Date: American, 1924 - 2016

Biography: James Galanos was an American designer who chose to work outside the mainstream of American fashion. For almost 50 years he designed and produced elegant and disciplined clothes in southern California, far from the couture ateliers of Paris. Yet his ready-to-wear clothes were comparable to couture garments in the superb quality of their materials and workmanship. His early career spanned New York (where he was assistant to Hattie Carnegie), Paris (Robert Piguet), and Hollywood (Jean Louis at Columbia Pictures). Galanos opened his own business in 1951, surrounding himself with some of the world's most talented craftspeople, many of them trained in Europe or in the Hollywood film costume studios.