Stephen Burrows
born 1943
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Stephen Burrows graduated from The Fashion Institute of Technology in 1966. Shortly thereafter, Burrows debuted his first collection of clothes at the O Boutique, strategically located across the street from the popular restaurant and nightclub, Max’s Kansas City. In 1970, he met Stultz, who was then the president of Henri Bendel. Stultz helped Burrows launch his career by offering him his own boutique within Bendel’s, to be named “Stephen Burrows World.” Immediately upon his debut at Bendel’s, Burrows was catapulted into the limelight. He was celebrated for his remarkable use of color, his eye-catching color block technique, and his sexy separates that typified the assertive woman of the 1970s.
“I just wanted to do the complete opposite of what they taught me,” Burrows once recalled. Indeed, his designs rejected many of the tenets once considered as basic to clothing design. For example, in place of button closures, Burrows’ designs employed snaps and lacing. He left his machine-stitched seams exposed and used brightly colored, zigzag stitching to draw attention to this element rather than conceal it. Instead of hemming his skirts, Burrows would stitch the edges of his garments so they wouldn’t unravel, lending an unfinished appearance to his designs and resulting in a rippled “lettuce effect” that became his signature.
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