Geoffrey Beene

GEOFFREY BEENE (A MAN OF VERSATILITY & EXCELLENCE):

There are certainly very few personalities exist in this world which is multi talented with various hidden skills which get enhanced by time. These people always do a remarkable job with new ideas and innovations and always stand firm ahead of the competition.

Geoffrey Beene is a man of versatility and excellence in fashion style clothing for men. This talented personality was born on 30th August 1927 in small town of Haynesville in Louisiana. He was among the top creative American designers of New York famous for his unique, comfortable and classy women’s wear.

He belonged to the doctor’s family so he studied medicine in order to fulfill the desires and ambitions of his family. He took admission at university of Tulane but after sometimes abandoned his medical degree due to lack of interest in that particular field. Then, Beene moved to LA and studied fashion design from the University of Southern California.

He also worked in Los Angeles clothing store for shining his design skills. He moved to NYC for attending the Traphagen School of Fashion .By the year 1948, he moved to Paris for attending the Ecole da la Syndicate d’ Haute Couture. Later in 1951, he moved back to New York to work for Teal Traina for the period of 2 years.

He opened his own company in 1962, under the name of Geoffrey Beene Inc, in New York City in partnering with Leo Orlandi belonged to Teal Traina in a showroom located at South Avenue in Manhattan. He was given the Coty American Fashion Critics Award, which is regarded as one of the prominent awards in the field of fashion after one year.

His first collection was published on the cover page of Vogue Magazine.

In 1965, he received the Neiman Marcus award. Successively, in 1986 and 1987 Geoffrey won the Designer of the Year Award from the Council of American Fashion Designers. In the year 1992, he received the Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design. He achieved the Silver Slipper Award for exceptional creativity in fashion in 1993.

There are a huge number of brands and products which were designed by this company for instance bed sheets and eye glasses. He introduced women bag line wear in 1971.He changed his trend by starting men’s wear clothing in 1976 together with all different varieties of brand items such as jewelry, scarves, swimwear, sportswear, handbags, shoes, spectacles, lounge wear, hosiery, bedding, towels and fragrances for both men and women. He also opened his retail shop for furniture design at fifth avenue New York. His famous collections of fragrances are as follows:

• Geoffrey (1971)
• Grey Flannel for men (1975)
• Red (W) (1976)
• Bowling green for me (1987)
• Chance (W) (1994)
• Eau de Grey Flannel (1996)
• Geoffrey Beene (1998)

All the fragrances describe the touch of elegance, luxury and sophistication with seductive and sensual attitude.

He used less expensive fabrics such as sweatshirt and denim for evening dress design. Beene became the first American designer to display his collections in Milan; Italy in 1976.He also had his shows in Paris, Vienna, Beijing and Brussels. He was also one of the first American designers to have a chain of boutiques in Europe and Japan.

This triumph showed him way to sixth Coty award happened in the year 1977, for promoting American fashion overseas. In 1982, he achieved his eight Coty Award for his excellence in fashion industry. In June 2000, Beene was among the first eight designers which made him to be introduced into the Fashion Center Walk of Fame. He provided the shape of contemporary, wearable, noticeably American clothing.

Geoffrey Beene had always given particular attention to small details of fabric designing like belts, wrist buttons etc. His creations often looked to the past Victorian era and he liked to combine fabrics such as wool, linen, silk and satin.

He always applied new method of designing and kept on experimenting on synthetic fiber. He combined satin, wool and laces for crafty designed suits and evening men wear. He was much curious and keen to discover texture and outline for fabric.

This artistic man died at the age of 77 on 29th Sept 2004.His endeavors regarding the fashion industry could not be easily forgotten as he was a wonderful fashion designer of the present era.