Frankie Welch, Boutique Owner
She turned her Alexandria, Va., boutique into a destination for the wives of politicians and diplomats..
Boutique owner Frankie Welch, who helped First Ladies, diplomats' wives and other hobnobbers in the Beltway dress stylishly for more than 40 years, has died at the age of 97.
Welch also earned national fame for her custom scarves for an array of clients including the White House, upscale retailers, corporations, universities and special clients. From the Indy 500 to McDonald's' first outpost in Paris, the designer was tapped by many to create printed scarves, designing 4,000 styles over the years. In 1968, Lady Bird Johnson recruited Welch to design a patriotic “Discover America” scarf to promote travel in the U.S. That design was given to attendees at what was the first fashion show to be held at the White House, an event that promoted thethen first lady's “Discover America” travel program, according to Welch's daughter, Peggy Welch Williams.
A private family service was held earlier this month. An exhibition of Welch's designs and life is planned for January at the University of Georgia's Athens campus, where she had done some graduate classes and subsequently donated much of her archives. Welch died Sept. 2 at the Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge, where she resided.
Before retiring to Charlottesville, Va., Welch established herself as a style setter and retailer in Alexandria, Va. In 1963, she opened her first boutique, Frankie Welch of Alexandria, in the city's Old Town neighborhood. Located in the historic Duvall
House, the location doubled as her family's home for her first eight years in business. Welch, her husband and two daughters lived upstairs in the three-story house so that she was nearby when needed.
In 1967, at the request of Virginia Rusk, whose husband Dean was the-then U.S. Secretary of State, Welch was commissioned to design “something truly American” that the White House and State Department could use as gifts. Partially Cherokee in her ancestry, Welch used Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary as a nod to Rusk's home state of Georgia, as well as her own heritage. Offered in square and rectangular versions, the scarf went through 40 printings and numerous design modifications. The “Cherokee Alphabet” scarf was always her bestseller and initial profits were donated to the Indian Education Fund, her daughter said. Framed versions of the Cherokee Alphabet were hung in a few U.S. embassies overseas and another is part of the Smithsonian's collection, which also has one of Welch's “Forward Together” scarves.
After Welch was honored at a White House luncheon for her “Discover America” scarf by Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford informed Welch, “You have to give us Republicans equal time.” Welch then created a poppy floral printed scarf for the Republican National Convention in 1968, as well as a dress, a parasol, a page's costume and other styles.
When Richard Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford succeeded him, Welch and her husband were among the small group at the White House that watched Ford be sworn in. When the Smithsonian National Museum of American History asked Betty Ford to select a dress that she had worn at