Klein

Anne (1921-1974). American designer. Born Hannah Golofski in New York, she was considered a pioneer and champion of women’s sportswear. She began working on 7th Avenue selling her sketches while still in her teens, and in 1937 joined Varden Petites as designer of the children’s line. In 1938 she married Ben Klein with whom she founded Junior Sophisticates. She founded Anne Klein & Co. in 1968, which was sold to the Japanese firm Takihyo in 1973. The brand quickly achieved a reputation in the 1970s for smart career clothes for the college-educated women then entering the job market in droves. At her death in 1974 the artistic direction of the label passed into the hands of Donna Karan and Louis Dell’Olio, who designed the line to great acclaim until Karan left to found her own company in 1985, and then by Dell’Olio on his own until 1993. Currently designed by Charles Nolan, Anne Klein remains a commercially powerful brand with a venerable history based on its founder’s original belief that many women wanted a smartly tailored and well-made Collection of separates not modeled on a man’s wardrobe, but as powerfully simple as one.