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THE RUDI GERNREICH BOOK |
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Mid 1950s, camel's hair suit. (photograph © Alex dePaola) Gernreich broadened his design base again in June 1955 when he designed Sarah Churchill's costumes in No Time for Comedy, and in June 1956 when he introduced his first designs for men. They were called Chinese waiters' coats and were originally designed for the staff of Gernreich's favorite Chinese restaurant, General Lee's Man Jen Low, in Los Angeles's Chinatown. When diners tried to wheedle them right off the waiters' backs, Gerneich decided to produce them as beach jackets, car coats, and at-home shirt-jackets. Life pictured them in its August 6, 1956 issue. In 1957 Gernreich's design spectrum widened once more when he produced a shoe collection for the Ted Sava' division of the General Shoe Co. Vogue featured his black calf T-strap with matching satin bow in its February 1, 1957 issue. Throughout 1958 and 1959, Gernreich's last two years with Bass, he became more and more involved with accessories, and he came to realize that fashion meant much more than just clothes. Here is an excerpt from a May 1958 letter inviting buyers to his fall opening: "What is happening today is most curious-no waists, high waists, low waists, slimness, fullness, barrels, triangles-and all of it is right. It is not a silhouette but an attitude which is the important change. There has been more radical change in the attitude of a face, a leg and foot in the last year than in the shape of the dress. The focus is on head and leg, which makes the dress an accessory. Therefore, to stimulate and strengthen the awareness ofthis attitude Ihave felt the necessity to complete my picture by adding hats to my clothes as well as shoes." The first hats included plaid sou'westers, floppy-brimmed slouches, fedoras, and a rhinestone-studded cloche that matched a pair of little-heel pumps trimmed in the same glitter. Stockings were added in February 1959-the first in stripes and checks on sheer nylon. Throughout this period, the only other fashion designer to take out as many superstructures, eliminate as many linings, lighten as many fabrics, and brighten as many colors was Italy's Emilio Pucci. In 1964 Gernreich was to cite Pucci as one of the reasons behind his decision to introduce the topless bathing suit. On the eve of his fall collection in 1963, Pucci was quoted in a Eugenia Sheppard column in the New York Herald Tribune as saying, "In 10 years women will have shed the tops of their bathing suits completely." Gernreich, who had by then predicted a five-year wait, decided not to let Pucci beat him in the fashion breaststrokes.
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