Rudolf "Rudi" Gernreich

Rudolf "Rudi" GERNREICH: b. 8 Aug 1922, Wien - d. 21 April 1985, Los Angeles

Listed under those obliged to declare assets after 1938, as per www.avotaynu.com

Gernreich, Rudolf 08.08.1922 A

Emigration to the USA.

cf. New York passenger listings courtesy of:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9R1G-TNJ?i=690&cc=...

Elisabeth Gernreich Immigration 1938 California, United States Female 55 1883 Germany Rialto 005014123

Rudolf Gernreich Immigration 1938 California, United States Male 16 1922 Germany Rialto 005014123

Next page - contact people.

Departure: "mother/grandmother", Charlotte MUELLER, Paris

Arrival: Mr. David BOGON, 3022 Bellevue Avenue, Los Angeles

Famed fashion designer.

Information courtesy of many sources, including the following:

Topless Creator Gernreich Dies : Fashion World Saw Him as Its Most Innovative - Los Angeles Times

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-04-22/news/mn-21986_1_fashion-indu...

" ... The only child of Siegmund and Elisabeth Mueller Gernreich, Rudolf Gernreich was born in Vienna on Aug. 8, 1922. It was at a time when haute couture was at its peak, and the authoritarian state of chic was governed by a handful of French couturiers who convened twice a year to hand down their hemline edicts to an adoring aristocracy.

Gernreich got his first look at this world of high fashion as a child. His sanctuary from what he called the rigid militaristic atmosphere of school was the Vienna dress shop run by his aunt, Hedwig Mueller, and there he spent hours sketching her designs for Viennese society and learning as much as he could about fabrics.

At 12, his sketches were seen by an Austrian designer, Ladislaus Zcettel, who offered Gernreich an apprenticeship in London, but his mother thought he was too young to leave home. (Gernreich's father, a hosiery manufacturer, died when the boy was 8.)

When Gernreich was 16, he and his mother fled Europe along with thousands of other Jewish refugees and escaped to California. He mastered the English language, and obtained American citizenship in 1943. ..." and similarly ...

This day in Jewish history / A Mod Man (and inventor of the monokini) is born - This Day in Jewish HistoryIsrael News - Haaretz Israeli News source

http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.540434?v=801D5E8B0C507F47F...

" ... Rudi Gernreich was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna. His father, Siegmund Gernreich, was a stocking manufacturer who killed himself when his son was 8. Rudi learned about clothing from his aunt, who owned a women’s dress shop.

In 1938, after the Anschluss, Gernreich and his mother, Elisabeth, left Austria and settled in Los Angeles, California. Initially, Elisabeth Gernreich baked pastries that her son sold door-to-door. Later, he supported himself by working in the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital morgue, washing bodies of the deceased before autopsy. In an interview some years later, he observed that, “I do smile sometimes when people tell me my clothes are so body-conscious I must have studied anatomy. You bet I studied anatomy."

..."

and likewise ...

The Great Fashion Designers - Brenda Polan, Roger Tredre - Google Books

https://books.google.de/books?id=mbI4UYThM4cC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq...

cf. also:

Rudi Gernreich papers, 1891-1993 LSC.1702

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf4r29n9q2/admin/

and, of course ...

Rudi Gernreich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Gernreich

Extracts ...

"Rudi Gernreich (August 8, 1922 – April 21, 1985) was an Austrian-born American fashion designer who introduced the single-piece topless monokini in 1964, and had a long, unconventional, and trend-setting career in fashion design. He was also an early gay activist who helped fund the early activities of the Mattachine Society.

Early years:

Gernreich was born in Vienna, Austria. His father was a stocking manufacturer who committed suicide when Gernreich was eight years old. Gernreich learned about feminine fashion in his aunt’s dress shop.[1]

Jewish refugee:

After the German Anschluss (when Nazi Germany annexed Austria) on March 12, 1938, Hitler, among many other acts, banned nudity. Austrian citizens were advocates of exercising nude, a rejection of the over-civilized world, which may have influenced Gernreich's later designs.[2] His mother and Rudi escaped to the United States as Jewish refugees, settling in Los Angeles, California. Gernreich was very much against sexualization of the human body and the notion that the body was essentially shameful.[3]

Education:

Initially, his mother survived by baking pastries that Rudi sold door-to-door. His first job was washing bodies before autopsy at the morgue of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. He told Marylou Luther, “I grew up overnight. I do smile sometimes when people tell me my clothes are so body-conscious [that] I must have studied anatomy. You bet I studied anatomy.”[1] He attended Los Angeles City College, where he studied art and apprenticed for a Seventh Avenue clothing manufacturer. He attended the Los Angeles Art Center School from 1941 to 1942.[4]

Career:

Gernreich moved into fashion design via fabric design, and worked closely with model Peggy Moffitt and photographer William Claxton, pushing the boundaries of the "futuristic look" in clothing over the course of three decades. He was the sixth American designer to be elected to the Coty American Fashion Hall of Fame. In 1942, he performed with Lester Horton's modern dance troupe.[5] Gernreich said, "I never was a very good dancer...I wanted to become a choreographer, but that never happened." He also designed costumes for the company until 1952, when he joined fellow Viennese immigrant Walter Bass and launched their first collection.[5] Gernreich moved into fashion design via fabric design, and worked closely with model Peggy Moffitt and photographer William Claxton for many years. He pioneered many avant-garde features in his designs. He was the first to use cutouts and vinyl and plastic in clothes. He Introduced androgyny—men's suits and hats for women. He designed the first see-through clothes. Rudi Gernreich designed the first soft transparent bra—the "no bra" bra. He invented body clothes based on leotards and tights. He used hardware such as zippers, and dog leash clasps as decoration. He did the first designer jeans. He designed the first thong bathing suit. He was the first to design men's underwear for women.

In 1942, he worked as a dancer and costume designer for Lester Horton Company. He left them in 1948 and became a fabric salesman for Hoffman Company and began designing his own line of clothes in Los Angeles and New York until 1951, when he became a designer for William Bass Inc. in Beverly Hills. In 1959 he was hired as the swimwear designer for Westwood Knitting Mills in Los Angeles. Genesco Corporation hired him as a shoe designer in 1959, which he continued until he founded his own firm GR Designs in Los Angeles in 1960. He changed his company's name to Rudi Gernreich Inc. in 1964. His designs were featured in what is generally regarded as the first fashion video, Basic Black: William Claxton w/ Peggy Moffitt”, in 1966,[4][6] devoted to Gernreich's fashions.[1] Gernreich was featured on the cover of Time in December 1967 with models Peggy Moffitt and Leon Bing. The magazine described him as "the most way-out, far-ahead designer in the U.S."[7] From 1970-1971 he designed furnishings for Fortress and Knoll International, and in 1975 he designed lingerie for Lily of France. The next year he worked on cosmetics for Redken and he also designed knitwear for Harmon Knitwear, kitchen accessories, ceramic bathroom accessories, and costumes for the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company.[4] Gernreich continued to collaborate with Lewitzky, designing sets and costumes for Pas de Bach in 1977, Rituals in 1979, Changes & Choices in 1981, and Confines in 1982, all danced by the WCK3. He was a strong advocate of unisex clothing, dressing male and female models in identical clothing and shaving their heads and bodies completely bald. Gernreich was also noted for his use of vinyl and plastic in clothes. He designed the Moonbase Alpha uniforms worn by the main characters of the 1970s British science-fiction television series Space: 1999., pushing the boundaries of the futuristic look in clothing over the course of three decades.

Exhibitions:

Rudi exhibited his fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in 1967, "Two Modern Artists of Dress: Elizabeth Hawes and Rudi Gernreich". A retrospective titled "Fashion Will Go Out of Fashion" was assembled in Kunstlerhaus Graz, Austria, in 2000.[4] In 2003, an exhibition of his work held at the Phoenix Art Museum, in Phoenix, Arizona, hailed him as one of the most original, prophetic, and controversial American designers of the 1950s through to the 1970s.[4]

Awards:

He was named Sports Illustrated Designer of the Year in 1956, and won the Wool Knit Association award in 1960. In 1963, Gernreich won two major awards: in May he received Sports Illustrated's Sporting Look Award and in June he was awarded the Coty American Fashion Critics Award.[5] The Coty Award stirred a controversy when the first recipient of the award, Norman Norell, gave his Coty Award back as a protest against Gernreich's recognition. On June 17, he told Women's Wear Daily, "It no longer means a thing to me. I can't bear to look at it anymore. I saw a photograph of a suit of Rudi's and one lapel of the jacket was shawl and the other was notched-Well!" He blamed the vote on "jury members from Glamour and Seventeen who don't get around to high fashion collections are responsible for the Gernreich vote." The department store Bonwit Teller ran a half-page ad in response with the headline: "Rudi Gernreich, we'd give you the Coty Award all over again!"[18] He received the award again in 1963, 1966, and 1967.[4]

Additional awards included the Neiman Marcus award, Dallas, 1961; Sporting Look award, 1963; Sunday Times International Fashion award, London, 1965; Filene's Design award, Boston, 1966; Knitted Textile Association award, 1975; Council of Fashion Designers of America Special Tribute, 1985.[4]

Later life

In his later life, Gernreich devoted himself to gourmet soups.[19] He is credited with a recipe for red-pepper soup, a cold soup served in red-pepper cases and garnished with caviar and lemon.[20]

Personal life

Gernreich met Harry Hay in July 1950, and the two became lovers. Hay showed Gernreich "The Call",[21] a document outlining his plan for a gay support organization, which Gernreich declared the document as "the most dangerous thing [he had] ever read".[22] In 1951 Gernreich was convicted in a homosexual entrapment case. He was an enthusiastic financial supporter of the venture, though he did not lend his name to it, preferring to be known by the initial "R".[23] Gernreich ended the relationship with Hay in 1952.[24]

In 1953, Gernreich met Oreste Pucciani, chairman of the UCLA French department, who was a key figure in bringing Jean-Paul Sartre to the attention of American educators. Oreste Pucciani was also a pivotal figure in the gay rights movement. The two men kept their relationship private as Gernreich believed public acknowledgment of his homosexuality would negatively affect his fashion business.[25]

Gernreich died in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 62 from lung cancer."