Geoffrey Beene
New York, NY 10065
USA
About
founded by
Geoffrey Beene
belongs to
Geoffrey Beene
about
In 1963 Geoffrey Beene opened Geoffrey Beene, Inc. On Seventh Avenue.
In 1969 he introduced his first Menswear Collection.
Two years later he introduced his Beene Bag Collection, a less expensive, sportier line which had a big success.
In 1988 he showed his first collection in Munich, Germany.
In 1989 he opened a retail shop on 5th Avenue in New York.
Today's Geoffrey Beene Inc. is a fashion empire comprised of women's couture and men�s and women�s ready-to-wear, men's accessories and fragrance. With a dedicated design team at company headquarters working in concert with a network of premiere licensees, the Geoffrey Beene label continues to uphold the design aesthetic that was signature Beene. The Geoffrey Beene brand is carried throughout the U.S. in better department and specialty stores, and in Geoffrey Beene outlet stores.
After Geoffrey Beene�s dead in 2004 the company continued unter the dirction of President G. Thompson Hutton, Senior Vice-President/Chief Operating Officer Russell Nardozza and Design Director Einar Holiloekk. Today, Geoffrey Beene woman's couture collection is exclusively housed at the company's atelier on 57th street in New York City under the direction of Beene prot�g� and design director Einar Holiloekk.
The Look
Beene made strong impressions with his courteous manner as well as his highly original style. On the one hand, he was a champion of minimalist design. The short, A-line dresses and body-contoured jumpsuits he was known for were marvels of cut and proportion. At the same time, his evening collections featured layers of fabrics and prints, some of them embroidered with dots and trimmed with delicate lace. Everything he designed had a hand-crafted, artisan�s quality that made more familiar-looking clothes seem predictable. Beene was among the first designers of his level to use fine-quality rayon and other synthetic fabrics for his collections, partly because they resisted wrinkles. He sometimes worked with Asian manufacturers to create his own prints. One memorable fabric reproduced the scales of a shark�s skin. Beene�s view of style was more about function than fad. He also cautioned against getting too concerned with the latest trends. His clothes were structured but never rigid and rely on the craftsmanship of careful detail. Many of his designs contained an element of fantasy. He had a casual approach to opulent fabrics, successfully blending them with less expensive materials, for example flannel trimmed with rhinestones, quilted ticking cotton with chiffon, or jersey with taffeta. He did much to blur the difference between sportswear and other clothes, like his strapless Grecian draped tennis frocks, or jogging clothes with glittering piping. He made rich and imaginative clothes and showed his creativity by designing with a relaxed elegance. From his high-priced couture collections, to his lower priced Beene Boutique and Bazaar lines, as well as his Beene Bag sportswear line, he offered flexible wardrobes of inter-related pieces. His colours could be bright and bracing like red, or earthy and subtle.