Gloria Sachs
Gloria Sachs
American, 1927–2012
Gloria Sachs, Fashion Designer for Working Women, Dies at 85
By DENNIS HEVESI
MARCH 15, 2012
Gloria Sachs, a fashion designer who tapped into a growing market of women seeking understated elegance in clothes as they rose to new heights in the workplace in the 1970s and ’80s, died on March 12 at her home in Manhattan. She was 85.
Her daughter, Nancy Sachs, confirmed her death.
Under her label, Gloria Sachs Designs Ltd., Ms. Sachs seized on a growing cohort of women coming out of college in the 1970s, entering the white-collar workplace and searching for clothing that would be stylish and comfortable while also being appropriate for the office.
Among an array of designs, she came up with ankle-length skirts; tailored silk shirts precisely matched to gabardine pants; and linen and Dacron suits and jackets that could be combined with a print shirt or a print kilt.
She offered shirts that could be worn one over the other, with the sleeves of the one on top rolled up. Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus were among the stores that sold her line.
Gloria Sachs Designs was in operation from 1970 to 1994, a period when the percentage of women in professional and management jobs showed significant increases.
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“Coming out of a new movement in the ’60s and ’70s, Gloria was one of the first female designers to influence the way women dress,” said Stan Herman, a former president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “She created every piece of the wardrobe that a woman would want — coats, suits, sweaters, dresses — that wove in the intricacies of fabric, cut and silhouette.”
The designer Mary Ann Restivo said Ms. Sachs “had a lot of elegant women looking forward to wearing her clothing.”
“There were lot of soft, longer skirts sought by businesswomen who wanted to look more feminine than wearing a very tailored suit,” she said.
For Ms. Sachs, that was an evolution from her earlier days creating clothes for younger markets. “I had designed junior clothes and preteen clothes, and I decided it was time to let the clothes grow up with me,” she said in 1972, two years after starting her line for women.
Gloria Mildred Wasserman was born in Manhattan on Feb. 17, 1927, to Jacob and Sylvia Wasserman, and grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y. Her father was an accountant.
After graduating from Skidmore with a degree in fine arts in 1947, Ms. Sachs studied textile design at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She then went to Paris to become an apprentice to the modernist artist Fernand Léger and to be a fashion model.
Returning to New York in 1951, Ms. Sachs was hired by Bloomingdale’s, where she rose to fashion coordinator. In 1958 she opened Red Barn, a clothing design company for preteenagers that preceded the founding of Gloria Sachs Designs.
Besides her daughter, Ms. Sachs is survived by a son, Charles; two sisters, Betsy Lodwick and Joan Schwimmer; and three grandchildren. Her marriage to Irwin Sachs, who died before her, ended in divorce.
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