Dressing America : tales from the garment center

Date
Mar 13, 2024
5:30 PM | Bar opens
6:30 PM | Program
7:30 PM | Dinner
Location
skylight gallery
Admission
Open to Coffee House, Salmagundi members, and their guests
Eventbrite RSVP required
Program is FREE to attend
You will have the option of RSVP-ing for the event alone, or for both the event and dinner. A la carte dinner is paid separately (card only).
For any questions, please email Julian Tepper at coffeehouseclub@hotmail.com or call (917) 519-2594.
A group of men push racks of garments and smile.

About the Event

Salmagundi members are invited to an extraordinary evening with the Coffee House Club, as Phyllis Dillon screens Dressing America: Tales from the Garment Center. As always, the conversation and conviviality will continue over dinner downstairs after the program.

New York’s fashion district — otherwise known as the Garment Center — has always held sway over the imaginations of the style-conscious and those seeking glamour. This little slice of Manhattan has nurtured the likes of retailers and designers — from Hattie Carnegie to Donna Karan — in their quest to create world-class fashions that have made generations of Americans feel and look stylish. It has also provided employment for countless metropolitan area residents and it continues to draw visitors from around the world — many of whom come to study at the prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology.

With the generous support of the Leon Levy Foundation, Pacific Street Films has produced the documentary, Dressing America, telling the story of an often overlooked side of this colorful and vibrant industry — an industry which provided opportunities for countless entrepreneurs, largely Jewish, who blended business acumen with artistic flair — doing for American style what their counterparts in Hollywood did for the cinema. Rich in storytelling and sumptuous visual detail, Dressing America encompasses one-hundred-fifty years of fashion history, populated by pioneering, larger-than-life characters. Some names are familiar: Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Levi Strauss, Hickey-Freeman, and [Lyman] Bloomingdale. Others like Nettie Rosenstein, Hattie Carnegie and Gilbert “Adrian” Greenburg are less known by their names than by their innovations: the black dress, the marketing of American “high style,” and Hollywood as a source of fashion inspiration.

Dressing America was conceived by Phyllis Dillon and co-produced with Pacific Street Films with major funding from the Leon Levy Foundation. Shown in film festivals and on PBS, Ms. Dillon concentrated her research on the history of the apparel industry after over 30s years in museums as a textile conservator and arts administrator and is also a published author on the subject.

Hungry?

Ticketed guests are welcome to stay for dinner by indicating so in their Eventbrite RSVP.

There will be an a la carte menu to choose from. You can pay for your meal with a card or your membership account (no cash).

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