RARE "Fashion Designer" Vera Maxwell Hand Signed 3X5 Card for Sale

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RARE "Fashion Designer" Vera Maxwell Hand Signed 3X5 Card For Sale

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RARE "Fashion Designer" Vera Maxwell Hand Signed 3X5 Card:
$299.99

Up for sale a RARE! "Fashion Designer" Vera Maxwell Hand Signed 3X5 Card. This sale includes a RARE! 3.25X4.5 Collection Photo.

ES-9219

Vera

Huppe Maxwell (April 22,

1901, New York City –

January 15, 1995, Rincón, Puerto Rico) was a

pioneering sportswear and fashion designer. Born Vera Huppe in the Bronx, Maxwell spent part of her childhood in Austria. She

attended Leonia High School in Leonia, New Jersey. She

studied ballet in New York and joined the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in 1919,

dancing until her marriage to financier Raymond J. Maxwell in 1924. Vera

and Raymond J. Maxwell has one child and divorced in 1937. Maxwell

married architect Carlisle H. Johnson in 1938 and divorced him in 1945. In the

late 1920s, Maxwell began modelling at B. Altman and other

New York City stores. As she explained, "When the opera season ended

in May, the fashion houses on Seventh Avenue were just opening their

collections. I would just walk across the street and hire on as a model." Around

1929, Maxwell began sketching for the fashion houses she modeled for. After

years of designing for other manufacturers, she founded her own company, Vera

Maxwell Originals, in 1947. Her first collection was sporty, featuring

after-ski clothes, tennis outfits, and riding apparel. Maxwell was

part of a pioneering group of American designers creating more relaxed and

quintessentially American clothing. Her contemporaries included Claire McCardell, Clare Potter, Carolyn Schnurer, and Tina Leser. Maxwell gave her clothing distinctively

American names like "Daniel Boone" for Western wear. By the 1950s,

she also was designing evening wear. Maxwell was the first American

designer to make clothes of Ultrasuede and the synthetic fabric Arnel. One of

her earliest best-sellers was a wrap blouse over a permanently pleated skirt

made of Arnel meant for travelers. In 1935, Maxwell released a

"weekend wardrobe" of two jackets, two skirts and a pair of trousers. Inspired by Albert Einstein, the jacket was collarless with four

patch pockets in tweed and gray flannel. The jacket could be mixed and matched with all

three accompanying pieces: a short pleated flannel tennis skirt, a longer tweed

skirt, and a pair of flannel cuffed trousers. In 1999, the New York Times wrote

that the "weekend wardrobe" was "so classic they could still be

worn today." In the 1940s, she designed a cotton coverall

uniform for war workers at the Sperry Gyroscope Corporation. Known as the "Rosie the Riveter"

jumpsuit or coveralls, they received an "E" for excellence

rating from the United States government. They were a forerunner of the

modern jump suit. Maxwell always created her designs in a range of sizes,

generally going up to a size 18 or 20 at a time when it was unusual for a

designer to design clothes above a size 8. Her use of wrap-and-tie closures and supple

fabrics suited a range of body types and allowed for weight fluctuations. According

to Maxwell, "The most fashionable women will always be the ones who know

themselves." Maxwell won the Coty Award in 1953. Maxwell met Grace Kelly in 1955 when they were both received Neiman Marcus Fashion

Awards and she frequently visited the Royal Family in Monaco. Maxwell designed for First Ladies Rosalynn Carter and Pat Nixon, as well as performers such as Martha Graham and Lillian Gish. By 1960, Maxwell's clothes were being

sold in 700 stores around the country. But in the 1960s, her star waned as

fashion's attention shifted to swinging London designers like Mary Quant. After the debut of an unsuccessful

collection in 1964, Maxwell withdrew from the industry. She resurfaced in 1970

with a collection that was introduced at B. Altman. She was honored in 1970 with a retrospective

at the Smithsonian Institution and

in 1980 with an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New

York. In 1975, Maxwell introduced a pull-on dress with a

stretch top and no zippers, buttons, snaps or ties. Called a speed suit,

it was a dress a woman could slip it on in 17 seconds. It was inspired by the

West German Olympic uniform and the dresses were initially priced at $99 to

$199.

Maxwell retired in 1985 and closed her company. She returned in 1986 with