Stephen Burrows

Stephen Burrows 1943–

Fashion designer

Stephen Burrows, called “one of the most audacious and auspicious talents in contemporary fashion” by Contemporary Fashion, was one of the first African Americans to become famous as a fashion designer, after Ann Lowe. He spent the 1970s, clothing a great portion of New York City and beyond. He made clothes that made a woman feel beautiful and considered his work“art.”

Burrows was born September 15, 1943 in Newark, New Jersey. He came to the field of fashion design honestly, starting to make clothes with his grandmother when he was very young. He enjoyed helping his grandmother sew so much, that when the time came for him to choose a profession it seemed natural to follow his textile creativity into design. In order to do that, he attended first the Philadelphia Museum College of Art and later went to New York City to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

In 1968 after graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology, Burrows opened a boutique in New York City with a partner. Around the same time, in 1969, he obtained employment with the prestigious Henri Bendel clothing store on Fifth Avenue whose upper floors are home to the work of the fashion world’s top designers. The NY.com web site said that Henri Bendel is a place only for those women with “a strong heart and a robust bank account.” There he designed clothing that made him “the quintessential fashion expression of the 1970s in a disestablishment sensibility, young nonchalance, and unfailing insistence on looking beautiful,”said Contemporary Fashion. In 1974 he stopped work at Bendel to try his hand with a more mainstream clothing firm, but in 1977 he returned to Henri Bendel, preferring to work in an environment where he could be creative without barriers.

The mainstream company had been afraid of risks and would only purchase cheap, artificial materials. This situation frustrated Burrows because he did not want to make safe and boring clothing with imitative and mundane materials. To him clothing is an art, and the best designs, while borrowing ideas from existing compositions, are still daring and make a statement. They are also patterned out of the most comfortable and luxurious materials available, making women feel slinky and feminine while at the same time evoking a mood of playfulness. “I make colorful adult toys because I think fashion should have a sense of humor, and I want people to be happy in my clothes,” Burrows told Contemporary Fashion. Burrows

At a Glance…

Born September 15, 1942 in Newark, NJ. Education: Attended Philadelphia Museum College of Art, 1961-62; attended fashion design, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City, 1964-66.

Career: Fashion designer, Weber Originals, New York, 1966-67; designer, Allen & Cole, c. 1967-68; co-founder, proprietor, “O” boutique, 1968; in-house designer, Henri Bendel store, New York City, 1969-73; founder-director, Burrows, Inc., New York City, 1973-82; designer, Henri Bendel, 1977-82, 1993-; designer, ready-to-wear design, 1989; designer, custom design, 1990; designer, Tony Lambert Co., 1991. Exhibition:Versailles Palace, 1973.

Awards: Coty American Fashion Critics, “Winnie” Award, 1973, 1977, and Special Award, 1974; Council of American Fashion Critics Award, 1975; Knitted Textile Association Crystal Ball Award, 1975.

Addresses: Office –550 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10013.

rows was obviously not meant to be a mass market designer. His pieces were originals, one-of-a-kind items. In fact, later in his career he began insisting on making only one-of-a-kind dresses. His reasons? “Why not?”he told the Neu; York Times, “I have plenty of ideas-I don’t have to repeat myself.”

By the mid-1970s, Burrows was a Coty-Award winning designer who was also chosen, in 1973, as one of only 5 designers to represent American fashion at the world famous fashion show at Versailles. His clothing, well accepted at the show, proved to have a sexy, playful, and daring feel. He became famous for dresses that were made from clingy materials such as velour or jersey made into asymmetrical designs, using the bias cut, zigzag seams, and shirring to create startling and fun effects. He liked clothing that made a woman stand out in a crowd, and he received inspiration from just about everything found in American culture, but especially the American craze for sports and athletic events. This influence can be seen most evidently in some of his separates—skirts made out of comfortable, soft fabrics with elastic waistlines, and tops to match with large buttons and a relaxed feel that could be worn buttoned all the way up or left partly open for a flirtatious effect. He was also influenced by modern art. When he designed a dress made out of jersey with a large circular hole at the midriff, some people saw graphic modernism in his creation. “’Designers were inspired by two-dimensional art-like Stephen Burrows and Pop Art,’ Mr. Martin, exhibit curator, said to theNew York Times, ’I am not saying that he was doing Jasper Johns’s targets, but that there was something about a big circle that was in the air.’”

In the 1980s Burrows stepped back a bit from the fashion spotlight. Writers, in fact, penned articles in which they praised Burrows’s individuality while also mourning his recent absence from the world of fashion design. The New York Times stated, “[f]inancial success [is not] the only measure of fashion greatness. Can anyone really say that Ralph Lauren is a better designer than Stephen Burrows?” And also, it asked,“But where is Stephen Burrows?” His might not be a household name, but among the knowledgeable, Stephen Burrows will always be highly praised and appreciated for his artistic creations.

In the 1990s Burrows returned wholeheartedly into the public fashion design scene, this time with a line of dresses that were both comfortable and sensual. “The dresses are sexy,” he told the New York Times,“Women should have an escort when they wear them.” In 1993 Burrows returned to Henri Bendel to design eveningwear. In 1999, Ebony gave proof to the fact that Stephen Burrows was back, and was the same designer whom people loved and missed. “Stephen Burrows designs kneelength, chiffon cocktail dress with haltered asymmetrical neckline and circular ruffle.” Back are the sexy dresses done in soft fabrics and the asymmetrical designs. A man with a gift for designing clothes that make women feel beautiful, sexy, and noticeable, may he not disappear again. The world of fashion design needs innovative and creative thinkers like Stephen Burrows to challenge the norms, and it certainly needs his beautifying influence.

—RichardMartin;

updated by Daryl F.Mallett