March 1955. From that date to August 1960, there were two Gernreich labels: sportswear for Bass and swimwear for Westwood. In the fifties, a designer could literally be "magazined" into fame. The media was Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Charm, Life, Look, and Sports Illustrated. The message: get the editorial first and the stores and customers will follow. Gernreich read this fashion script early and well-5o well that Jack Hanson, who gave him his first big order at Jax and who later canceled all orders because of a feud over exclusivity, called Gernreich "a publicity hound."
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