![Chester Weinberg at the Parsons School of Design Fashion Critics Award Show - NARA - 7347181 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Chester_Weinberg_at_the_Parsons_School_of_Design_Fashion_Critics_Award_Show_-_NARA_-_7347181_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Chester Weinberg (1930-1985) was an American fashion designer. While he was very highly regarded for his design work in the 1960s and early 1970s, he is now mainly known for being the fashion industry's first high-profile
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
-related death.
Early life and education
Chester Weinberg was born in New York on 30 September 1930.
He was Jewish.
Weinberg graduated from
Parsons
Parsons may refer to:
Places
In the United States:
* Parsons, Kansas, a city
* Parsons, Missouri, an unincorporated community
* Parsons, Tennessee, a city
* Parsons, West Virginia, a town
* Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout camp in the state of Washingto ...
in 1951, and between 1955 and 1985 regularly returned to the school as a guest lecturer and visiting critic.
He also taught at the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
.
[
]
Career
After spending the 1950s and early 1960s working for various Seventh Avenue clothing houses, Weinberg launched his own label in 1966, which ran until 1975.[
In her 2015 memoir Betty Halbreich remembered Weinberg as being "ahead of his time", as well as designing in suede and with dramatic prints. Weinberg was one of the designers who actively championed the midi skirt in the face of opposition from American buyers and retailers.
By 1970, the year that he won a ]Coty Award
The Coty American Fashion Critics' Awards (awarded 1943–1984) were created in 1942 by the cosmetics and perfume company Coty, Inc. to promote and celebrate American fashion, and encourage design during the Second World War. In 1985, the Coty Awa ...
, Chester Weinberg was seen as one of the most important designers on Seventh Avenue, equivalent to Bill Blass
William Ralph Blass (June 22, 1922 – June 12, 2002) was an American fashion designer. He was the recipient of many fashion awards, including seven Coty Awards and the Fashion Institute of Technology's Lifetime Achievement Award (1999).
Early ...
or Geoffrey Beene
Geoffrey Beene (born Samuel Albert Bozeman Jr.; August 30, 1924 – September 28, 2004) was an American fashion designer. Beene was one of New York's most famous fashion designers, recognized for his artistic and technical skills and for creati ...
.[ He gave ]Bethann Hardison
Bethann Hardison is an American fashion model and activist. Hardison is well known for being one of the first high profile black models after her appearance at the 1973 Battle of Versailles fashion show. She is also known for her activism on div ...
her modelling debut. Despite the hostility of the audience towards Hardison's Blackness, Weinberg was supportive of her and she remembered it as an empowering and groundbreaking experience.
After the closure of his label in 1975, Weinberg worked freelance, creating cashmere knitwear for Ballantyne of Scotland, dress pattern
In sewing and fashion design, a pattern is the template from which the parts of a garment are traced onto woven or knitted fabrics before being cut out and assembled. Patterns are usually made of paper, and are sometimes made of sturdier materi ...
s for Butterick and Vogue, and dance costumes for Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp (; born July 1, 1941) is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966 she formed the company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often uses classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music.
Fr ...
's ballet ''As Time Goes By''.[ In 1978 Weinberg joined ]Calvin Klein
Calvin Richard Klein (born November 19, 1942) is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc., in 1968. In addition to clothing, he also has given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and ...
as a consultant, and in 1981 became design director for Calvin Klein Jeans.[ Weinberg had been one of Klein's heroes as a young designer, and the two men developed a strong friendship and working relationship.] Weinberg recruited several design assistants for Klein, including Charles Suppon
Charles Suppon (1949-1989) was an American fashion designer.
Suppon was born in Collinsville, Illinois in 1949, and studied in Chicago. He came to New York and began working for Calvin Klein as an assistant on the recommendation of Chester Weinbe ...
and Jeffrey Banks
Jeffrey Banks (born November 3, 1955) is an American fashion designer and author, who has been described as a major black fashion maker.
Early life
Banks worked as a design assistant to Ralph Lauren (1971 to 1973) and Calvin Klein (1973 to 197 ...
who went on to create the Klein logo shirts.
While lecturing at Parsons, Weinberg mentored designers such as Isaac Mizrahi
Isaac Mizrahi (born October 14, 1961) is an American fashion designer, television presenter and chief designer of the Isaac Mizrahi brand for Xcel Brands. Based in New York City, he is best known for his eponymous fashion lines. Mizrahi was prev ...
, Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963) is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for his own fashion label, Marc Jacobs, and formerly Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line, which was produced for approximately 15 years, before it was d ...
, and Donna Karan
Donna Karan (, born Donna Ivy Faske), also known as "DK", is an American fashion designer and the creator of the Donna Karan New York and DKNY clothing labels.
Early life
Karan was born Donna Ivy Faske to mother Helen "Queenie" Faske (née Rabin ...
. Karan, whose academic record was underwhelming, was accepted into Parsons on Weinberg's recommendation as her mother was his employee.
Personal life and death
Chester Weinberg was gay, although until his label closed in 1975, he was firmly closeted and refused to acknowledge his sexuality.[
He died of AIDS on 24 April 1985, aged 54, making him the first high-profile fashion designer known to die of the disease.][ As Weinberg was no longer the household name he had been in the 1960s and early 1970s, the fashion industry actively moved to erase him from history.] Until 1990, when Halston
Roy Halston Frowick (April 23, 1932 – March 26, 1990), known mononymously as Halston, was an American fashion designer who rose to international fame in the 1970s.
His minimalist, clean designs, often made of cashmere or ultrasuede, were a ...
publicly acknowledged that he was dying of AIDS, the majority of AIDS-related fashion deaths typically went unacknowledged, or were attributed to other causes in order to protect a designer or brand's reputation and value (the New York Times obituary stated that Weinberg died of encephalitis
Encephalitis is inflammation of the brain. The severity can be variable with symptoms including reduction or alteration in consciousness, headache, fever, confusion, a stiff neck, and vomiting. Complications may include seizures, hallucinations, ...
).[ Weinberg almost completely disappeared from writings about the fashion industry, the main scholarly acknowledgement of him being a few brief passages in the curator Richard Martin's 1995 encyclopedic work ''Contemporary Fashion''.][
Despite the attempts to downplay Weinberg's significance after his death, Calvin Klein placed a full-page memorial in ad space in ''Women’s Wear Daily'', and endowed a Chester A. Weinberg Memorial scholarship fund at Parsons.][ When the ]AIDS Quilt
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, often abbreviated to AIDS Memorial Quilt or AIDS Quilt, is an enormous memorial to celebrate the lives of people who have died of AIDS-related causes. Weighing an estimated 54 tons, it is the largest piece o ...
was created, Weinberg was included in the panel commemorating Calvin Klein employees.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weinberg, Chester
1930 births
1985 deaths
American fashion designers
AIDS-related deaths in New York (state)
LGBT fashion designers
Parsons School of Design alumni
Jewish fashion designers
People from New York (state)