Background
Anne Klein was born Hannah Golofski, on August 03, 1923 in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Morris Golofsky, owner of fleet of cabs, and Esther Golofsky.
Anne Klein was born Hannah Golofski, on August 03, 1923 in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Morris Golofsky, owner of fleet of cabs, and Esther Golofsky.
Klein attended the Girls Commercial High School, where she displayed an outstanding talent in design. As a result, she won a scholarship to the Trapagen School of Fashion.
Klein began working as a freelance sketcher for a wholesale fashion house when she was fifteen, and she chose to work full-time. A year later she had a regular job at Varden Petites, where she was central in changing the firm's production from a line fitting short, plump women to the now familiar small, lean line of junior dress; her approach in fact created a new category of sizes in ready-to-wear women's clothes.
In 1948, she married Ben Klein. He recognized her talent, and the same year founded Junior Sophisticates, with Anne as the principal designer. Over the next few years she led designers away from traditional "buttons and bows frilliness" back to a sleek, sophisticated style for juniors. A woman of small physical stature, she appreciated the particular needs of smaller women and fundamentally transformed the design of clothing in petite sizes. Following Coco Chanel's example in France, she introduced the men's items into women's lines. By the late 1950's, Klein was emphasizing separates, permitting women to buy an array of jackets, slacks, skirts, and blouses that could be mixed and matched. She emphasized simplicity and elegance and was admired for her sense of line and proportion.
Klein found working for husband and company president Ben Klein increasingly difficult by the late 1950's; she soon left Junior Sophisticates. In 1963, she set up her own design studio. Because of her stature in the industry, she attracted a steady flow of clients, particularly those needing quick help to shore up faltering lines. Charles Revson came to her to edit weak Evan-Picone and Dynasty lines; he credited her work with restoring those lines and paid her an unprecedented six-figure fee. Soon thereafter Sandy Smith and Gunther Oppenheim, who held the license for Pierre Cardin coats, came to her in desperate need of quick redesign of the line. The results were so successful that they offered to create a sportswear company under her direction and of which she would be half owner; they would provide all capital.
In 1968, Anne Klein and Company began operation and was immediately successful. Because of this striking success, in 1973 Takihyo Company of Japan bought a half interest in both Anne Klein and Company and Anne Klein Studio; it later bought the remaining half. In 1973, Klein was the only woman, and one of five American designers, invited to share the stage with five leading French designers in a special fashion show to raise funds for the renovation of the Palace of Versailles. The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited the American designs in 1993.
Anne Klein was evidently good at identifying and developing design talent. At Junior Sophisticates, for instance, she had hired Bill Blass as a sketcher when he came home from military service. Her company's success can be attributed to the outstanding design talent she assembled and nurtured, particularly Donna Karan and Maurice Antaya. (Karan formed her own company in 1985; Antaya took control of the Anne Klein II line. )
Klein had an uncommon breadth of interest in design and innovation. Among other things, in the late 1960's she developed and patented a special girdle to wear with miniskirts; she originated the idea of using snaps on doll clothing because she recognized the difficulty small children had with buttons; she designed an airplane interior and worked with a leading automotive company on car design; she developed an inside-out raincoat for women that, with pockets and zippers on the inside, gave access to their personal items and kept everything dry. Even when she was near death from cancer in 1974, she drew designs for a hospital room and hospital bed that would improve patient comfort and access. Klein died in New York City. Hundreds of fashion industry people crowded her funeral two days later, in recognition of the fact that she was, as Rudi Gernreich declared, "one of the great forces of fashion with a real American look. "
Klein was the first American designer to introduce men's items into women's lines and became the leader in using new fabrics to make familiar casual styles elegant (for example, satin for jeans, soft leather and suede in sportswear). Her approach became the standard for the majority of women's fashion design, both in the United States and abroad. Anne Klein label was one of the most successful in women's fashion, carried in more than eight hundred American department stores and specialty shops. Klein won the prestigious Coty Fashion Award in 1955. She won it again in 1969, and was elected to the Coty Fashion Hall of Fame in 1971.
Quotations: "Clothes aren't going to change the world. The women who wear them will. "
Klein married her first husband Ben Klein in 1948. They divorced in 1960. In 1963, she married Matthew ("Chip") Rubinstein.
