Betsey

January 27, 2020
Fashion designer Johnson talks about clothes, romance, and owning a business in a breezy memoir co-written with former employee Vitulano, who captures Johnson’s spirited voice. Born in Connecticut in 1942, Johnson was a school-hating, boy-crazy kid with a “bubbly, oddball personality.” She attended Pratt Institute and Syracuse University, and moved to New York in the 1960s to work at Mademoiselle magazine. She got her start in fashion making sweaters in her apartment and selling them to co-workers before starting her own label and “living on tuna fish.” In this celebration of female entrepreneurship, Johnson writes about creating one’s own opportunities and blazing forward despite the odds. She discusses producing affordable clothing on a massive scale; inventively using the cotton-Lycra blend in streetwear; and selling her brand in 2010 to Steve Madden, whom she credits with saving her business. Along the way, she writes of being a single mother to daughter Lulu and being treated for breast cancer, and tells wild stories about her three brief marriages: to John Cale of the Velvet Underground; a burger flipper and drug addict named Joe; and a wealthy control freak (identity withheld) who bugged her apartment. “I’ve had great boyfriends but I chose to marry the bad ones,” she admits. Filled with nostalgic photos, this upbeat memoir captures the spirit and irreverence of Johnson’s colorful personality and clothing.

February 1, 2020
An iconic fashion designer tells the story of how she left behind a Rockwell-ian New England youth to become an eccentric fashion superstar. Johnson grew up in a picture-perfect Connecticut family during the 1940s and '50s. The second of three children, she learned early on to rely on her "bubbly, oddball personality to make my way in the world." Her first dream was to become a dancer with the Rockettes in New York City, but by the time she was in college, she gravitated toward art. An admirer of Mademoiselle layouts, she entered the magazine's fashion guest editing contest and won; a senior editor then hired her in the art department. To make ends meet, Johnson began making simple, striking clothes that quickly became popular among other women, including actress Kim Novak. She then began designing clothes full-time for Paraphernalia, a clothing boutique that became home to other 1960s avant-garde fashion designers such as Daniel Hechter and Paco Rabanne. Her unique creations caught the eyes of celebrities like Julie Christie and the Velvet Underground, a band for whom she became the chief clothing designer. After marrying and then divorcing guitarist John Cale, she opened a "designer collective" clothing store with Paraphernalia colleagues and also did freelance work, which eventually won her the Coty Fashion Critics' Award in 1971. Not long afterward, she became a single mother and embraced an edgier aesthetic, which included clothing lines done in Lycra, a fabric then used only for athletic wear. By the 1980s, Johnson was the owner of a successful chain of stores, until her company was bought out by designer Steve Madden in 2010. This candid book by a pioneering female entrepreneur and American original, illustrated with photos and quirky doodles, also offers details about motherhood, marriages to drug addicts and control freaks, and the obstacles one faces when battling breast cancer. Entertaining reading for fashionistas and Johnson fans alike.

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April 1, 2020

Fashion designer Betsey Johnson is many things, but reserved she is not, as readers will discover in this unabashed memoir. Johnson dishes on her childhood and college years, up-and-down career in fashion, breast cancer diagnosis, and especially her "three and a half husbands" (including her 1960s wedding to John Cale wearing only a jacket, after a City Hall judge refused to marry a woman in pants). She succeeded by ignoring trends and following instincts about what "girls" like her would want to wear, from space-age Sixties dresses to petticoats and everything Lycra. Despite a lack of formal business training, she worked incredibly hard and happened upon opportunities. Less a design retrospective than a personal history, the book is illustrated with more family snapshots than runway photos. Its tone is chatty and unapologetic rather than reflective or inspirational--from Mademoiselle magazine to Warhol and the Velvet Underground to Dancing with the Stars, Johnson shrugs, smiles, and dashes off to her next adventure, always wearing something fabulous. VERDICT A breezy treat for fans wanting more about the woman behind the whimsical clothes. [See Prepub Alert, 9/30/2019.]--Lindsay King, Yale Univ. Libs, New Haven, CT

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