Willi Smith

Willi Donnell Smith (February 29, 1948-April 17, 1987) was one of the most successful young fashion designers in fashion history.citation |title= Willi Smith, Clothes Designer; Creator of Vivid Sportswear |last=James |first=George |date=1987-04-19 |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEEDA173EF93AA25757C0A961948260 |accessdate=2007-09-19 |publisher=New York Times] At the time of his death, his company Williwear Ltd. sold $25 million worth of clothing a year.citation |title=Smith, Willi |last=Rapp |first=Linda |year=2002 |url=http://www.glbtq.com/arts/smith_w.html |accessdate=2007-09-19 |periodical=glbtq.com]

Biography

Smith was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied commercial art at Mastbaum Technical High School and attended Philadelphia College of Art for fashion illustration. He then moved to New York to go to Parsons School of Design. For a short time Smith freelanced with Arnold Scassi and Bobbie Brooks's sportswear company.

Career

In 1967, Smith quit Parsons to pursue a career designing on his own. In 1969 he designed a label for Digits, a sportswear company. In 1973, Smith, along with his sister Toukie Smith, founded their own clothing company that soon failed. Smith continued to design and in 1976 he went into business with Laurie Mallet and called the company "Williwear."

He designed the wedding dress worn by Mary Jane Watson when she married Peter Parker in the Spider-Man comic book and comic strip in 1987 and the suits for Edwin Schlossberg and his groomsmen when he married Caroline Kennedy in 1986. Smith also designed the uniforms for the workers on Christo's 1985 wrapping of the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris and clothes for Spike Lee's film "School Daze" (1987).

Smith worked with many other designers and artists during his time at Williwear including Anthony Mark Hankins, James Mischka, Julia Santos-Solomon, Jon Coffelt, John Bartlett and Andre Walker among many others. Smith partnered with Jhane Barnes on some of his earlier shows.

Smith was the costume designer for "Secret Pastures" which premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in 1984, one of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company's first major works.

Death

Smith died unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 39 after contracting shigella and pneumonia while on a trip to India, apparently as a result of AIDS. It is suspected that Smith, himself, didn't know he had the disease, although those around him knew he was fragile in the end days.Fact|date=September 2007 Most thought it was just that Smith had pushed himself so hard being such a perfectionist with his work.Fact|date=September 2007 John Bartlett, who was working at the time of Smith's untimely death, took over design operations and remained until 1990.

Smith, who was openly gay,citation |title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |last=Gates |first=Henry Louis |last2=Appiah |first2=Anthony |year=1999 |publisher=Basic Civitas Books |isbn=0465000711] has a panel in the original NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and is also lamented in a poem "Speak: A Poem for the Millennium March" by Keith Boykin, read by its author for the Millennium March on Washington for Equality on April 29, 2000.

Quotes

* "I don't design clothes for the Queen, but for the people who wave at her as she goes by."

* "Being black has a lot to do with my being a good designer. My eye will go quicker to what a pimp is wearing than to someone in a gray suit and tie. Most of these designers who have to run to Paris for color and fabric combinations should go to church on Sunday in Harlem. It's all right there."

* "Models pose in clothes. People live in them."

Awards

* Smith earned two scholarships to attend Parsons School of Design in 1965.
* In 1983 he won an American Fashion Critics' Coty Award for women's fashion.
* Smith won a Cutty Sark Award for Men's Fashion in 1985.
* He was honored with a bronze plaque for Fashion Walk of Fame along Seventh Avenue in 2000-2002.

References

External links

* [http://www.historyofashion.com/historyofashion/smithw.html Willi Smith bio]