Labels

Al Rosenthal’s was an Oklahoma store Al Rosenthal operated between 1915 and 1952. He worked as a buyer for Kaufman’s for three years before opening his own clothing store and retired in 1952 after selling the store to the Weiss Brothers.

Written by Vintagiality

Azzedine Alaïa (1940 – 2017) opened his ready-to-wear business in Paris in 1980, after having worked at Mugler, Guy Laroche, and Dior. He was known for his work in knits and Lycra, especially that done in the mid 1980s. His designs were generally made from black or dark solid colors, and his dresses were tight, showing off every curve. Many feature a deeply scooped back.

There is nothing more beautiful than a healthy body dressed in wonderful clothes. – Azzedine Alaïa

Written by Fuzzylizzie

Albertina Giubbolini (1921-2009) founded her atelier in Rome in 1952 and began showing her work in 1957 at showcases in the Pitti Palace. By the 1960s her reputation was firmly established, selling to high end boutiques in Paris and London as well as Saks, Lord and Taylor and Bloomingdales in the US. She was referred to by the fashion press as the “Magician of Knitwear” and the “Italian Chanel”. Her clients included Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and Liv Ulmann. In the 1980s, twelve examples of her work became part of the Permanent Collection of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The brand still exists today and continues to produce high-end fashion knitwear.

Written by PoppysVintageClothing

Larry Aldrich (1906-2001) was an American manufacturer of women’s clothing. Aldrich began making clothing in 1927 but his own name didn’t appear on labels until the 1940s. Larry Aldrich clothing was stylish, but not fashion-forward. Styles from Paris were adapted to have a more conservative sensibility. He was a collector of modern art, and in the late 1960s was known for using Op Art fabrics that he had designed for him.

In 1957 Aldrich became very involved in art collecting, and made Marie McCarthy (who had been with the firm since 1943) the head designer. By the mid to late 60s, the label read “Marie McCarthy for Larry Aldrich.” In 1964 he founded The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut and supported many American artists early in their careers including Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Cy Twombly. In 1972, Aldrich retired from the clothing business selling it to Lew Prince. The label became simply, “Aldrich.”

Written by Fuzzylizzie

Jeannette Hunt Alexander Hyland was the daughter of designer Peggy Hunt. Alexander got her start in the clothing business during WWII when she thought she might be able to make money mass manufacturing shoulder pads. Based in Los Angeles, she was able to acquire hard to find fabric in New York and used it to make her shoulder pads. She sold them to department stores and manufacturers across the United States.

Just after the war she began her own label, around 1947 or 1948. Her first line was a simple collection of skirts, then she added a few dresses. Within a short time she developed a full line that was successful until the early seventies when she retired. Jeannette Alexander is most noted for her lovely print day dresses.

Thanks to Jeannette Alexander’s daughter, Jacqui Hyland, for this information.

Alice of California was founded in 1925 by Krist Gudnason, an orphan from Iceland who worked on a fishing boat for three years before “jumping ship” and escaping to Norway, where he did well as a door-to-door salesman. He immigrated to the US and arrived in New York without a dime to his name. He then made his way to the West Coast, sold dead stock from a dry goods house in Portland, Oregon, and eventually moved to Los Angeles where he started his own Lady Alice Dresses in 1925. Shortly thereafter, the Lil’ Alice label was added.

In the 1930s Carolyn Perena became lead designer at Alice, defining a new resort look reflecting her love of exotic prints and According to California Stylist magazine, “her allegiance to four basic standards: Colorful, casual, comfortable and Californian.” By 1947 Gunderson opened a four-story factory at a new industrial park in San Francisco.

In the early 1960s, the Lady Alice and Lil’ Alice lines were discontinued, and the Alice, Alice Polynesian and Krist lines replaced them.

See Also: Krist

Written by Mary Catherine Lamb

Alix of Miami was one of the many manufacturing businesses that sprang up in Miami, Florida in the mid 20th century. In the post-World War II period, the city of Miami, Florida became a leader in the development of “modern” mid 20th Century design. The city’s location lent itself to modernism with a twist of tropical.

Alix of Miami made beautiful cocktail and dinner dresses with a tropical edge. They also made glamorous swimsuits, which were often studded with rhinestones.

Not much is known about the company. Two of the important figures in the business were Alix Schneidman and Luther V. Powell, who later worked at Serbin, another Miami clothing manufacturer. We believe the company was open from the early 1950s into the 1960s.

Written by fuzzylizzie

Jean Allen was a London model house, much like Frank Usher, Susan Small etc. They did nice frocks for reasonable prices, a popular type of company which emerged in the 1950s and who were fairly successful until the high street boom of the late 1970s.

“There was an actual Jean Allen who controlled the fashion house, at Cavendish Square London, she was married to a Mr Parry Billings who was instrumental in the day to day decisions. I only know this as I worked there in 1975. They used to source all their models from the London College of fashion, Mr Billings always said that their girls knew how to walk properly!, they had a factory in Italy where their designs came to life.” Sue Irving

Written by emmapeelpants and Sue Irving

Bernhard Altmann first entered the textile trade in Vienna in 1915; in 1919 he founded his knitwear manufacturing business there. His company was very successful and it grew to employ 1000 people by 1938. But in that year the German Anschluss put his business under pressure, and he fled to London. His brother was taken prisoner by the Nazis and Altmann was forced to sign over the business in return for his release.

Altmann started a factory in Liverpool in 1938, which he had to abandon in 1939 as a result of the U.K. Enemy Alien Act of 1939 in which all nationals of enemy countries had to withdraw from coastline cities in three days after the declaration of war. They did not distinguish between Germans and displaced Austrian Jews, whose country had been absorbed into Germany.

After Liverpool, he immigrated to the United States, where he co-ventured a company in Fall River, R.I.. After two years he lost control of this last of his assets. In 1941 Altmann moved to New York, where he took a job at $50 a week. On March 3, 1943 he started a yarn trading company with a capital of $1250, which flourished.

The cashmere business started only in 1947, when he added the cashmere fiber line after a visit to Bermuda, where he learned that the delivery times of the Scottish manufacturers was over eighteen months, unheard of in the textile business. That business was built on a re-established Vienna factory, and another factory in Texas. By 1951 his U.S. company outsold all the Scottish manufacturers.

After Bernhard Altmann’s retirement in 1955, his successor first lost control of the Vienna business, and then sold off the U.S. operations to McGregor-Doniger in the 1970s. The trademark is still held by McGregor, which produces menswear under the Altmann label.

Alyce Designs was established in 1967 by Alyce Hamm, who trained as a costume designer at the prestigious Paris Ecole de Couture along with her brother Jean-Paul Hamm. Alyce Designs is still family owned and run. The company specializes in evening, pageant, prom, and bridal wear.

Alyce Designs dresses have been worn in several movies and television shows. Various representatives of the titles of Miss USA, Miss France, Miss Universe, and Miss World have worn Alyce Designs gowns.

Written by coutureallurevintage.com

As a breakaway movement from the United Garment Workers, the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America was founded in 1914. The catalyst was a bitter 1910 strike in Chicago, involving AFL United Garment Workers (UGW) and Hart Schaffner and Marx, their employer. The settlement negotiated by the UGW was not acceptable by many of the strikers and 45,000 garment workers city-wide walked off their jobs. By the 1914 UGW convention, 2/3 of the membership broke ties with the AFL’s UGW and formed the ACWA.

The ACWA grew rapidly under the leadership of Sidney Hillman, who was president for 30 years. By the 1920s, it became the predominant union manufacturing men’s clothing in the United States, operating in major textile-producing cities. The 1946 death of Hillman was a setback for the union, but it continued through the mid 1970s. The 1976 merger with the Textile Workers of America formed the the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, and in 1995 another merger (this time with the ILGWU) lead to the creation of UNITE.

See also Union Labels

Ronald Amey (1932-1986) was the head designer for Burke-Amey.

Written by The Vintage Fashion Guild

See Also: Burke-Amey

Hardy Amies (1909-2003) began his career in fashion at Lachasse in 1934, where he was designer, and after 1935, managing director. During the war he designed British Utility clothing which conformed to the strict fabric saving rules of wartime. He started his own couture house, Hardy Amies Ltd. in 1946, and added ready-to-wear in 1950.

In 1951, Amies designed dresses for Princess Elizabeth’s tour of Canada. After she became Queen, she appointed Amies as the Royal Dressmaker in 1955. Among the many royal and aristocratic ladies, his clientele also includes the actresses Vivien Leigh, Deborah Kerr, the Duchess of Devonshire, Princess Michael of Kent and Barbara Cartland.

Hardy Amies designed Deborah Kerr’s costumes for the 1960 film The Grass Is Greener, in which she starred with Cary Grant. He also designed Tony Randall’s costumes in 1965’s The Alphabet Murders, the costumes for 1962’s The Amorous Prawn, and most famously the costumes in the 1968 cult film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

He went on to become the first women’s designer to start a men’s line in 1959.
Amies was known for his beautiful tailoring, especially in wool and structured silks. The designer was particularly fussy about waistlines on ladieswear, lowering jacket waistlines on women’s suits, thought all elegant clothes should have low waistlines, cut his clothes just above the hip.

Amies sold his business in 2001, and Jacques Azagury was appointed the new designer. Since 2003, the collection has been designed by Ian Garlant.

Carol Anderson is a still-active (as of May 2020) designer of womens’ clothing who started her namesake clothing line, Carol Miller California, from the garage of her Burbank home in 1977 together with her husband, Jan Janura, with a start-up fund of $800.00. She received breakthrough exposure with an order from Nordstrom later that same year.

Over the subsequent 25 years her collections were carried by Bloomingdale’s department stores as well as Nordstrom, and by specialty private boutiques across the United States.

Her work is found under the labels Carol Anderson California, Carol Anderson Collection, and more recently, CAbi, a multi-level marketing operation launched in 2002. CAbi operates in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. according to information found online. Sales are made in private homes by independent private sales agents called “Stylists.” The organization also has a charitable foundation dedicated to improving the lives of women entrepreneurs with microloans, among other activities.

Written by Linda Gile Acosta, Ysabel Vintage Online

Andrade Resort Shops were established and owned by husband and wife team Richard and Selma Wheeler in the 1950s. By 1970 there were eleven stores throughout the Islands of Hawaii. Much of the stores’ merchandise was made in Hawaii by other well-known Hawaiian firms such as Alfred Shaheen and Kahala.

The Andrade Resort Shops were known for their colorful clothes – colors that reflected those of the Islands.

Written by fuzzylizzie

Alfred Angelo was established in the early 1930s by founders Alfred Angelo Piccione and his wife Edythe Vincent Piccione. They were a maker of mainly bridal dresses, but they also produced other evening wear and prom dresses. Into the 2010s they were one of the largest producers of bride’s dresses in the world. In 2017 the company abruptly filed for bankruptcy and closed their sixty stores.

Written by Fuzzylizzie

The Ann Colby trademark was registered in 1941 by Colby Classics, a Boston wholesale manufacturer of women’s clothing located in the heart of the garment district in the art deco Hudson building on 75 Kneeland St. They were sold at Filene’s, Jordan Marsh, Marshall Field and other department stores across the country. Many of their dresses were in pastel colors and were embroidered at the hip pockets and had pearls and sequins at the neckline. Ann Colby frequently used “Tropic Sea-Lin”, a linen-look viscose that was said to be guaranteed washable, crease-resistant, preshrunk. The company was dissolved in 1980.

Written by Vintagiality

Anna Modeller was founded in 1958 in Torshälla, Sweden by Titti Wrange and her husband Bobbo and later established itself in Åhus in 1960. As children, her sister Lisa Larson, a famous ceramics designer, and Titti loved to draw clothes. Both wanted to be fashion designers, but only one of them realized her childhood dream.

Titti initially started making hats which became a huge success. After having her first child, she realized that there were no fun baby clothes so she created her own collection which became an even greater success and continued to be for many years.

While at the maternity ward, expecting her second son Jens, Titti brought rag sock yarn and a crochet hook to have something to do. She knit a whole cardigan in heather gray and edged in black, like a jacket. She wore it while visiting another prominent fashion designer, Katja of Sweden. At Katja’s home, Titti met people from the Olsson’s fashion house in Malmö who loved her work and started selling it, resulting in a large order.

Anna Modeller outgrew the place in Torshälla and needed a larger house to continue operations. In 1960, Titti and Bobbo moved to a large yellow villa in Åhus to be closer to both their partner and friend, Katja of Sweden, and to the sea. Full production of Titti’s collections was up and running in a couple of days thanks to some of her employees moving with her.

Anna Modeller became one of Sweden’s most successful fashion companies with shows in New York, Paris, and London. They built a factory that was completed in the early 1970s and at its peak, employed about 70 women. The US craze for stripes and fresh designs lasted throughout the decade but the recession came and with it, the US began backing up their own clothing designers. At the same time, the textile industry in Sweden found it increasingly difficult to cope with competition from low-wage countries. Anna Modeller produced their clothes in Sweden until the last textile factory closed down. In the 80s, they moved production first to Finland and then to Portugal. Anna Modeller stopped making children’s clothing in the 80s due to large chains entering the industry with cheaper clothing and customers not wanting to buy more expensive albeit quality pieces. By then, her women’s clothing had become a trendsetter. Through the years, Titti won many awards for her innovative clothes.

Annacat was the Biba of The Brompton Road, being formed in 1965 by friends Janet Lyle and Maggie Keswick. Although little is known about the origins of the boutique, it is easy to show the sense of fun and youthful enthusiasm which encapsulates the Boutique Movement through the designs of Annacat. They were highly favoured by British Vogue (something which Biba and Mary Quant struggled with throughout the 1960s, despite their fame and obvious charms), and the two female designers would appear to have been very ‘in’ with the London scene at the time – which might explain their favoured status. There is a real sense of fun and decadence about their pieces, regularly trimmed in ostrich feathers, printed in feminine, swirling psychedelics and with historically influenced, sexy shapes.

The shop also stocked concessions by other designers (such as Patrick Lichfield), amongst the Lyle and Keswick pieces. Apparently, the boutique was the first London outlet for Laura Ashley in the late 1960s – before her own shop opened on the Fulham Road. In 1968, a New York Annacat was opened on Madison Avenue.

Annacat was sold wholesale in 1970, as presumably there weren’t enough customers clamouring for sequin trimmed dungarees(!), and failed to continue with the critical success of the early years with a different designer at the helm. From being a seemingly permanent fixture in Vogue throughout the late 1960s, I haven’t seen anything of them in my 1970s editions. Perhaps proving that the main reason they were so successful in the first place had been the personality of the two young party girls who started it!

Written by emmapeelpants

Anokhi was founded in 1970 by a British/Indian couple Faith and J.P. ‘John’ Singh, in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. It began mainly as an export company, primarily to the UK, specializing in garments and textiles made by local craftspeople, using traditional printing techniques with hand-carved wooden blocks and vegetable dyes. As well as reviving Rajasthan’s hand printing tradition, they also use appliqué, embroidery, patchwork and bead work in their designs. In this way they provide a livelihood for local artisans, while ensuring these skills survive. The Anokhi Hand Printing Museum was founded in 2002, dedicated to the art of block printing.

Written by RetroRuthUK