“When a woman dresses up for an occasion, the man should become the black velvet pillow for the jewel.” John Weitz
Today at school (I’m a professor at a business school for fashion) one of our students, a young man, a mere twenty or so, was wearing a Stone Martin (fox pelt, usually with the head, legs, and tail in tact) with his jeans jacket, looking half like a dashing Hessian soldier, and half like Lucy Ricardo on her way out with Ricky. I was not certain what to make of it. There are moments in one’s fashion life when one wonders… “I wonder what (insert name, Bill Blass, Halston or) John Weitz would say about this”.
Many of you reading this may not know whom John Weitz was. If so, read on. If you are well acquainted with Mr. Weitz, read on too, no harm will come to you.
Unfortunately, in recent years Weitz has fallen below the radar of the fashion hierarchy and historyarchy. (If there even is such a genre.) To be sure, John Weitz was a fashion designer who more than lived up to the executive image as personified in his sharp as a tack, and tailored clothes. As a bonus, he was as handsome and stylish as the clothes he designed. He was so attractive and iconic himself, that I am surprised the US Postal Department has not issued a stamp with his image. It certainly will improve sales!
If you imagine James Bond as a fashion designer, and a part-time world-class spy posing as a worldly executive with an affinity for cats, then you can imagine John Weitz, but you do not have to imagine him, for he was not the stuff of legend, for he was quite real.
Weitz was born Hans Werner Weitz in Berlin in 1923. His father, Robert Salomon "Bobby" Weitz, had been a Warrant Officer in the Third Prussian Guards, an officious position to be sure, who took shrapnel on the Russian front, and was therefore awarded the highest military honor, the Iron Cross. His father was an ambitious, driven, and successful textile manufacturer; he too was also a handsome, charismatic man and, with his equally glamorous wife, Hedy, frequented the avant-garde cabaret and club scene of Weimar Germany. They like many young people in the Weimar years they delighted in the fashion, frivolity and intellectual and artistic pursuits. They counted Marlene Dietrich and Christopher Isherwood as intimate friends, who would periodically drop by for tea in the afternoon, lolling around and gossiping into the early evening. If you have ever seen “Cabaret” you will get a glimpse into the world as it then existed for the Weitz’. The well-heeled Weitz family divided their time between their home in Berlin, a country house in Kladow-Glienicke, wintered in St. Moritz, or Lake Como, and took long holidays on the French and Italian Riviera. It was an altogether sublime time for the wealthy, but the times were changing in unpredictable and unfathomable ways. The Weitz' were too well aware of the rising tide of Anti-Semitism, and the virulent Nazi Party, but like many citizens considered themselves “good German’s” i.e., law abiding, fiercely nationalistic, and hoped to remain unscathed. Little did they know, the world was about to collapse.
Typical of the times, young Hans (John) was sent off to a proper boarding school in 1936, to be educated in England, at the Hall Preparatory School in Hampstead, North London, and then St. Paul's School. It is said that the erudite Weitz even in the dregs of an English schoolboy’s uniform could cut a rakish figure. (I will review Rupert Graves in Maurice this evening and judge for myself.) While at St. Paul's, his classmate, John Russell, the future art critic, was told that Weitz might improve his grades if he paid less attention to the cut of his collar, and more to French declension. Great advice from an academic, but wasted on the artistic. Traveling in whirling social circles, Weitz had the opportunity to study the fashionable Duke of Windsor (in person) and I presume took copious notes. Already Weitz was a described as a “continental flâneur“, who had begun an apprenticeship as a youth with the noted women's tailor, Captain Edward Molyneaux. During his time in England, even progressive private schools in England (if not nearly everywhere) were not always amenable or hospitable to their Jewish students, who despite the trappings of wealth were often dismissed as secondly class citizens, and something that the upper class had to tolerate like brussel sprouts or cauliflower. Whatever his taste of anti-Semitism in England, Weitz excelled at football (soccer for us Americans) while at school, and excelled at academics. In later years, Weitz remained strongly attached to England, and was elected at his alma-mata, as an alumni, as Vice-President of the Old Pauline Club of London (which may sound prissy, but is anything but), which is an honor not usually bestowed on non-native British, but I digress…
While ensconced in his studies and fashion forays in England, by contrast, the Weitz family had been socially reduced, and reluctantly forced to admit that as Jews they would have to leave their beloved Germany post haste, an exile that broke the heart of Weitz’ deeply Teutonic father. Regardless with little other options before then, the Weitz family made plans to immigrate to America in 1938, just before “Kristallnacht” (the Night of Broken Glass) and the horrendous onslaught of pogroms would have certainly claimed all their lives. The situation in Germany for any remaining Jews was bleak. John was only fifteen, but practically an emancipated young man. The young Mr. Weitz was required to spend a year by himself as a teenager in Shanghai awaiting an American Visa. Through a technicality, the young Mr. Weitz was classified as “an enemy alien” based solely on his German birth. Can you image what today’s youth might do if left to their own devices for a year in Shanghai? The mind reels!
Rejoining his family in New York, he was immediately put to work for Voice of America, due to his knowledge of German, French, Italian and English. At the beginning of the war, John Weitz who had only just emigrated to the United States, and in a few short years, in 1944, at the age of twenty-one, (let me put this in perspective, for my younger readers, he was the approximate age of Taylor Swift, Daniel Radcliffe and Jordan Sparks) was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, for his intelligence, ability to speak several languages, and insight into the world situation. For many years, Weitz would only ever describe his work during the war, as "sensitive,” though, much later, his publisher John Fairchild, told the New York Times that Weitz "…loved all that romantic part of his past. He was a perfect gentleman, and could talk for hours and hours and hours, a lot about himself, which is part of his charm.''
Hail the concurring hero, Weitz returned after the war to New York in the 1940's. He was a young garment trader, (which is practically antediluvian by today’s standards), and a smart fashion forecaster, who anticipated that women wanted to break away from the rigid fashion and social template set by their mothers generation. Weitz’ sophisticated and developed eye for style was well placed to pick up on American women's new taste for informal sportswear, leather coats, and men's shirts. America was still a major fashion manufacturer and Weitz wanted in on the industry.
With a keen finger on the pulse of America, and the new fashion sensibility in active wear, and the new ease of knits, socks, and sweaters became a house specialty. One might not equate socks as being a fashion item per say, or an item to build a career upon. To them I say please recall that Ralph Lauren started by selling ties out of a brief case, and Tommy Hilfiger started out by selling underwear off a billboard in Times Square. John Weitz was a talented socks manufacturer. He designed some of the best men’s socks in 20th century America; he knew exactly which socks could be worn when, and where. He understood the social and economic history of the sock, and he himself wore extremely beautiful socks with total panache. Think that’s silly, that it can’t be done, wear a pair of royal purple socks with a great suit and see what it is that people notice, and comment on. Despite what drooling marketers will tell you, Paul Smith was not the first designer to introduce colorful striped socks to the world.
I pity you young people who do not realize that not so long ago John Weitz was as common a household name as McDonald’s or H & M is today.
'' A designer's name lives after him, Christian Dior has been dead for 30 years, and he still makes more money than I do, my presence is not exactly necessary.” John Weitz
Weitz had many big breaks and many firsts, but Weitz ultimately made his fortune himself, that being said, he was first encouraged by Dorothy Shaver, first female CEO of Lord & Taylor in the 1940’s. Weitz was a natural for the smart Lord & Taylor monolith, who was also positioned to pursue women's sportswear, with their astute sense of the contemporary postwar lifestyle. It was a marriage made in heaven, by way of 7th Avenue.
With Lord & Taylor in his back pocket, Weitz obtains a taste of success in the era of Sloan Wilson, (Man In The Grey Flannel Suit) where we founds John Weitz Designs Inc. in 1954, producing mostly women’s wear, active separates. A market already fully saturated. In an effort to distinguish himself and establish his fashion voice, ten years later he switched to menswear, which was his real forte, and built his fortune initially creating on smart sports clothes imbued with a Nabokovian nostalgia for his lost Riviera youth. Weitz designed everything imaginable for the well-dressed man, sports jackets, belt-less slacks, velvet penny loafers, silk scarves, and captured a very American sort of casual elegance based on a Mediterranean playboy fantasia. It was affordable fashion for the American consumer who aspired to look like Cary Grant on a department store budget.
Many of us tend to think of the 1950’s as little more than poodle skirts and biker jackets as presented in the film Grease or TV series Happy Days, those of us a bit older add to the black and white Orhbach’s bland uniforms worn on Donna Reed and Father Knows Best. We dismiss the period as a transitional time that bridges the post war, Dior “New Look”, and the “Mod” look of the 1960’s, but in reality, a lot was going on in the 1950’s, and more than meets that eye. Weitz is a wonderful example of great taste and sophistication, and places his signature on that period.
John Weitz had something that barely exists today…élan! (look it up).
In 1964, Weitz launched his menswear range, applying the technical standards of manufacture he had learned from his father a generation before. Unusually, in that era of obsolescence, when the garment industry was still producing old-fashioned fuddy-duddy clothes he went for ease and wearability.
“Clothes”, should be worn as if they are old and valued friends". John Weitz
Unfortunately, that kind of smart sentiment went in one ear of manufacturers and out the other. Luckily, it resonated with consumers who got him immediately! So much so that with financial security assured, Weitz until his retirement maintained his corporate offices on Madison Avenue where he directed his modest multi million-dollar empire, ala Don Draper. He was apart of the nouveau riche, he was the American dream. He was envied by his colleagues. John Weitz was a perfect storm and come to menswear at the perfect time with the perfect understanding on the temper of the times.
Anticipating what was to come was a bailiwick of Weitz’. If Weitz was first a visionary of the disciplines of sportswear for women in America, he transferred his allegiance to menswear in the early 1960's, a time when a number of designers were also testing the waters of menswear, among them Geoffrey Beene and Bill Blass in America, Hardy Amies in England, and Pierre Cardin in France. Weitz alone gave his primary attention to menswear, giving up the women’s market for all intents and purposes. Long before absorbing and ultimately creating the ethos of sportswear. Alas, despite his influence, he did not receive the lion share of credit, richly due him.
His taste for fast fashion was well served by his passion for collecting vintage sports cars and racing. This passion in turn attracted a younger consumer who epitomized more James Dean and Steve McQueen in their styling and lifestyle. Starting back in 1954, Weitz was a regular at all the racing tracks, a serious competitor, not a dilettante; he raced at the Bahamas Grand Prix Circuit, and at the fabled Sebring in Florida, calling this addiction to speed… “the affliction of all European boys of my generation. I drove Morgans, Bristols. It was a fashionable, poloesque sport that's now gone”. Weitz certainly looked the part, to wit, in 1958; he published a guide, Sports Clothes for Your Sports Car, filled with photographs that could grace any fashion magazine today. He elaborates… “To those who like the way a sports car looks and sounds, why deny a little vanity? Why hide the urge to be different. The clothes you wear while motor racing should please the eye. After all, race driving is not exactly the sport of the shrinking violet. It is a sport full of dash and daring and personal display”. (Oh be still my heart)
Weitz demonstrates all his style sense here, recommending Lacoste shirts, then unknown in America, (which I might add looked terrific on him) and his favorite all-cashmere socks (an indulgence in the pragmatic 1950’s) that he describes as “actually keeps your feet dry and cool”. A photograph of the author at the wheel of his works Morgan at Sebring '56, wearing his fabled black turtleneck, is accompanied by heroic tales of the track, whether battling Stirling Moss's Maserati while driving a little Arnolt Bristol, or several hard bounces and prangs, not least during his 145 laps in a Morgan Plus 4 at the 1955 Sebring. The patrician fantasy past Weitz so relished was as overt in his racing outfits, as his prose,” In my English schooldays it was the snappy thing to go to formal events in sports cars, wearing a white tie, topper and all, and there was something really young and rakish and debonair about it.” There is no debate, Weitz was a glamour boy, and could give today’s Christiano Rinaldo or Narcisco Rodriguez a serious run for their money.
Weitz pragmatically retired from racing, after all, even mere mortals can only dodge a bullet so many times, and eventually sold his car collection, albeit keeping his 1967 Jaguar and a Ferrari Testarossa capable of hitting 180 mile per hour. (Now that is fast, even for today. I once was in a car that did 80, and I got so nauseous, we had to pull over).The fastidious Weitz said he sold off his vintage car collection because they dripped too much oil. He says his retirement from the track was prompted by the booming success of his company. Thus, the iconic 1960’s Weitz silk scarves may be collectable vintage fashion items, but the bulk of his business was based on marketing licensed items like umbrellas, cologne, sunglasses, ties, watches, blazers, even cigars, as fashion items, accessories, not to mention his perennial classic socks, the John Weitz Classic Men's Sock 12-pack. It is said that Weitz changed his socks more each day often than Henry the Eighth changed wives during his reign.
Is it possible that Weitz was the progenitor of lifestyle branding long before Ralph Lauren is credited for it? Fuelled by advertising campaigns featuring the dashing six foot, two inch Weitz himself, and then a famous series of cryptic photo-less posters with nothing, but teasing snippets of conversation, Weitz became a celebrity, he, himself became a brand product. Weitz was one of, if not the first fashion designer, whose personal image supplanted his product in recognition among the public. After all, if I showed you a picture of Christian Dior or Cristobel Balenciaga would you know the difference.
Indeed, in summary, Weitz became to embody the ideals of the post war generation, flirting with danger, taking calculated risks, excelling at athletics, directing men, building personal empires, embracing speed and automotives, incorporating sexual prowess, creating a personal manifest destiny while relaxing in European aplomb
The story continues in a day or two, so please return for part two of “A Primer On John Weitz.
