Donald Brooks always did things from his own head. Hollywood and Hollywood designers influenced him, to a degree, but there was nothing derivative of Paris in his clothes. His color sense as I mentioned before was unerring.

There was one dress I remember particularly when I started buying his clothes for Saks. At the request of Adam Gimbel who was then head, I started a whole new look in the 'Park Avenue Room'.

There was a beautiful, color-blocked turquoise, shocking pink and purple blue dress that Jackie Kennedy wore on a trip to India. It was featured in Life Magazine and was superb in color. I sold about three hundred of those silk linen dresses for $69.95 which sounds like nothing today but in those days it was expensive.

Donald was very cognoscente of taste.

What I can say to all you budding designers that are here is let your imagination soar but let it be tempered by taste, which you don't see much of today. I realize I am saying that because I am a generation older than you but on the other hand I do think taste is taste and if you study Donald Brook's work you will learn a lot from that. Just think of the style icons. Style is more important than fashion. Fashion is here today and gone tomorrow but style - a woman's style and what suits her and makes her look fabulous is most important.

As a buyer I was exposed to Donald's clothes constantly, but I could never wait to get the next group of samples. Having been a model back in the early years, my husband used to say, "How can you be so excited about clothes all the time?" I couldn't wait to wear them. When you are designing, think about beauty and comfort. His eveningwear was smashing, entrance makers that read, "Doesn't that woman look beautiful!"That is the essence to me of good fashion and Donald personified that.

Certainly the gals of those days, for example, Hillary Byers Califano, Linda Hackett, Wendy Vanderbilt Wayland, Dede Auchincloss Shields, Wendy Thomas, Annette Reed de la Renta, Jean Harvey Vanderbilt and Louise Grunwald were tops in the 60's. They were my customers in the Park Avenue Room and they all wore Donald Brooks' exciting clothes at the time.

Rudy Gernreich was another favorite designer of mine. I used to say if I had a yardstick, there would be a man whose name I won't mention because he made dumb dresses in beautiful fabrics and good colors, he was at one end and Rudy Gernreich was on the other. Donald Brooks was right in the middle. The gals who wanted to look chic, zippy and to borrow a phrase from Dianna Vreeland, 'have pizzazz', wore his clothes. They didn't want to be over the top, they wouldn't go topless but they didn't want the dumb dresses that were worn by a lot of people in Locust Valley. Donald had it all. I feel he is one of the finest designers we have ever had in the US of A.

When Donald took me to the Oscars in 1969, I mentioned to my hosts, Swifty and Mary Lazar over dinner that my favorite movie star was Cary Grant.

The next night I wore Donald's marvelous white crepe pajama with the gold Egyptian rams' heads [in the exhibit] to a party where I was introduced to Mr. Grant. We had a long conversation and it was all very exciting. Needless to say, I shall never relinquish that particular pair of pajamas.

For him to do Miss Lawrence well, he did interpretations of what had been filmed and worn in the 20's and 30's. Then he put his own design stamp on it. Although it was for a movie, I think the toughest person for whom to design would have to be Gertrude Lawrence. If you knew her, it had to be not only chic but it had to have enormous style. For her role in the film he did 168 costumes.

You must know that Donald Brooks was a very important part of American fashion at that moment in time and that he was all about very good, very stylish dressing. You were dressed when you got into Donald's clothes and they were appropriate for whatever roles those women were playing. When you think of these clothes, remember that they were only part of a collection and part of his whole way of thinking.

Though he may have repeated a print that was never the whole story of a collection. Within that came a style, a look and a Donald Brooks way of being which I think is not properly recognized today. In the sense of history and in knowing about American fashion and style you've got to look into Donald more seriously.

Look at the costume design because that was a very important part of him. He never copied; he interpreted a moment in time. That difference played a big role in his talent in designing costumes.