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June Weir
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An important message that Donald had was the graphic story whether it was done in a geometric pattern or print. It is interesting that Donald Brooks designed many of the patterns himself. He had an incredible multifaceted talent. Not only able to design clothes, he saw and developed the fabrics in a very graphic way.
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Jeane Eddy |
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Donald approached design by wanting to enhance the wearer, whether it was an individual, a movie star or stage presence. He always thought of the woman and how she would look in his creations. He used clean lines and as June said, the fabric played such a large part.
So many designers pick a fabric that a manufacturer shows them and they design something from it. Donald was unique in that he created along side print designers wonderful graphic things that people would never think of having in a fabric at that time like chickens, bamboo, feathers.
These made great looking fabrics, which translated into exceptional garments. His taste was unerring and his color sense was superb.
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June Weir
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Since he did play such an important role in fabrics, the second group we decided to concentrate on is his prints. An outstanding one was his Navaho print from the early 70's.
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Gerald Blum
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Donald didn't just do 'one of a kind'. When he developed a concept there might be ten or twelve in that look. It was always a very important statement and the strength of Donald's work was that in anything he did it was always a big, bold statement.
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June Weir |
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This slide from 1964 shows one of his oversized, almost Andy Warhol 'op art' prints in flowers. Here is another oversized flower print from 1968. When Donald had a theme he carried it over a period of many years.
He loved paisleys and it was something that was very much a signature of Donald's. It lent itself to the kind of clothes that he did. He had fun with fabrics printed with all sorts of offbeat kinds of prints. I remember he did a whole series of vegetables when he was working at Townley and it was quite an amusing group.
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Bernadine Morris
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Let me say that I'm not crazy about prints but I think these are really astonishing. I'm not sure I'd wear one but I can admire them. |
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Jeane Eddy |
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I have to add that I don't like prints either so whenever I select them, they've got to be good, which Donald's were. I worked with many top designers at Saks but Donald was the king; he was the main person I promoted. All of you here in the audience are probably too young to remember a man named Henry Callahan, who was a genius and in my opinion, the finest display director there ever was.
No store windows today have anything near the impact of the windows that he did at Lord & Taylor and Saks. Henry, Donald and I used to put the windows in until midnight and people came to watch, the way they would watch for an opening on Broadway.
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Gerald Blum |
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Women did wear prints and at Lord & Taylor, we sold them. Of all the people at that time and we're talking late 50's, 60's and early 70's, the one who really did prints the best was Donald. Many designers stayed away from them because they were afraid of them. Donald wasn't, and as you can see, he really enjoyed doing them. It was a very important part of his message.
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