Evening gowns

The Bergdorf Goodman Custom Salon dressed an international roster of celebrities, from actors to models, elite society and European royalty, as well as New York royalty including the Vanderbilt and Astor families. Bergdorf’s salon was a very prominent fashion destination for the wealthy to have custom clothing fitted each year. Clients would shop based on their social calendar in advance and would have their picks at the looks from the pre-selected collections. Ladies then were able to customize size, color, and details on garments, which can be seen in the sketches. There would then be a series of fittings and a finished garment would average a month to complete.

Dress Sets

Owner Edwin Goodman and his son Andrew Goodman, along with head buyer Ethel Frankau, would travel to Paris and purchase garments which were also called ‘bonded models’ that were made to act as reference for copying and adapting to the desires of Bergdorf clients. Along with the bonded models (garment samples) they would receive a référence which lists what went into the garments, where to purchase the materials and cheaper alternatives.

During this time, Bergdorf’s would import eighty to a hundred couture models from every Paris season. Copies were made from the singular prototype delivered from the respective fashion houses. 

The fashion being presented at collection shows was purchased by buyers to be authentically reproduced and sold in American stores like Bergdorf’s. It was not the standard for fashion ateliers to produce every garment. By selling to Bergdorf’s, brands were able to make their designs accessible to international consumers.

Coats

Fashion author, tastemaker, and photographer Cecil Beaton reported that the Duchess of Argyll “admitted her clothes are a result of inordinate care and thought, that she buys them in New York because they are of better value, but goes to Paris to keep her eye in... Custom customers have their own saleswomen (referred to as salesladies) and fitters. They select a wardrobe in the privacy of a fitting room overlooking Central Park.”

Cocktail Dresses

The reproduction of haute couture had already been happening for decades in the United States. One of FIT’s founding fathers, Max Meyer, was buying for American cloak and suit manufacturer A. Beller & Co. and started officially licensing garments to be reproduced by their ready-to-wear operations in New York before the turn of the century.  Licensing became an important source of business for couture houses, granting department stores and manufacturers in America the right to authentically copy haute couture. Licensing also affected the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, which went through changes in regulations as high fashion moved into the commercial realm and struggled to maintain the exclusivity of the world of couture.

Suits

During the Custom Salon era, Bergdorfs' advertising was mainly done in fashion magazines. Until the 1960s, Vogue magazine was bimonthly and Bergdorf’s had the first page in every issue from 1932 until the late 1980’s, with rotating advertisements for the Salon with outfits made by European designers or their in-house designers. Other advertisements included custom clothing and hats, ready-to-wear, Bergdorf kids, Miss Bergdorf, and The Fur Salon. Bergdorf’s also owned the anchor advertisement (first page) for the majority of the year during the 1950’s in Harper’s Bazaar. Along with paid advertisements, free publicity came from when designs would be referenced as the source for garments featured in editorial photoshoots.

Day Dresses

“There was just simply nothing even resembling Bergdorf Goodman in Paris. Wonderful little shops scattered over the city, yes, but here at Bergdorf Goodman all these wonderful little shops stocked with the finest produce of Europe and America were right under one roof. A lady could get not only the loveliest of gowns custom-made to her measurements and personality, but the girdle and the lingerie to wear under it, the furs to wear over it, the custom hat to go with it, hundred dollar shoes, every accessory her little heart could desire, even perfume.” 

— Booton Herndon, author of Bergdorf’s on the Plaza

Pantsuits

As casual dress became more widespread in the 1960s, the need for changing from day to night clothing became less common. Evening clothing became less formal and full glamour was reserved for only the most important social engagements. Women in pants had been on the rise, and by this time was majorly accepted in a variety of styles. Trousers opened up many new fashion concepts for women, and were adapted by more casual brands up to couture menswear-inspired suits by brands such as Yves Saint Laurent. Silhouettes evolved through the 1970s to include wide-legged bell bottoms, capris, narrow cigarette cuts, pleated and wrapped, with many being available in matching set options. Sets were very popular and came in many forms: skirt sets, tailored pantsuits, trousers with matching camisoles and cardigans, and loungewear or luxurious pajama sets for evening wear. This period of time was a huge step for women’s fashion and collective identity both in society and in the workplace.

Credits

The Bergdorf Goodman Custom Salon sketch collection at Special Collections ranges in date from 1930 to 1969 and also includes millinery sketches from the 1930s. It also includes a scrapbook of sketches from the 1940s in addition to printed ephemera about the store and the Goodman family. More of the collection is viewable via SPARC Digital and the full collection may be seen in-person by appointment.

Special thank you and credit to Jill Hemingway, Masters of Arts. (Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice) for her guidance and thesis, "Bergdorf Goodman Custom Salon Sketches, 1950-1959."

Deihl, Nancy and Daniel James Cole. The Elements of Women's Fashion. In The History of Modern Fashion. Laurence King, 2015.

Hemingway, Jill. Bergdorf Goodman Custom Salon Sketches, 1950-1959. 2020. Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, Master's thesis. FIT Institutional Repository.

Herndon, Booton and Carl H. Pforzheimer. Bergdorf’s on the Plaza : the Story of Bergdorf Goodman and a Half-Century of American Fashion 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1956