NEW YORK — With Mayor Michael Bloomberg off the premises, members of the Fashion Group International pretty much had the run of Gracie Mansion at last week’s cocktail party celebrating the group’s 75th anniversary.
A quick inspection of the guests at the Federal period-designed estate practically gave away the length of their tenure. Tory Burch’s relative rookie status was evident in her of-the-moment belted sequined top and slim skirt, while decades-long members piled on the trimmings — necklaces, scarves, hats and shrugs — and in one case, all of the above.
Two non-New York-based designers, Lana Marks of Palm Beach and Pat Kerr of Memphis, faced a wintry shock, not a generational one. Both dealt with last Tuesday’s frigid evening air by keeping their fur coats on indoors. But Kerr wasn’t entirely mobile. When encouraged to purchase an historical book about Gracie Mansion, she said: “I don’t travel with money — just lipstick.”
Excluding Arnold Scaasi and some other men in attendance, the mostly female crowd seemed fitting, considering the FGI’s roots were planted in 1928 when former Vogue editor in chief Edna Woolman Chase rounded up 17 women working in fashion to talk shop over an affordable Midtown lunch. Two years later, the FGI was established by such founding and charter members as Eleanor Roosevelt, Edith Head, Claire McCardell, Dorothy Shaver and Carmel Snow with meetings held in borrowed space in Women’s Wear Daily’s offices, then at East 12th Street.
Several current members still hold fast to the group’s past. Board member Audrey Smaltz recalled the FGI’s sold-out fashion shows at the Hilton Hotel in the Seventies. Jean Barker remembered joining more than 40 years ago, while working for Eugenia Shepherd. Bernice Shaftan, a 50-year-plus member, chuckled over her reluctance to vote in favor of initiating male members. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I said, ‘If you do that, a man will be made president and a women will be secretary, and she will be sent out for coffee.”
Former FGI president Gloria Sachs recalled joining in the Fifties. “The women were fabulous, so strong and individual. The whole world was smaller and more definite. It was a great honor. It still is.”