Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich (1922-1985) was a fashion designer and gay activist.

Related Topics:
1922 - 1985

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He was an Austrian who fled Hitler at age 16, to find success as a fashion designer in the USA. In his early career he was a dancer, with the Lester Horton company around 1945.

Related Topics:
Austria - Hitler - Fashion designer - USA - Lester Horton - 1945

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He moved into fashion design via fabric design, and then worked closely with model Peggy Moffitt and photographer William Claxton, pushing the boundaries of 'the futuristic look' in clothing over three decades. An exhibition of his work at the Phoenix Art Museum in 2003 hailed him as... "one of the most original, prophetic and controversial American designers of the 1950s, '60s and '70s."

Related Topics:
Peggy Moffitt - William Claxton - Phoenix Art Museum

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He is perhaps most notorious for inventing the first topless swimsuit, or monokini, as well as the pubikini (a bikini with a window in front to show off the womans pubic hair) and later the thong swimsuit. He was also known as the first designer to use vinyl and plastic in clothes, and he designed the Moonbase Alpha uniforms on the series .

Related Topics:
Monokini - Pubikini - Pubic hair - Thong

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In the USA he was an influential co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the USA's first gay liberation movement. Although Mattachine's co-founder Harry Hay claimed 'never to have even heard' of the earlier gay liberation struggle in Germany - by the people around Adolf Brand, Magnus Hirschfeld and Leontine Sagan - he is known to have talked about it with Austrian & German emigres in America such as Rudi Gernreich.

Related Topics:
USA - Mattachine Society - Gay liberation - Harry Hay - Germany - Adolf Brand - Magnus Hirschfeld - Leontine Sagan

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