James Galanos
Designer of elegant gowns for Nancy Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe
JAMES GALANOS, who has died aged 92, was a fashion designer to the elite whose clients included Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and – perhaps most famously – Nancy Reagan during her years as America’s First Lady. Galanos’s sheer, elegant gowns, lined with pure chiffon or silk and decorated with embroidered and beaded patterns, were created to feel as luxurious as they looked. A common saying among his acolytes was that the wearer could turn one of his creations inside-out and still exude glamour on the red carpet. Nancy Reagan wore a one-shouldered, silk satin Galanos dress for her husband’s 1981 inaugural ball, paired with diamond earrings and a pearl necklace valued at more than $100,000.
The occasion, at the height of the 1980s recession, exposed Mrs Reagan to criticism from the national press. Though it was then common practice for celebrities to borrow luxury clothes from fashion designers, some thought such behaviour unbecoming for the wife of an American president.
Galanos, a Democrat who remained staunchly apolitical in his approach towards his clients, was unperturbed by the fuss. “I wanted Nancy to look really glamorous”, he said. “She’s representing the highest office in the country, in the world.” At her second inaugural ball four years later Mrs Reagan opted for a high-necked chiffon dress, also by Galanos.
The exclusive price tag attached to most of Galanos’s output was matched by a certain personal reticence. He never courted media attention and refused to diversify into furniture design or into the more affordable high street. His aesthetic owed much to traditional French haute couture, and his fabrics were sourced on overseas jaunts to Paris, Milan, Capri and Venice. “I’m only interested in designing for a certain type of woman,” he explained. “Specifically, one that has money.”
This refusal to compromise set him at odds with the rise of cheap, fast fashion in later years. By the time he retired in 1998, Galanos had grown disillusioned with the industry’s fixation on youth and the tendency towards ever-more revealing outfits. “We’re living in a blue-jean world with itty-bitty tops,’’ he complained. Meanwhile his own designs had achieved the status of couture classics, with exhibitions at museums in Los Angeles, New York and Washington.
The only son of Greek immigrants, James Galanos was born on September 20 1924 in Philadelphia. His mother Helen and father Gregory ran a restaurant, in which James worked from a young age. His ambition from the age of seven or so, however, was to work in fashion.
He enrolled in the Traphagen School of Fashion in 1942 but dropped out after less than a year. For a time he made ends meet selling his sketches to executives on Madison Avenue for $2 a piece, before securing a position with a textile manufacturer and his wife to work on the launch of a ready-to-wear fashion business in California.
The job fell through when the couple divorced, but the husband arranged for Galanos to go to Paris, where he found work as an intern to Robert Piguet – best remembered as the mentor of Christian Dior. Returning to Los Angeles, Galanos set up his own business, Galanos Originals, in 1951 on a loan of $200.
Before long he had attracted the notice of Diana Vreeland and the admiration of starlets such as Grace Kelly. He also made a notable contribution to the fashion history of the little black dress, creating a figurehugging number for Marilyn Monroe that drew much attention for its bare chiffon midriff.
In 1954 he became the youngest designer ever to win a coveted Coty fashion award; he was elected to the Coty Hall of Fame five years later. He also began designing costumes for film and television, dressing Judy Garland and Rosalind Russell.
The latter became a close friend as well as a loyal customer, and towards the end of the actress’s life she would turn to him for dresses with sleeves designed to conceal the disfiguring effects of her treatment for cancer.
In 1983 Galanos launched his first collection for the furrier Peter Dion, employing mink, sable and broadtail fox to create dramatic, full-figured silhouettes. Top of the line was a Russian lynx belly coat with a price tag of $200,000. In order to show them off to their full advantage on the catwalk, Galanos applied the same exacting standards to his models as he did to his clothes, insisting on precise hip measurements for each participant.
Following his retirement James Galanos returned to his boyhood interest in photography, staging several exhibitions. In 2001 a plaque in his honour was laid on Seventh Avenue in New York – known as America’s “Fashion Walk of Fame”.
He never married.