Geoffrey Beene: An American Fashion Rebel

If American fashion has ever been rebellious, there is no doubt Geoffrey Beene was its greatest rebel. While it took some time for the industry to really understand him, in 2007 the CFDA renamed the award category in memory of the designer: "The Geoffrey Beene lifetime achievement award". 

Having left the medical school to pursue a career in fashion, Geoffrey Beene started his own company in 1963. He brought his knowledge of anatomy to fashion design. He was "the body scientist", he saw the dress as three-dimensional, he was a sculptor, creating the most perfect cuts and shapes. He designed for a real woman who wore real, practical clothes. Very American with the notion of comfort yet very European in challenging creativity, he was the first American designer to show his collections in Europe (Milan 1976).

Long before today's renowned designers, Beene was mixing unexpected materials, using asymmetrical cuts, decorating dresses with sequined cartoons and creating architectural androgynous shapes. He created the legendary sequined football-jersey gown in 1967 (look at Tom Ford AW14), the wool jersey coat from 2004 that inspired Phoebe Philo (or better that she copied) for her FW13 collection or the black silk crepe dress from 1991 which inspired Stella McCartney in her FW12 collection (thanks to "Into the fashion" for this http://www.intothefashion.com/2011/05/inspiration-geoffrey-beene-1991-stella.html). Geoffrey Beene continues to inspire generations of designers. Think of Anthony Vaccarello and check the pages of this book and you'll see...

Harpers Bazaar September 1967

I became fascinated by Geoffrey Beene when I started working in Lanvin. Alber Elbaz defined him as his mentor and I wanted to know more about him. This book is written by Kim Hastreiter, co-founder of Paper magazine. She herself was one of the receivers of Geoffrey Beene's famous fan letters. He used to send a fan letter whenever he liked someone, someone's ideas or creative work, and invited them for lunch. Like the film director Tom Kalin, who received a fan letter after Beene watched the film Swoon for seven times. Kalin later made a film for Beene's 30th anniversary "Beene 30".

I strongly recommend you to read about Geoffrey Beene, and this book is a good choice. It provides information about his life, his personality and the peculiarities of his work as well as testimonials from the people who knew him, worked with him or has been his loyal clients. Many of whom received a fan letter.   

I can't help but wondering who would Geoffrey Beene send fan letters to today. Any guess?