Liz Claiborne passes away at 78

[MulletProof]

thanks dos violines!.

rest in peace.

 

[Squizree]

Wow, even in her older years she looked great!
It's very sad though. My mum LOVED her stuff, she still does. She has millions of her handbags.

 

[TopofNewYork]

R.i.p. =\

 

[thesiren]

so sad.

i have this great picture of liz on my inspiration board where she's looking over sketches...it's one of my faves.

RIP.

 

[pointup]

RIP Liz, I came here as soon as I heard. She was a beautiful, talented woman.

 

[DosViolines]

Another picture from nytimes:

Liz Claiborne via Bloomberg News
Liz Claiborne, the designer and founder of the namesake clothing company, died in New York Wednesday after suffering from cancer at the age of 78.

 

[fouroclock]

Is there an epidemic among the fashion people? WTH? They die like flies these days!

It could just be the age factor. It's a double sided coin, too. The fashion greats of the 70's (and later) are disappearing and so are their time. But their legacies left so much for the future generations. Agape, Liz Claiborne, and rest in heavenly peace.

 

[julesrules815]

RIP Liz! I don't think this is so unexpected considering she was suffering from cancer for some years now.

 

[city girl]

aw rest in peace

 

[masquerade]

wow, RIP

what is happening right now? First Isabella, then Gianfranco

 

[ibimus]

RIP Liz Claiborne.

Fashion designer Liz Claiborne dies
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer1 hour, 33 minutes ago


Fashion designer Liz Claiborne revolutionized the way working women put together their wardrobes because she was one of them. She made it easy for them as they pioneered up corporate ladders in the 1970s and 1980s, offering coordinated outfits at once serious and stylish, but also affordable.
Claiborne died Tuesday at the New York Presbyterian Hospital after suffering from cancer for a number of years, said Gwen Satterfield, personal assistant to Claiborne. She was 78.
With husband Art Ortenberg and partners Leonard Boxer and Jerome Chazen, Claiborne launched her label in 1976 after working for years as a relatively unknown dress designer. The brand emphasized ensemble sportswear, quality and keeping the price tag below that of other designers. Liz Claiborne and her husband retired from the day-to-day operations in 1989.
The new approach to dressing revolutionized the department store industry, which had focused on stocking pants in one department and skirts in another.
"It's what the working woman needed," said Joanne Arbuckle, chairwoman of the art and design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology. "Her coordinated pieces — you went from the turtleneck to sweater to pants to the socks. It's like what Gap did for kids, and she did it beautifully."
The clothes became an instant hit, and the company went public in 1981. By 1985, Liz Claiborne Inc. was the first company founded by a woman to be listed in the Fortune 500, according to the company's Web site.
As the company grew, the designer expanded her offerings to include more casual clothes and also popular licensed accessories. Her handbags with the triangular Liz Claiborne logo and taupe trim were fixtures on the arms of both high school girls and their mothers in the 1980s.
"She was proof that licensing could be done well," Arbuckle said.
She soon entered the bridge market with Dana Buchman, who had been a designer under Claiborne, just the beginning of her company's vast diversification: Brands like Ellen Tracy, Kate Spade, and Juicy Couture, helped to generate sales of almost $5 billion last year. In May, the company acquired the high-end design firm of Narcisco Rodriguez.
"The concept was to dress the American working woman because I, as a working woman with a child (from her previous marriage) didn't want to spend hours shopping. Things should be easy. You don't have to dress in that little navy blue suit with a tie," Claiborne told trade paper Women's Wear Daily in 2006. "I wanted to dress her in sportier clothes and colors."
Fashion designer Stan Herman, a former president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, said he felt as if he grew up with Claiborne in the fashion industry. He recalled the first time they met was at a fashion-themed lecture at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.
"She wasn't `Liz Claiborne' then, she was working for a dress company, Youth Guild, and she gave everyone a hard time for letting men get the best questions. I said, `It's time you went into business by yourself.'"
He added: "She was tough but with soft knuckles."
Elisabeth Claiborne was born March 31, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. She moved to New York in the 1940s to pursue a career in fashion. She married Ortenberg in 1957 after divorcing her first husband, Ben Schultz. She and Schultz had a son, Alexander.
While Herman said that Anne Klein, a contemporary of Claiborne's, is largely credited as the godmother of the American sportswear movement, Claiborne did it on a grander scale and brought it to the masses.
"She was perhaps the beginning of the great designer-stylists of our time," Herman said. "She was a trained designer but, more than that, she had a vision of how women should dress. ... She suddenly understood the shape of women and the emancipation of shape and the change of a woman's shape."
The CFDA gave her a design award in 1985 and then a humanitarian award in 2000. "She came back looking better than ever. She wore a black tuxedo and a fedora, and the dark glasses that were her signature," Herman recalled.

Claiborne founded the Liz Claiborne Foundation in 1981 to serve as a center for charitable activities, focusing on ending domestic violence, and promoting economic self-sufficiency for women and positive development for girls.
After retiring, Claiborne and Ortenberg spent much of their time in Montana, where they owned a ranch near Helena, and supported numerous local charitable, civic and educational groups. They sponsored the Race to the Sky, a 350-mile sled-dog race, from 1991 to 1994. The following year they received the Governor's Humanities Award for their financial support of causes such as the Montana Heritage Project.
Until her death, she was involved in the day-to-day activities of the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation, dedicated to wildlife conservation.
Meanwhile, after Claiborne and Ortenberg left the company, Chazen became Liz Claiborne Inc.'s chairman in 1989.
Paul R. Charron succeeded Chazen in the mid-1990s, and spearheaded an aggressive campaign to acquire different labels to diversify beyond the company's namesake brands, which struggled with increased competition.
Last November, Bill McComb joined the company as CEO, succeeding Charron, and is overhauling the business again to meet the demands of the consolidated department store industry.
"In losing Liz Claiborne, we have not only lost the founder of our company, but an inspirational woman who revolutionized the fashion industry 30 years ago," said McComb in a statement. "Her commitment to style and design is ever present in our thinking and the way we work. We will remember Liz for her vision, her entrepreneurial spirit and her enduring compassion and generosity."
___ AP Writers Anne D'Innocenzio in New York and Len Iwanski in Helena, Mont., contributed to this report.

She will be missed.

 

[tiffany]

That's sad Rest In Peace

 

[~Fashionista~]

There`s already another thread

 

[Moofins]

RIP.

It's so sad that so many fashion icons/designers have died recently.

 

[John_M.]

This is very sad. All I've heard about Liz Claiborne's style is that she was responsible for dressing up women for the office for many years. I heard that Claiborne died in her fight against cancer. You can even visit this link: < http://www.lizclaibornestyle.com/liz_memory/ > for a brief synopsis of her contribution to fashion. I'm not a lady, but I'd surely want to honor her as best as I could and thank her for her contributions if I were a lady. The company will still go on providing quality fashion for women. Well, not only women, but also some MALE fashion from Liz Claiborne. She will certainly be missed for her efforts in enhancing fashion. In fact, I didn't know her company had at men's fashion section. Sometimes during the "Five Good Minutes" portion of ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," that segment is usually sponsored by Claiborne's "Time Out" deal.

Here's the question I ask people on (another message board) when we lose someone in the community: How will you remember Liz Claiborne?

 

[~Fashionista~]

Sportswear Legend Liz Claiborne Dies At 78 From Cancer

 

[StyleIsInUs]

RIP. It's really upsetting how all these great fashion personalities are passing away ...

 

[mackos]

R.i.p.

 

[Ianastar]

Oh wow. That's sad.

 

[MUXU]

RIP. though i dont know much about her...but i heard of her name alot