

Poiret coat offers glimpse of history, raises questions
By Monique Bos
Savannah residents Leftwich and Ursula Kimbrough have loaned a coat by noted French couturier Paul Poiret to the Savannah College of Art and Design.
The coat, which Leftwich Kimbrough estimates was made around 1925, is on display through the end of the summer in the first-floor Photo Gallery at the Earle W. Newton Center for British-American Studies in Kiah Hall, 227 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Kimbrough said the coat’s original owner was a relative of his through marriage, Mary Sefton Thomas. Thomas’ father, Vincent Thomas, trademarked and ran the Harriet Hubbard Ayer cosmetic company until his death around 1920. His widow Lillian commissioned stained glass work for his mausoleum; the glass artist was Robert Dodge, brother of Kimbrough’s grandfather, painter William de Leftwich Dodge. Ultimately Lillian Thomas and Robert Dodge married, and Mary Thomas and Kimbrough’s mother grew up together on Long Island.
“It was a very interesting family,” Kimbrough said.
Lillian Dodge continued to run HHA until around 1950. “She made all kinds of toiletry articles for ladies,” Kimbrough said. She “was considered to be the highest paid woman executive for her time in this country.”
Lillian Dodge herself was interested primarily in altruism, Kimbrough said. “Her intention was not to be an extremely wealthy person, although she became that. Her true intentions were … a lot of philanthropic interests.”
Her daughter, owner and likely purchaser of the Poiret coat, “just grew up in the lap of ultimate luxury,” Kimbrough said. “She was very cultured, very distinguished through the exposure she had from her mother and the people they came into contact with.”
Kimbrough said the family’s wealthy background explains how they were able to purchase items by such noted designers as Poiret, even though this coat was probably made after his peak period.
“It explains why she owned this coat,” he said. “They were very fashionable.”
Both mother and daughter traveled widely to such locations as Paris, London and Rome, Kimbrough said. The coat contains an Italian retailer’s label, but he is unsure whether it was purchased in Italy or another country.
This is one of the questions about the coat that he hopes members of the SCAD community can answer. His loan of the coat is “for the college’s benefit but also hopefully to enable someone to research it a little bit,” he said. “I thought it would be a good idea to take the coat out of its box and give it some exposure and maybe get some background.”
He also is interested in knowing more about the era in which the coat was made, when exactly it was purchased and what materials were used in the manufacture.
In the Newton Center, the coat is flanked by two images from noted fashion photographer Richard Avedon, whose work is on display in the upstairs Print Gallery as part of “Special Edition: Fashion Photography from the Rhoades Collection.”
Poiret (1897-1944) is credited with introducing more comfortable fashions for women after the corsets and restricting designs of the Victorian era.
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Photos by Charlie Ribbens
A coat designed by French couturier Paul Poiret around 1925 is on loan to the Savannah College of Art and Design by Savannah residents Leftwich and Ursula Kimbrough. The coat will be on display at the Earle W. Newton Center for British-American Studies through Sept. 30.
