The New School Archives And Special Collections

Abstract

Mary Adrienne Steckling Coen (1934-2006) graduated from Parsons School of Design's Fashion Design Department in 1958. In 1966, "Adri" --her professional name-- created her own line, designing under her own labels for the rest of her career. The records document Adri's professional life, with items arranged by year and season. Includes clippings and tear sheets, photographs, press kits, sketches, swatches, and video recordings.

Summary Sherl Nero (1939-2006) was a fashion and textile designer who graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1962 and worked in sportswear design before joining the Design Works of Bedford Stuyvesant (DWBS) in 1971. DWBS was the brainchild of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and designers Doris and Leslie Tillett. With financing from the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, the Black-owned business produced African-inspired designs for fabrics and homewares. This collection...

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After graduating from the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School of Design) in 1934, Tom Brigance (1913-1990) became a fashion designer specializing in women's swimwear and sportswear. The collection includes scrapbooks of clippings and photographs of Brigance's designs, sketches, publicity materials, and four original fashion illustrations of Brigance swimwear by Dorothy Hood, produced for Lord & Taylor.

Summary Robert Mackintosh (1925-1998) was a costume and fashion designer whose design career spanned forty years and twenty Broadway productions. He made his Broadway debut designing costumes for the 1952 musical Wish You Were Here. In the 1960s, Mackintosh branched out into womenswear design with Musette, a juniors label, which was sold at Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. He went on to design various other womens and menswear lines in the 1970s. ...

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Collection mainly consists of publicity photographs, press clippings, fashion show programs, and other materials related to the fashion design career of Stephen Walton Biddle Mason, Jr., known professionally as Stefan, between the mid-1940s and early 1960s.

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Claire McCardell (1905-1958) graduated from the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School of Design) in 1928 and later became a pivotal figure in American ready-to-wear fashion. In 1944, McCardell returned to Parsons as a critic and instructor, a position she held for the rest of her life. The collection contains roughly 9,000 of McCardell's sketches, dated 1931 to 1958; mostly produced for Townley Frocks.

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Roy Little graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1949 and went on to become a designer for renowned French couturier Jacques Fath. He returned to Parsons as an instructor in 1958 and remained in that position until 1979. The nine numbered sketchbooks held by the New School Archives represent Little's work for Fath.

Summary

Violet Holsinger Mueller (1907-2003) studied fashion design at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School of Design) from 1926 through 1929. She worked as an interior designer for Stix, Baer & Fuller, a St. Louis-based department store, and founded her own design consultancy in Belleville, Illinois. Her papers include personal materials, and documentation created during her studies at Parsons and her design career.

Summary Robert Galster (1923-1991) and Gilbert Ireland (1924-2015) were designers and alumni of Parsons School of Design. Galster worked as a freelance illustrator and designer. Ireland designed window displays for Bergdorf Goodman for over forty years. The collection consists primarily of Galster's work and includes examples of his designs for books, album covers, and theater posters. Ireland's work is represented in photographs of the windows he designed. The collection also contains...

Summary

With a career that spanned the 1930s to the 1960s, Raymond Driscoll (1915-2004) was perhaps most widely known for his annual best and worst-dressed lists. He also gained recognition for his costume designs for Mexican film stars. The collection consists of Driscoll's scrapbook of photographs, clippings, invitations, and greeting cards from celebrities documenting his work in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as original fashion sketches.