As a boy in Vienna, Gernreich spent countless hours sketching high fashion in his aunt’s dress shop. In California, following a career in dance, he based his fashion designs on the beauty of the natural body in motion. Renouncing garment construction methods of the 1950s that sculpted the female body into an idealized hourglass silhouette, Gernreich created this knitted dress, utilizing the inherent elasticity of the material to mold the body without boning, padding, cutting, or further tailoring.
(California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way," 2011-12)
