WOMEN'S FASHION
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I began my Gene Meyer women's collection after eleven amazing years working for the brilliant and legendary designer Geoffrey Beene.
Always being rather stubborn, after a childhood spent in art schools, hippie indolence and parents that spoiled me rotten, I fashioned my women's label around rather rigid ideas of the late '50s and early '60s French couture. The combination of Beene's modernist extravagance and my teen years of everyone being free, casual, tee-shirted and blue-jeaned left me with a rebellious streak.
I was ready to return to a period of uptight and untouchable elegance. I was returning to the time of my early childhood — Southern church-going women in hats, gloves and pearls. How any of this was relevant for the women of 1990 is of course, questionable and if I had stayed in women's fashion I would have returned to a more carefree woman, but I am forever stubborn.
Luckily, I found quite a few supporters among the fashion press, many of whom have remained my dearest friends. Editors, journalists and style icons: Robert Rufino, Amy Fine Collins, Hamish Bowles, Bernadine Morris, Martha Baker, Wendy Goodman, Sara Jane Hoare, Marie-Paule Pelle, Elizabeth Saltzman, Andre Leon Talley, Candy Pratts Price and the divine Carrie Donovan were all enthusiastic supporters. And yes, just as many others were confounded by this retro extravaganza.
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Gene Meyer made-to-order was created at the end of a period of football player wide shoulders, big haired, power suited super women, I yearned for a more refined silhouette — natural shouldered, slim sleeved, many times achieved with a single seam, a la Balenciaga.
The collection was sold in my 57th Street showroom and at private trunk shows held through-out the country at Saks Fifth Avenue. The clothes required several fittings and lots of patience but alas I found I wasn't great with the ladies. I was shy and sometimes intimidated. The list of clients was a combination of all ages, all professions and many body types — not always suited for these reed-slim clothes.
The clothes were cut of the best European fabrics, beautifully made and constructed, colorful and wildly nostalgic. There is a strong hint of Mrs. Kennedy and my wonderful mother Kitty. After great expense, many wonderful clients and only three collections we closed our doors.
My partner in all of this was Kevin Ryan who continued with me for another twelve years as we designed accessory collections and finally Gene Meyer menswear. Kevin allowed me to be myself and ran things smoothly and efficiently with lots of great ideas and advice (I didn't always listen — although I should have)!
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Gene Meyer’s premier collection combines degage elegance with a cool glamour evocative of such legendary tastemakers as Babe Paley and Audrey Hepburn.
Layering fabrics, experimenting with unusual shapes and playing with a vibrant palette of colors, Gene Meyer creates to dramatic effect.
Cathy Cook
For TAXI Magazine
Editor – Robert Rufino
April 1990 -
Venerable old couture labels aren’t the only story; new couturiers are being launched. Watch out for Gene Meyer in New York, who has just shown his first exquisite collection of beautifully crafted, slightly Sixties couture clothes, shown with really wonderful accessories.
Hamish Bowles
For HARPERS & QUEEN
March 1990 -
One brand-new name this season is Gene Meyer, a fellow who worked in the back room at Geoffrey Beene for 11 years. He has set himself up on West 57th Street as a “couturier”, though everyone in the industry suspects this is just a first step before going into ready-to-wear. It is interesting that, coming from one of the truly experimental design houses in America, he has chosen to present very “comme il faut” clothes – proper coats over proper dresses redolent of the 1950s. And in this Meyer is expressing another strong, incoming fashion for the 1990s, that of secure, sedate style.
Carrie Donovan
For THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
December 3, 1989 -
His clothes are works of art: sculpture which comes to life when molded onto a body. He has proved that tiny shoulders for coats and jackets, mainstays of the fifties and sixties, can be made more comfortable and flexible by using modern, minimal tailoring: a coat, from tip of cuff to hem at knee, will form a semicircle, held by a single seam.
Sarajane Hoare
British Vogue
March 1990 -
His muses are Capote’s “elegant Swans” — Fashion Goddesses Babe Paley, Gloria Vanderbilt, C.Z. Guest — who defined a yet-to-be-recycled pre-mod, pre-funky sixties style.
Amy Fine Collins
Vanity Fair
October 1989 -
Within the vast arena of US fashion there are still designers who reject today’s ubiquitous sportswear in favor of the elegant dressing of yesteryear. Gene Meyer is one such man.
These are clothes that do not depend on flash or glitter, but are imbued with a tiny, precise elegance that owes a debt to the society dressers of the 50s and 60s: Babe Paley, Pauline de Rothschild and Audrey Hepburn.
Keith Hepple
For The Independent
April, 1990 -
“Moving towards a technological age, we must not forget our taste for luxury, and even absurdity.”
Gene Meyer quote in
Avenue Magazine
March, 1990 -
His colors were impressive in themselves and in the way they were put together, approaching the subtlety of Yves Saint Laurent. His combinations were as simple as an orange scarf providing a fiery topping for a clear red crepe dress, as low-key as a wool check combing brown, blue and yellow in a simple suit with olive tights. Soft shades of amethyst and vibrant blues were arresting.
Bernadine Morris
For The New York Times
June 28, 1990 -
“In New York a new generation of designers is eschewing the American sportswear direction and instead looking towards an American lady of mid-fifties vintage for inspiration. Gene Meyer (ex-Geoffrey Beene) is in his second season of young couture designing.
Based in a showroom on 57th Street, he is inspired this season by that Fashion Hall of Fame dame Babe Paley, by Gloria Vanderbilt and Gloria Guinness. These are seemingly simple clothes. In reality they are difficult to cut and are very sophisticated, inspired by Balenciaga, Norell, Mainbocher and early Givenchy.
Hamish Bowles
Harpers & Queen
September, 1990 -
“He understands the subtleties,” said Geoffrey Beene, supporting the work of his former assistant.
Bernadine Morris
For The New York Times
June 28, 1990 -
Gene Meyer apprenticed for 11 years with Geoffrey Beene before striking out on his own last year in a robin’s-egg blue atelier on West 57th Street that features made-to-order clothes with a youthful, somewhat 1960s air tempered by expert workmanship and top-notch materials.
Caroline Rennolds Milbank
For Savvy
May 1990 -
“I really haven’t been interested much in clothes since Halston” said Lily Auchincloss. “Now I think there are fine clothes at Meyer. I plan to go back and try some on”.
Bernadine Morris
For The New York Times
June 28, 1990 -
For two decades, Gene Meyer has been that rarest of fashion creatures, the designer’s designer, influencing taste from the sanctuary of his studio. Apprenticed to Geoffrey Beene for 11 years, he learned to “pioneer the future” and then, under his own pale-blue label, he splattered men’s wear and home furnishings with kaleidoscopic rainbow — warping colors and arty, eye-teasing patterns. Along the way, he won two C.F.D.A. awards and earned a cult following — his ties, scarves and couture (from his lavish, short-lived made-to-order collection) have become fetish objects among vintage–clothing connoisseurs.
Amy Fine Collins
For Vanity Fair
December, 2003 -
