While (re)reading Kate Spade's Style the other day, this quote from the introduction jumped out at us: I was born in the Midwest, and style wasn't much on anyone's mind.
What?! Kate, you're right about a lot of things, but you're wrong on this one.
To argue our point, here are some of the best and brightest style icons of the past 100 years...all of them born and bred in the Midwest.
• Dirk Jan DePree, Founder of Herman Miller, b. 1891 in Zeeland, Michigan
• Charles Eames, Designer, b. 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri
• Michael Graves, Architect, b. 1934 in Indianapolis, Indiana
• Jenny Holzer, Installation Artist, b. 1959 in Gallipolis, Ohio
• Philip Johnson, Architect, b. 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio
• Maya Lin, Designer of the Vietnam Memorial, b. 1959 in Athens, Ohio
• Georgia O'Keefe, Artist, b. 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
• Gordon Parks, Photographer, b. 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas
• Bill Stumpf, Co-designer of the Aeron Chair, b. 1936 in St. Louis, Missouri
• Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, b. 1867 in Richland Center, Wisconsin
maybe she meant in regards to fashion
view justlikelead's profile
Add my vote for Gordon Buehrig, who not only designed some of the world's most incredibly beautiful automobiles, but who was also one of the most gracious & articulate people I've ever met, and even in his 7Os, one of the most elegantly dressed.
view magnaverde's profile
...and he was born down in the middle of corn country, down in Mason City, Illinois, in 1904
view magnaverde's profile
I grew up in the Midwest, and the people you mention here absolutely epitomized the style of my youth - everything from my family home, to the schools, the monuments, and the homes scattered around.... Ah, the memories of driving at the crack of dawn to get in line for the fabulous sales at the Herman Miller warehouse.... Not only were all their designs everywhere, but these people were also talked about by everyone. Fashion, not so much (um, does Madonna count?). But architecture, art, and design, yes. Oh, and for some reason, I was deeply impressed by the Diego Rivera fresco panels on the automotive industry, painted in the '30s for the Detroit Institute of Arts.
view Sea's profile
Amazing... I spend time in Gallipolis, Ohio and I'd never heard of Jenny Holzer.
view Swan's profile
Yeah, Charles Eames was born and bred in the midwest, but Ray & Charles didn't do their most iconic and important work until they were in California.
view fueledbycoffee's profile
charles eames would never have designed a damn thing in california if he hadn't taken a job teaching with eliel saarinen at cranbrook academy outside detroit, designing chairs with his son eero, chatting up florence knoll, drinking with harry bertoia and gyo obata, and eventually getting a divorce and wooing a student of his at cranbrook named ray kaiser.
what you're saying, fueledbycoffee, is akin to suggesting that because mies van der rohe designed his most iconic buildings from chicago, his experience at the bauhaus didn't matter.
[besides, the man never designed another piece of decent furniture after he left lilly reich in berlin]
The midwest was where modernism could really flourish while the eastcoast sat entrenched in its sense of history (and its own overblown importance) and while the west coast was all sun-drenched and tacky. don't overlook the importance of detroit, either. bertoia was a native son, lafayette park is the largest collection of mies buildings in the world, the saarinens, albert kahn, I could go on and on, but then again I am very biased towards my adopted city.
view dutch's profile
Thanks for that, dutch. Ah, yes... Cranbrook. Sometimes I wish I could start everything over - and that's straight where I would go. (Oh, and does music count as 'style'? Then Detroit, and some of the rest of the Midwest, wins on that one, too.) And that St. Louis arch is pure genius. Midwestern design and architecture at that time was so interwoven with industry and mega-technology - I love it!
What was Kate Spade thinking?!
view Sea's profile