Rudi Gernreich

Rudi Gernreich
Born	August 8, 1922(1922-08-08) Vienna, Austria
Died	April 21, 1985(1985-04-21) (aged 62) Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American (naturalized)
Occupation	Fashion designer
Known for	Design of the monokini; early homophile activist; co-founder of the Mattachine Society

Rudi Gernreich (August 8, 1922 – April 21, 1985) was an Austrian-born American fashion designer and gay activist.

Biography

Born in Vienna, Gernreich fled Austria at age 16 due to Nazism, and later migrated to the United States, settling in Los Angeles, California. A dancer, he performed with the Lester Horton company around 1945.

Gernreich 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 through the 1970s.

Rudi Gernreich's Moonbase Alpha costume designs in Space: 1999

Gernreich is perhaps most noted for his design of the first topless swimsuit, or monokini, as well as the pubikini—a bikini with a window in front to reveal the woman's pubic hair—and later the thong swimsuit. He was a strong advocate of unisex clothing, dressing male and female models in identical clothing and shaving their heads and bodies completely bald. He was noted for the use of vinyl and plastic in clothes, and he designed the Moonbase Alpha uniforms on the television series Space: 1999.

In the 1960s Gernreich created the "No-Bra", which was manufactured by Lily of France. It was made of sheer stretch fabric without underwires or lining of any kind; its one metal clip fastened the bra in front. He also designed Warners' 1972 "No-Bra Bra", which was made of sheer, stretchy fabric; had no metal wires or clips, and was pulled on over the head. It gave trendy women something they could buy from the bra manufacturers, but it was designed for women who had already stopped buying the industry's products. Like most of Gernreich's creations, it created a brief stir and then quietly disappeared.

In the United States, Gernreich was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the United States's first sustained homophile organization. Gernreich supported the organization financially but did not lend his name to the group, preferring to be known by the initial "R". Another co-founder, Harry Hay, was Gernreich's lover from 1950 until 1952, when Gernreich ended the relationship.

Later in life, Gernreich chose to devote himself to gourmet soups. He is credited with a recipe for red pepper soup, a cold soup served in red pepper cases and garnished with caviar and lemon.

The Temperamentals

In 2009, Gernreich and the Mattachine Society became the subjects of the play The Temperamentals by Jon Maran. After workshop performances in 2009, the play opened Off Broadway at New World Stages in February 2010. Actor Michael Urie, who played Gernreich, received a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actor.

Further reading

• Moffitt, Peggy; William Claxton (1999) [1991]. The Rudi Gernreich Book. Köln; London: Taschen. ISBN 9783822871973. 

External links

• Exhibition on Gernreich (in German)
• Rudi Gernreich designer profile at Fashion Model Directory
• Kent State University Museum's Rudi Gernriech: BOLD exhibtion
• Article on Gernreich
• Rudi Gernreich @ pHinnWeb
• On Important Pre-Stonewall Activists
• The Candy Pitch