Reviving Vera Neumann's Prints

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The Beat: Reviving Vera Neumann's Prints
By Julee Greenberg
Fashion designer Vera Neumann set the foundation for her business in 1947, and now Susan Seid is on a mission to resurrect the brand.

Industry veterans knew Neumann for her brightly colored, eye-catching prints that looked great on everything from place mats to sheets and scarves. Her designs were selling at more than 20,000 stores worldwide by 1975. Neumann's work, all inspired by her world travels, has even hung in some of the top U.S. museums, including the Smithsonian. She was a mentor to Perry Ellis and called Pablo Picasso a close friend.

excerpt-wwd.com

 

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The History of Vera

What would one day become the vast Vera empire began humbly in the years immediately following the Second World War: In the New York City apartment the designer shared with her husband and business partner, George Neumann, Vera, who had studied art and design at New York City's Cooper Union, transformed her kitchen table into a workstation where she silk-screened botanical motifs onto linen place mats. A third partner in the budding enterprise, F. Werner Hamm, hand-delivered these early creations to the Fifth Avenue department store B. Altman. "I showed them to the buyer," Hamm recalled in 1972, during a presentation for "Vera: The Renaissance Woman," an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. "He liked the new and fresh designs. In fact, he liked them so much the order almost floored us. How could we possibly deliver?"

But deliver the entrepreneurs did, and within a decade, Vera Neumann was well on her way to becoming a household name. Americans had never seen prints like these on their tables, and they couldn't get enough of them. "There was a lot of plain white in table designs when I started," Vera Neumann told a New York Daily News reporter in 1979. "I felt we would be successful because the field was not crowded." Responding to the strong public demand, the designer's offerings quickly expanded to include tablecloths, napkins and all manner of home accessories. Her own firm, the Vera Companies, produced linens, scarves and sportswear, while licensing agreements allowed her to develop dinnerware for Mikasa and Island Worcester, fabric and wallpaper for Schumacher and sheets for Burlington Industries.
To create her distinctive designs, Neumann found inspiration all around her. Flowers were a favorite theme, and her studio in the Hudson River Valley home she and her husband built in the 1950s overlooked a garden filled with blooms. Traveling was another passion. Windmills on the Spanish island of Ibiza, mosaic-tile sidewalks in Rio de Janeiro, modern sculpture in Finland and calligraphy in China all sparked the designer's imagination.

 

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prints...

 

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The Language of Logos
The reason her signature can be found on each product, Vera once explained, is that each design started out as an original painting. The ladybug is a good-luck symbol. (PHOTO: JOHN GRUEN)

Although Vera's passion for all types of flowers is evident in her work, the designer expressed a special fondness for the humble daisy, seen here on the back of a dinnerware pattern she developed for Mikasa in the 1970s. Each piece of "Vera for Mikasa" displays the pattern name and the Vera logo on the bottom. Replacement china services are excellent sources for these vintage wares.

 

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i feel like i always see her scarves at thrift/vintage stores...
they say VERA...

Vera Scarves


Of all the products Vera Neumann designed in her career, she is perhaps best remembered for her colorful silk scarves . Whether floral, figural or geometric, the graphic creations can easily double as small-scale works of art suitable for display on a wall. Vera herself recognized the decorative potential her fashion accessories held for the home: The final page of a 1975 brochure on scarf-tying techniques suggested creating "your own Vera gallery" by mounting scarves on walls. These items can also be used as tiebacks for curtains or as dust covers for computers or sewing machines. Look for Vera scarves in vintage-clothing stores or thrift shops, where prices range from about $3 to $15. Motifs and color schemes can be found to complement any décor.

credit...
http://magazines.ivillage.com/countryliving/collect/ar/articles/0,,284652_570461,00.html

 

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[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=+1]Knotty by Nature[/SIZE][/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1] [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]A silk scarf is a great investment.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]If not for covering up greasy hair or going undercover then for kinking it up in the bedroom.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]And another twist — art. Vera scarves, those collectibles beloved by vintage and fashion know-it-alls, are being reissued in prints from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]What makes these more museum-worthy than, say, Hermès or McQueen? Originality aside, each pattern is derived directly from late artist Vera Neumann’s watercolor paintings, replete with her trademark ladybug logo.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]You might want to frame them, though punchy colors (oranges, yellows, pinks) and modish designs (pendulum clocks, vertical stripes, fanciful paisley motifs) make them too fun not to wear.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]No guarantee that they’ll bring huge monetary returns, but they will come in handy for looking sharp even if you haven’t bathed.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]Which is priceless.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, serif][SIZE=-1]
Available at Auto, 803-805 Washington Street, between Gansevoort and Horatio Streets (212-229-2292 or thisisauto.com).[/SIZE][/FONT]


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