On December 8, 1977, Phyllis Feldkamp sat down with Eleanor Lambert to discuss Lambert’s decades-long career. Lambert reveals her first steps into the fashion industry as an art student in the midwest and how she got her start in New York City. Lambert touches on many aspects of the New York fashion industry of the mid-century, sharing tidbits about the American designers with whom she crossed paths. Lambert elucidates her involvement with helping establish The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as her varied roles in working with The New York Dress Institute, The Couture Group and Press Week, The Council of Fashion Designers of America, and The National Council of the Arts. Lambert culminates by discussing her position as coordinator of the COTY American Fashion Critics Awards and an amusing anecdote about Norman Norell, winner of the first “Winnie” award. A fashion show in Moscow, which Lambert had a hand in organizing, acted as somewhat of a dress rehearsal for, arguably, the defining moment of American fashion, the Battle of Versailles. Lambert came up with the idea as a fundraiser for Versailles palace, then in disrepair, and organized the American designers who would represent the country; this show ultimately proved to the world the talent and capability of the American fashion industry.
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