Styles come and go, but Stan Herman has remained in style for decades.
Just last month, Mr. Herman, 95, the king of cozy haute couture, was selling a line of velor loungewear on QVC. There, his work has been a timeless classic for 30 years, selling nearly 900,000 copies since 2017. .
“They buy more and more products every season. I’ve been able to maintain viability, which is not that easy,” said Herman, who has a special affinity for chenille. . “It’s my secret weapon.”
When Mr. Herman isn’t dressing people for rest, he’s dressing them for work. In 1975, after a successful line of stylish and affordable women’s clothing under the Mr. Mort label, he went on to design uniforms for hotels, casinos, and companies in all industries, including Avis, Amtrak, McDonald’s, and United Airlines. It has started. Recent clients include JetBlue, FedEx, Sandals Resorts and New York’s Central Park Conservancy.
For the record, Mr. Herman’s own uniforms lean toward cashmere and turtlenecks, and are generally earthy tones that align with his astrological sign, Virgo. When you meet him, plan on talking about your horoscope. And plan to be enchanted, no matter which zodiac sign you fall under.
Now a former president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Herman chronicled her adventures in apparel (and beyond) in her memoir, Uncross Your Legs: A Life in Fashion, published this month. There is.
He still has a job in Manhattan overlooking Bryant Park and a home in the Hamptons where he is waiting out the pandemic. But his home for more than half a century has been a rental duplex with high ceilings, two terraces and multiple closets in an Art Deco building in Murray Hill.
“I started here as one of the young whippernappers, and now I’m an elder statesman,” Herman said. “Everyone points at me and says to the kids, ‘Do you know how old he is?'”
The old man showed his true potential early on. At the age of nine, living in Passaic, New Jersey, he was selling Vogue and Butterick sewing patterns in one of his father’s fabric stores. After attending college in Cincinnati and serving in the military, Mr. Herman moved to New York, where he met teacher and author Gene Horowitz, who later became his life partner. The two settled in Greenwich Village for a while, first in a fifth-floor walk-up at L’Fish on West 4th Street, then in a less bohemian neighborhood on West 12th Street. “We had a beautiful view of the Hudson River and the boats going to Bermuda,” Herman recalls.
Still, the success of the Mr. Mort label made him want to live closer to the fashion district.
Stan Herman, 95 years old
Profession: fashion designer
Step up: “I’ve spent my life looking for stairs. That’s why I can still walk just fine.”
Coincidentally, my best friend and fellow designer Chester Weinberg was also looking for a new apartment.
“Someone told him about this place in Murray Hill. Chester had to go out of town, so he asked me to go see the movie and tell him what I thought,” Herman said. Ta. “And the minute I walked in, I said, ‘This isn’t for Chester. It’s mine.’ I knew I could make it my home. It was like a little house in the middle of Manhattan. It felt like there was.”
Weinberg said, “I would have painted it black. Everyone was copying Calvin Klein and his black apartment at the time. And that’s not what this apartment should be.”
Mr. Herman took possession of the space, painted it white and filled it with Roche Bobois furniture, a choice he came to regret because once he sat down, he could no longer stand up. “I lost four friends to the rift.”
He updated the kitchen and preserved the bathroom’s original gray tile and burgundy sink and tub. For the record, he also maintained a friendship with Mr. Weinberg, who sadly became an early victim of AIDS.
Life in the duplex was idyllic. Mr. Horowitz gave a reading in the evening. Opera music — Mr. Herman is an avid fan and reliable singer — blared from the stereo. And the woman who lived next door to her maid’s apartment became a surrogate mother for the two men. “We let her use the kitchen, and every morning she would make breakfast and sing Schubert songs,” Herman said. “I felt very comfortable.”
Horowitz died of a heart attack in early 1991. A few months later, Mr. Herman was a guest at a birthday party for playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents in Quogue, New York.
“Arthur was wearing all white and I looked at him with my Virgo laser eyes and thought, ‘Oh my god, those pants are old and he’s washed them so many times. .’ And there were stains on his shirt,” Herman said. “And I thought, he’s one of those guys who gets older too and thinks, ‘Oh, I don’t need to buy a new shirt.’ And I didn’t want to be like that. When I got home, there was Gene all over my apartment, so I thought, “I have to make a change.”
Within a month, Mr. Herman hired a decorator. He kept Mr. Horowitz’s most prized possessions, but otherwise tried to make the apartment a reflection of its occupant, a currently single man.
It started with a custom chocolate brown sofa in chenille (of course). ABC Carpet & Home was the source for most of the furniture, including the chinois-cast cabinets and the round yellow table patterned with green diamonds and surrounded by metal chairs in the dining alcove.
Before the pandemic, rubber trees that Herrmann, a plant enthusiast, had tended for half a century adorned the canopy of tables and chairs. “Having a dinner party was great because it made you feel like you were in the country,” he said. “But during the coronavirus, I wasn’t there for a week or two, and the tree died on me. And it’s the only one I’ve lost besides my partner in the apartment.”
Not long ago, he walked into his apartment and decided it looked like a museum. Everywhere he went, there was “stuff”. There were pictures drawn on the walls. an oversized tennis racket (Mr. Herman plays doubles twice a week); Metropolitan Opera poster. A handmade birthday card from Mr. Herman’s friend, artist and illustrator James McMullan. Watercolors and sketches by Mr. Herman himself.
The top of the piano was covered with photographs. Photos of Mr. Herman’s family, including photos of Mr. Herman with Princess Diana, Lauren Hutton, Demi Moore, Elizabeth Taylor, and Anna Wintour. And more than a dozen green porcelain parrots, a gift from designer Oleg Cassini, perch on the fireplace mantel.
“But it doesn’t hurt to look like a museum,” Herman said. “It’s good. Everything here reminds me of what happened in my life.”
Something is still happening. He is designing his QVC collection until 2025. He is a member of his Garment District Alliance and a director of the Bryant Park Corporation. And he still has the opportunity to wear the tuxedo that Donna Karan insisted on having made for her when she became president of the Fashion Designers Council in 1991. It looks great, he said, gesturing like a fashionista version of a chef. kiss.
“When my father found out I was gay, he was very angry,” Herman said. “He sat me down and said, ‘The reason I’m so angry is, what happens when you get old and there’s no one left?’ You won’t have children. You’ll have grandchildren. You’re asking for something really difficult.”
Mr. Herman was silent for a moment. “I wish he was here today,” he said. “Now that I’m older, I know I have a home, I have a home, I have friends, I have a family.”
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