RUDI GEMREICH

RUDI GERNREICH

FASHION DESIGNER, GAY ACTIVIST

A major innovator in women's fashions, and one of a mere half dozen Americans in the Coty Hall of Fame, Gernreich also was on the cutting edge of the struggle for gay liberation.

Born Rudolf Gernreich in Vienna, Austria, August 8, 1922, he grew up in an atmosphere of clothing. His father (who died when Rudi was eight) was a hosiery manufacturer and an aunt ran a dress shop. Being Jewish, Rudi and his mother fled the Nazis and settled in Los Angeles in 1938. A stint with a modern dance troupe influenced his 1950s designs of free-flowing clothes for active women. He became known for miniskirts, unisex jump suits, psychedelic colors, and the use of vinyl in fashion. Fame and notoriety came to Gernreich in 1964, when he launched the topless bathing suit. It was never intended for public beaches and was never included in his fashion shows, but he welcomed the publicity it generated. He designed see-through blouses and encouraged models to discard their bras. In 1968 he took a leave from fashion and never went back to it full time.

In his youth Gernreich was the lover of the actor Harry Hay and in 1950 joined him in founding the Mattachine Society, a pioneer gay consciousness-raising group. Gernreich and Hay separated, and because of the fashion industry's taboo against open homosexuality, Hay did not reveal Gernreich's role in the organization until after he died of AIDS, April 21, 1985. With a subsequent lover Gernreich built a sizable fortune, with which they set up a trust for the American Civil Liberties Union to use in gay and lesbian civil rights litigation.

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