Mollie Parnis

Mollie Parnis was the designer of the First Ladies

Mollie Parnis (1905-1992). American dressmaker. After studying at Wadleigh High School in New York, she worked as an apprentice for a shirt-maker and for the clothing company David Westheim. She married a fabric designer in 1930 and together they opened a luxury ready-to-wear business aimed mostly at the older woman. It was a well-chosen target market which ensured lasting, quiet success.

She became popular thanks to her conservatory dresses, available in every store of the USA. In 1966 her business gained 3 million dollars. Her designs were regularly printed in fashion magazines like Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and a lot of articles of the magazine Life have narrated her success, claiming “When Mollie Parnis thinks a design will sell, it sells”.

Mollie Parnis is remembered especially for her close relationships and the frequent patronage of the American First Ladies. Mamie Eisenhower used to wear a lot of her clothes and collections, for example the purple gabardine outfit for the inauguration of the president Eisenhower in 1957. Also Lady Bird Johnson used to wear often Parnis’s designs because she could wear them in her hectic life and “still look like a lady”.

Mollie Parnis

Mollie Parnis was the designer of the First Ladies

Prandoni

Patou, Jean (1880-1936)