The prominent American fashion designer James Galanos, who became one of the most influential couturiers of the twentieth century, was born in Philadelphia on September 20, 1924. He was the only son in a family of immigrants who kept a restaurant in New Jersey. It was in this restaurant that he first saw exquisitely dressed women. Later, while studying and working hard, he did everything he could to achieve his dream of dressing them flawlessly in branded clothes of his own production. As a result, the richest women in the world loved the outfits created by this fashion designer. In fact, not only by his contemporaries. Learn more on philadelphianka.
Clothes for the chosen ones
James Galanos was called the favorite designer of the first lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan. For many years, the fashion designer created outfits for the wife of the 40th President of the United States. It was the clothes from this master that she chose for her first official event at the White House. In general, Mrs. Reagan’s most memorable looks were for four inaugural events: twice after her husband Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California and twice after he became president. In 2007, Nancy Reagan said in an interview with a well-known magazine that her Ronnie liked Jimmy’s clothes very much. She mentioned that wearing Galanos’ clothes meant never going overboard or to extremes because this fashion designer really set the standard. In addition, Nancy Reagan once said that Galanos’ dresses are so great that they can even be worn inside out!
James Galanos’ clothes were also chosen by the wives of the following US presidents: Jackie Kennedy and Lady Bird Johnson. Among the admirers of the famous fashion designer’s designs is a large cohort of world-renowned women: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Duchess of Windsor Wallis Simpson, Gloria Vanderbilt, Renee Zellweger, Marlene Dietrich, Rosalind Russell, Diana Ross, Dorothy Lamour, Judy Garland, Celine Dion, Ivana Trump, Kim Basinger, Nicole Kidman, Heidi Klum, Katie Holmes and many other gorgeous celebrities. Galanos has been dressing the American elite, including many supermodels, for dozens of years.
Since 1953, the designer started creating clothes for movie actresses. First, he collaborated with the American actress Rosalind Russell, one of the most stylish at the time. Eventually, her wardrobe consisted almost entirely of Galanos’ items. After Rosalind’s death, her husband handed out her legendary wardrobe to several collections across the country.
One of Galanos’ first clients was the actress Grace Kelly. In 1956, when her wedding to Prince Rainier III of Monaco was approaching, she decided that she didn’t have the right outfit. Grace called Jimmy Galanos and asked him to deliver a stunning chiffon dress in just one week. He did that!
The main accents of an unsurpassed master
For at least 40 years (from 1950 to 1990), Galanos worked inspiredly and persistently in the field of fashion. He always emphasized craftsmanship, paying attention to details and the high quality of all materials. He became famous and popular for his exquisite, elegant, and meticulously crafted women’s outfits. At the peak of his fame, James Galanos’ shows were visited by a huge number of guests and the press. Fashion historians considered him one of those designers who appear in American fashion once in a century, a designer with a special DNA. They say he never sewed jeans or created diffusion lines because his vocation was to become a luxury designer. They also added that Galanos was the only American designer of the twentieth century who studied in the post-war house of the celebrated Parisian fashion designer Robert Piguet. In addition, he was the only American designer who supported couture standards for 40 years without selling out (Galanos himself confirmed that he created clothes for a very narrow circle of people).
When Galanos founded his own company Galanos Originals in Los Angeles in 1952, professional contemporaries predicted that the most beautiful and expensive luxury in the world for a woman would be a dress by James Galanos. Many designers of the time envied the way the designer made chiffon dresses in the 1950s. From the first to the last collection, his success was provided by impeccable quality. The fashion designer paid great attention to the quality of the finished product, the fabric and all other garment components. He stood above everything and kept an eye on everything. Galanos personally traveled to Europe to buy fabrics and buttons, monitored their production, created his own fabrics in search of the best ones and made draperies on dress forms, models, etc.
From 1955 to 1998, he gathered talented artists in his ateliers, many of whom studied in Europe and worked in Hollywood. Galanos’ head tailor was Nondas Keramitsis, under whose direction a well-coordinated team of more than 20 tailors always worked manually.
Success does not necessarily require Paris
He knew how to do his best and did everything himself in his favorite business. Galanos proved that success does not necessarily require Paris. To make amazing couture clothes, Los Angeles was a perfect fit for him. James Galanos turned out to be one of those who firmly put this city and his native country on the global fashion map. If the designer’s works were compared to anyone else’s, they were only the representatives of high French fashion.
Galanos refused much, and he started much. For him, elegance was first and foremost a refusal of excess. Therefore, it is said that discovery is something that no woman has ever felt in a Galanos design. Although it was really unnecessary there. After all, simple shapes, despite the technical complexity of their execution, became perfection.
James Galanos has never aspired to many clients, the press, or fashion shows. It suited him to make perfect clothes with features of chastity and genius for a certain devoted circle of people. He once even said that he was interested in designing for a specific type of woman, particularly one with money. While some of his other contemporaries worked for the mass brand market, creating less expensive collections and providing work to licensing companies, Galanos designed expensive luxury clothing, becoming well-known and respected in the American fashion industry for a long time. He always felt the privilege of his clothes. According to experts, Galanos produced unsurpassed glamor and absolute luxury.
The designer is dead, but his dresses live on
Throughout his career, Galanos has received numerous fashion awards, including being the youngest designer to win the Coty Fashion Award in 1954. In 1982, Galanos was also inducted into the International Best Dressed People Hall of Fame. In 1985, he was awarded the Council of Fashion Designers of America Award. Galanos was one of the first American designers to be honored with a bronze plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame on New York’s Seventh Avenue. Exhibitions are still held in his honor, and his designer clothes are in the collections of museums in the United States (including the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and other countries.
In 2016, a month before the designer’s death, the James G. Galanos Foundation donated a huge archive to the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection of the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University in Philadelphia. It included numerous high-quality couture sets, accessories, sketches and photos. The designer’s works from 1960 to 1998 became available not only for public viewing but also for study by students and scholars. In 2018, Drexel University commemorated the late designer with an exhibition based on items from his personal archive, which was permanently placed in the institution’s fashion department.
During his life, Galanos approved only two licenses for the manufacture of his products: furs and perfumes. In 1998, he stepped away from the industry, which he believed had become irrevocably meaningless.
“How many women can wear just a patch over their crotch and a bra?” he asked in an interview with Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) called the “Bible of fashion.” “Aren’t you embarrassed when you see a young girl walking down the street practically naked?”
In the same significant year of 1998, James Galanos was asked what he considered the peak of his career.
James Galanos thought that the most important thing was to maintain what he started doing and never deviate from quality.
“The highlight of my career is simply existing for 46 years,” he answered.
The last years of the fashion designer, who made many women happy with his outfits (by the way, he was never married), were spent in California. He died in 2016 at the age of 92 at his home in West Hollywood. However, his vintage dresses live on to this day, and not just live on; they are popular in the highest circles around the world.