After he left Seventh Avenue and was designing out of his Upper East Side town house, I commissioned Donald to make the coral gown for a black tie affair. Isn't it beautiful? Everything he did was so marvelous. Is too bad that he wasn't a household name because I think his style is so distinctive. Donald's things were young, classic and fun.

I also have a coat and skirt combination that was pistachio green and brown in one of those geometric prints designed in collaboration with a textile manufacturer. They designed lots of double-faced fabrics in geometric patterns.

Of course, Donald's paintings to this day look just like those designs. Anyway, imagine pistachio and brown... it was very chic. In those days you wore boots that were like stockings and the length was to here. You had to get so 'together'.

When I went to work for Donald you could not wear parkas. You had to wear nice coat, nice stockings and nice little shoes. I nearly froze to death the taking the N train home at night. Once I wore a fake leather mini skirt with brown opaque pantyhose.

Donald Brooks was the only designer for me; anything else I bought was junk. His look suited me very well and also, obviously, lots of other people. Seldom did I see anything in the collection that I would not wear.

Always, he just knew. He designed from the ground up. He knew exactly what he was doing. All the details obviously must have cost a whole lot more to produce. That must have been a killer for those duplicate makers.

He had to be cost conscious but his designs were as finished as Mainbocher's things. You could wear those inside out. Donald's dresses you could wear inside out!

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