GERNREICH, Rudi

American designer

Born: Vienna, 8 August 1922. Immigrated to the United States, 1938, naturalized, 1943. Education: Studied at Los Angeles City College, 1938-41; Los Angeles Art Center School, 1941-42. Career: Dancer, costume designer, Lester Horton Company, 1942-48; fabric salesman, Hoffman company, and freelance clothing designer, Los Angeles and New York, 1948-51; designer, William Bass Inc., Beverly Hills, 1951-59; swimwear designer, Westwood Knitting Mills, Los Angeles, 1953-59; shoe designer, Genesco Corp., 1958-60; founder, GR Designs, Los Angeles, 1960-64; designer, Rudi Gernreich Inc., 1964-68; designs featured in first fashion videotape, Basic Black, 1966; designed furnishings for Fortress and Knoll International, 1970-71; lingerie for Lily of France, 1975; cosmetics for Redken, 1976; also designed knitwear for Harmon Knitwear, kitchen accessories, ceramic bathroom accessories, and costumes for Bella Lewitzky Dance Company. Exhibitions: Two Modern Artists of Dress: Elizabeth Hawes and Rudi Gernreich, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, 1967; Fashion Will Go Out of Fashion, retrospective, Kunstlerhaus Graz, Austria, 2000. Awards: Sports Illustrated Designer of the Year award, 1956; Wool Knit Association award, 1960; Coty American Fashion Critics award, 1960, 1963, 1966, 1967; Neiman Marcus award, Dallas, 1961; Sporting Look award, 1963; Sunday Times International Fashion award, London, 1965; Filene's Design award, Boston, 1966; inducted to Coty American Fashion Critics Hall of Fame, 1967; Knitted Textile Association award, 1975; Council of Fashion Designers of America Special Tribute, 1985. Died: 21 April 1985, in Los Angeles.

Publications

On GERNREICH:

Books

Bender, Marylin, The Beautiful People, New York, 1967.

Morris, Bernadine, and Barbara Walz, The Fashion Makers, NewYork, 1978.

Faure, Jacques, editor, Rudi Gernreich: A Retrospective, 1922-1985,Los Angeles, 1985.

Milbank, Caroline Rennolds, New York Fashion: The Evolution of American Style, New York, 1989.

Loebenthal, Joel, Radical Rags: Fashions of the Sixties, New York,1990.

Moffitt, Peggy, and William Claxton, The Rudi Gernreich Book, NewYork, 1991, 1999; London, 1992.

Stegemeyer, Anne, Who's Who in Fashion, Third Edition, New York,1996.

Moffitt, Peggy, Rudi Gernreich, New York, 1999.

Articles

Steinem, G., "Gernreich's Progress; or, Eve Unbound," in the New York Times Magazine, 31 January 1965.

"Rudi Gernreich," in Current Biography (New York), December 1968.

"Fashion Will Go Out of Fashion," interview, in Forbes (New York),15 September 1970.

Guerin, T., "Rudi Gernreich," in Interview (New York), May 1973.

"Head on Fashion," interview, in Holiday (New York), June 1975.

Lockwood, C., "The World of Rudi Gernreich," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), October 1980.

Kalter, S., "Remember Those Topless Swimsuits?" in People Weekly, 25 May 1981.

Obituary in Newsweek, 6 May 1985.

"Rudi Gernreich," obituary, in Current Biography (New York), June 1985.

Timmons, Stuart, "Designer Rudi Gernreich Stayed in the Fashion Closet," in The Advocate, 25 September 1990.

Shields, Jody, "Rudi Gernreich was a Designer Ahead of His Time," in Vogue, December 1991.

Armstrong, Lisa, "Peggy and Rudi Go Topless," in The Independent on Sunday Review (London), 2 February 1992.

O'Brien, Glenn, "Back to the Future," in Artforum, September 2000.

Son of a hosiery manufacturer, born into an intellectual Viennese family in the 1920s, Rudi Gernreich was to become one of the most revolutionary designers of the 20th century. After fleeing the Nazis in the late 1930s he settled in Los Angeles, becoming an American citizen in 1943. Perhaps because of this geographic detachment from the centers of fashion and the fact that he refused to show in Paris, Gernreich is a name not spoken in the same breath as Balenciaga, Dior, or even Courréges, although Gernreich had just as much influence on women's appearance, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.

Gernreich studied dance before entering the world of fashion and, using as inspiration the practice clothes of dancers, particularly leotards and tights, he produced pared down body-clothes in the 1960s, aimed at what seemed to be the new woman of the era. To cater to this popular construction of femininity, Gernreich attempted to produce a new version of women's clothing, freed of all constraints.

Influenced by Bauhaus functionalism, Gernreich conceived a body-based dressing with coordinated underwear, celebrating the unfettered movement of the body based on his early involvement with Lester Horton's modern dance troupe. This interest in liberating the body from the limitations of clothing surfaced in his early swimwear designs of 1952 in which he eliminated the complicated boned and underpinned interior construction that had been obligatory in the 1950s. He revived the knitted swimsuit or "maillot" of the 1920s, which he elasticized to follow the shape of the body. These experiments were continued in his knitted tube dresses of 1953.

Gernreich was interested less in the details and decorations of clothes and more in how they looked in motion. In the 1950s he was designing relaxed, comfortable clothes fabricated out of wool, jersey, and other malleable materials, usually in solid colors or geometric shapes and checks. During the next decade he went on to use unusual fabrics and bold color disharmonies such as orange and blue or red and purple.

In the early 1960s Gernreich opened a Seventh Avenue showroom in New York where he showed his popular designs for Harmon knitwear and his own more expensive line of experimental garments. During the decade he acquired a reputation for being the most radical designer in America; his designs included the jacket with one notched and one rounded lapel, tuxedos made of white satin, and the topless bathing suit of 1964, which reflected the new vogue for topless sunbathing.

Gernreich's freeing of the breasts was a social statement, somehow part of the emancipation of women, and a portent of the unfettering of the breast by the women's movement in the 1970s. Gernreich invented the "no bra" bra in 1964, a soft nylon bra with no padding or boning in which breasts assumed their natural shape, rather than being molded into an aesthetic ideal. He went on to overtly display his sympathy for women's liberation with his 1971 collection of military safari clothes accessorized with dogtags and machine guns.

Gernreich was also responsible for developing the concept of unisex, believing that as women achieved more freedom in the 1960s, male dress would emerge from the aesthetic exile into which it had been cast in the 19th century. He conceived interchangeable clothes for men and women such as floor-length kaftans or white knit bell-bottomed trousers and matching black and white midriff tops, and even, in 1975, Y-front underwear for women. Other designs included the first chiffon t-shirt dress, see-through blouses, coordinated outfits of dresses, handbags, hats, and stockings, mini dresses inset with clear vinyl stripes, and the thong bathing suit, cut high to expose the buttocks. He experimented constantly with the potentials of different materials using cutouts, vinyl, and plastic, and mixing patterns such as checks with dots.

His clothing was part of a whole design philosophy which encompassed the designing of furniture, kitchen accessories, rugs, and quilts—even, in 1982, gourmet soups. His notion of freeing the body was taken to its logical extreme in his last design statement, the pubikini, which appeared in 1982, revealing the model's dyed and shaped pubic hair.

—Caroline Cox

THE 1960s: FASHION: AWARDS

Coty American Fashion Critics'
Award

(The "Winnie"—to an individual selected as the leading designer of American women's fashions)

1960—Ferdinando Sarmi

Jacques Tiffeau

1961—Bill Blass

Gustave Tassell

1962—Donald Brooks

1963—Rudi Gernreich

1964—Geoffrey Beene

1965—No Award

1966—Dominic

1967—Oscar de la Renta

1968—George Halley

Luba

1969—Stan Herman

Victor Joris

Return Award

(Award to a designer whose work merits a top award for a second time)

1960—No Award

1961—No Award

1962—No Award

1963—Bill Blass

1964—Jacques Tiffeau

Sylvia Pedlar

1965—No Award

1966—Rudi Gernreich

Geoffrey Beene

1967—Donald Brooks

1968—Oscar de la Renta

1969—Anne Klein

Hall of Fame

("Winnie" designer chosen three separate times as best of the year)

1960—No Award

1961—Ben Zuckerman

1962—No Award

1963—No Award

1964—No Award

1965—No Award

1966—No Award

1967—Rudi Gernreich

1968—No Award

1969—No Award

Special Awards

(Honoring noteworthy contributions to fashion)

1960—Rudi Gernreich

Sol Klein

Roxane

1961—Bonnie Cashin

Mr. Kenneth

1962—Halston

1963—Arthur and Theodora Edelman

Betty Yokova

1964—David Webb

1965—Anna Potok

Tzaims Luksus

Gertrude Seperack

Pablo

Joint Special Award: Sylvia de Gay, Bill Smith, Victor Joris, Leo Narducci, Don Simonelli, Gayle Kirkpatrick, Stanley Herman, Edie Gladstone, and Deanna Littell

1966—Kenneth Jay Lane

1967—Beth and Herbert Levine

1968—Count Giorgio di Sant'Angelo

1969—Adolfo

Halston

Julian Tomehin

Thomas B. Glarke Prize (Given bythe National Academy of Design
For Interior Design)

1960—Werner Groshans

1961—Aaron Shikler

1962—David Levine

1963—Thomas Yerxa

1964—Moses Soyer

1965—Philip B. White

1966—Bruce Currie

1967—Jack Henderson

1968—Philip B. White

1969—Edward Melcarth

American Institute of Architects
(AIA)

AIA Gold Medal (Awarded annually to an individual for distinguished service to the architectural profession or to the institute. It is the institute's highest honor.)

1960—Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Chicago

1961—Le Corbusier, Paris

1962—Eero Saarinen, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

1963—Alvar Aalto, Helsinki

1964—Pier Luigi Nervi, Rome

1965—No Award

1966—Kenzo Tange, Tokyo

1967—Wallace K. Harrison, New York

1968—Marcel Breuer, New York

1969—William W. Wurster, San Francisco

AIA Craftsmanship Medal

1960—William L. DeMatteo, Silversmith

1961—Anni Albers, Weaving

1962—Theodore Conrad, Model Making

1963—Paolo Soleri, Ceramics

1964—Jan de Swart, Stained Glass

1965—No Award

1966—Harold Balazs, Wood Sculpture

1967—Sister Mary Remy Revor, Fabric Design

1968—Jack Lenor Larsen, Fabric Design

1969—Henry Easterwood, Fabric Design

AIA Edward C. Kemper Award (To AIA members for "significant contributions to the profession of architecture and to the Institute.")

1960—Philip D. Creer

1961—Earl H. Reed

1962—Harry D. Payne

1963—Samuel E. Lunden

1964—Daniel Schwartzman

1965—Joseph Watterson

1966—William W. Eshbach

1967—Robert H. Levison

1968—E. James Gambaro

1969—Philip J. Meathe

AIA Honor Awards (Initiated to encourage appreciation of excellence in architecture in the United States and by American architects working abroad.)

1960—Sherwood, Mills & Smith

Robert L. Geddes, Melvin Brecher, Warren W. Cunningham of Geddes Brecher, Qualls

Killingsworth, Brady & Smith

Corbett & Kman Kitchen and Hunt

Eero Saarinen & Associates

1961—Edward Durell Stone

Mario J. Ciampi and Paul Reiter

Philip Johnson

Minoru Yamasaki

Philip Johnson

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Birkirts & Straub

1962—Ernest J. Kump and Masten 8c Hurd

Anshen & Allen

1963—Eero Saarinen & Associates

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Ralph M. Parsons Company and Minoru Yamasaki

Joseph Salerno

1964—Architects Collaborative

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Paul Rudolph

1965—Reid & Tarics

Sert, Jackson & Gourley

Eero Saarinen & Associates

I. M. Pei & Associates

1966—Eero Saarinen & Associates

Gevo Saarinen & Associates

Keyes, Lethbridge & Condon

1967—Fred Bassetti & Company

Caudill, Rowlett, Scott

Hammel Green & Abrahamson

Vincent G. Kling

Ian MacKinley

Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull, Whitaker

I. M. Pei & Partners

Smith, Hinchman & Grylls

Neill Smith & Associates

Stickney & Hull

Edward Durell Stone

Architects Collaborative

Architects Collaborative and Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty

Toombs, Amisano & Wells

1968—Fred Bassetti & Company

C. F. Murphy Associates, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Loebl, Schlossman, Bennett & Dart

Crites and McConnell

William N. Breger

Giorgio Cavaglieri

Davis, Brody & Associates and Horowitz & Chun

Alfred De Vido

Joseph Esherick

Stevenson Flemer, Eason Cross, Harry Adreon

R. Buckminster Fuller/Fuller & Sadao Inc., Geometrics Inc., and Cambridge Seven Associates

Gruzen Sc Partners and Abraham W. Geller

Gwathmey & Henderson

Hirshen/Van der Ryn

Mackinley/Winnacker

MLTW/Moore Turnbull

McCue Boone Tomsick

Office of Oberwarth Associates

Reid, Rockwell, Banwell & Taries

Rogers, Taliaferro, Kostritsky, Lamb

Benjamin Thompson & Associates

1969—Desmond-Miremont-Birks

Frank L. Hope Associates

Hugh Newell Jacobsen

Kallman, McKinnell Sc Knowles and Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty

Vincent M. Kling & Associates

Ernest J. Kump Associates and the Office of Masten & Hurd

Richard Meier

Neill Smith & Associates and Dreyfuss Sc Blackford

I. M. Pei & Partners

I. M. Pei & Partners and Pederson, Hueber, Hares & Glavin

John B. Rogers

Skidmore, Owings Sc Merrill

Smotrich & Platt

Walker/McGough, Foltz and Lyerla/Peden

Harry Weese Sc Associates, Cromlie Taylor

Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons

Rudi (Rudolph) Gernreich , 1922-85, American fashion designer, b. Vienna. In 1938, he fled to California, where he studied in Los Angeles. He worked as a dancer and costume designer before becoming a freelance designer. His signature style included ready-to-wear sportswear of dramatic stark cuts. He created a short-lived sensation with topless "Swiss cheese" bathing suits, which incorporated multiple cut-outs, and topless nightgowns. He made popular and inexpensive knitwear and long, straight halter dresses. He often used fabrics with geometric patterns and narrow stripes and introduced plastic fabrics in futuristic modes.