Babette Pinsky

Babette Pinsky is an American clothing designer known for creating Babette, a defunct line of upscale women's clothing produced and designed by Pinsky in Oakland, California and sold across the United States in department stores, boutique shops and an eponymous chain of Babette stores. Pinsky owned and managed the business in partnership with her husband, Steven Pinsky. They closed the business in 2016.

Babette Pinsky
Born
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma materFashion Institute of Technology
OccupationClothing designer
Spouse(s)Steven Pinsky

Early life and education

Pinsky was born and raised in New York City.[1] Her French mother gave her the French name, Babette.[2] She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology.[1] She moved to San Francisco in 1968 with her first husband.[3]

Career

Pinsky founded Babette in 1968.[1] Her husband, Steven, joined the company in 1990.[1] In the early years, her pleated fabrics were created by a pleating factory in San Francisco.[1] The Pinskys bought the factory in 1995.[1] The company later moved to a larger factory in Oakland, California,[1] where Pinsky designed and produced clothing in a 25,000- square-foot second-floor manufacturing facility on West Grand Avenue in West Oakland, employing 10 seamstresses and a number of other workers, including master pleater Leung Tang, an immigrant from Hong Kong.[4]

The line was carried in hundreds of department stores and boutiques, and in Babette shops in San Francisco, Manhattan, Chicago, San Jose, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and other cities. By 2014, there were nine Babette stores.[5][6][7]

Pinsky's signature style featured what was then a "unique accordion-like pleating style" heat-pressed into microfiber fabrics.[4][1][8] As the company grew, Pinsky employed co-designer Josephine Tchang.[4] A single piece can have 3 different kinds of pleating.[3]

San Francisco Chronicle fashion editor Sylvia Rubin credits Pinsky together with Issey Miyake with "reinventing" the Fortuny pleat in the 1980s.[3] Rubin describes Pinsky as using "Fortuny pleats, knife pleats, cube pleats, flower pleats, chevron pleats, box pleats - or a combination of any or more of the above," in her designs.[3]

Pinsky is noted for designing, in the 1980s, an intricately pleated, architectural, trapezoidal-shaped raincoat with a metallic sheen.[8]

In 2008 the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis held a special exhibit on Pinsky's designs.[9]

References
  1. Bravo, Tony (22 December 2016). "Babette wraps up 48 years in San Francisco fashion". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  2. McInerny, Vivian (19 May 2002). "The Complete Pleat". The Oregonian.
  3. Rubin, Sylvia (27 April 2008). "She has that Babette look - 40 years later". San Francisco Chronicle.
  4. Burt, Cicily (29 November 2004). "Women make imprint on industry with own stores". Oakland Tribune.
  5. Beerman, Judith (29 March 2011). "Pleats please: Babette arrives in Cady's Alley". The Georgetown Dish. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  6. Kaplan, Allison (13 March 2014). "New at 50th & France: Babette". MplsStPaul. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  7. LaRette, Kate (2 April 2015). "Walking Among the Mannequins". Minnesota Monthly. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  8. Fisher, Lawrence M. (17 December 1989). "Style Makers; Babette Pinsky, Coat Designer". New York Times. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  9. Rubin, Sylvia; Editor, Chronicle Fashion (2008-04-27). "She has that Babette look - 40 years later". SFGate. Retrieved 2020-09-08.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
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