So, for my birthday, my marvelous sister Kate sent me this:
Isn't it awesome? Just the thing to hang in my sewing room.
Of course, I am now consumed by curiosity: who drew this? Why? How did it end up in a junk shop in Park Slope, for Kate to find?
It's marked "DeZine Studio, 105 W 40 ST. NYC", and the style number is D-1725. The illustration is marked "Peau de Soie" (and it's spelled correctly!).
Here's a slightly closer view of the actual dress (sorry about the flash glare):
Anyone have a clue for me? I could just *invent* the story, a la "Secret Lives," but I'd like to take a stab at finding out actual facts, first.
A Dress A Day 
I don’t have any answers for you, but what a find! This would look great in my studio as well. I would like to do a knock-off of this one – it’s beautiful!BTW – I’ve been looking at your blog for a couple of months now and I love, love, love it. I check it often to make sure I haven’t missed anything. And the comments are so clever, informative and fun to read. Keep up the fun work!Alabama Seamstress
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Does it say WHO St.? I thought it was a number with a “th” after it, maybe West
40th St. I remember googling some street address after I got it…
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my boss has a sketch of a different dress, same style of sketch in her office. it was a gift as well, so she doesn’t have any info on it.when exactly is your birthday?
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never mind, i went back an entry.HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
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Kate — you’re right, it does look more like 40th St. I changed it in the post. I wondered where “WHO” street was. And if Dr. Seuss knew about it …
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Old NYC directories might help you figure out when the studio existed, while city records (held by the municipal archives: http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/about/archives.shtml) might also have some record of the business. They’d might also know who could help you if they can’t.Rebecca
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Erin – Happy Birthday! Mine was yesterday and I would consider another chapter of Secret Lives a most wonderful birthday gift!
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Oh Wow! I want your sister as a sister!
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I love the sketch! I don’t know any info on it, but I wish you luck with your search.
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i love that dress! it’s fabulous!
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Can we please have another “Secret Lives” anyway? Please?
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I’m more curious if it ever actually got made up than who drew it. That dress is gorgeous!
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YOWSERS that is amazing! I tried to do a bit of sleuthing and did NOT find anything exactly like this, but DID find a gorgeous 50’s Vogue Special Design pattern (that looks like it sold for $50 last year) with a SIMILAR ruched bodice. At least it has a pattern number attached so maybe no day in your journeys, it will surface!http://www.lulusvintage.com/ephemera/index.html and it’s the 4th or 5th entry down. Good luck with more googling, guys & gals! I’m off for a nap. This heat’s unbearable..
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Jan 1958, in Oxnard California…A dress shop called DeZine Dress was robbed of $708.90 in merchandise. The shop was on 2207 Ventura Blvd (which now has me humming that song.)Perhaps your sister has traveled back in time to swipe you a present. But is it shoplifting if it is done through time travel?
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What a wonderful present! The dress is soooo divine. I would make mine in a gunmetal taffeta, and go for a night out at the steak house, with a Manhattan to drink. Happy belated birthday! Oh, and thanks for the tape measure that arrived the other day, which now lives in my purse.
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The sketch is just screaming “Make me a “secret lives” story! Happy birthday and many more-
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Would you wear a necklace with that neckline? I don’t think I would. I think I’d do earrings and bracelets.
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Happy birthday.A beautiful present. Peau de Soie is French and means skin of silk and is referring to a medium weight smooth with a semi dull finish. Originally made in Padua Italy.
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Ooh, renee, I received the best compliment of my life in a gunmetal taffeta dress. A man I had worked with for months (though I must admit, he had usually only seen me in scrubs, an OR cap and a mask) saw me at a formal occasion wearing a gunmetal taffeta dress and asked a mutual acquaintance, “Who is that incredibly attractive woman?”Being a shy person of dubious self-esteem, it warms my heart that at least once in my life I was thought to be “incredibly attractive”.
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What a beautiful gift! Happy Birthday!
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‘Maybe ONE day’. Not maybe no day. Geesh, that was a sly negative statement, wasn’t it?!
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One of the gowns in the Christian Dior exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art has that same drapey gathering at the top of the skirt panels. My mother and I scrutinized that dress for a good ten minutes and we couldn’t figure out how they do it beyond, “First, you take a LOT of fabric…”
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…yes a LOT of fabric, how wonderful to feel all that floating around you? 🙂 If I made it, I’d think of a rich maroon, or maybe forest green?
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I have an enormous portfolio of my Mom’s watercolors that look like this. She was 15 when she began doing them – amazingly talented! She entered contests for local department stores, too, and I have those “entries” also. One day I want to have some of them framed and hanging in my sewing room – this is just the inspiration! Thanks for sharing!
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Geesh – I checked out your sister Kate’s site — is the ENTIRE McKean Clan amazingly talented and brilliant?
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Ever since I’ve been watching “Mad Men,” dresses like this fill me with a certain tristesse. (Hey, if it’s in “peau de soie” I can refer to my mood as “tristesse.”) When I look at these garments’ tight, unforgiving construction, and their extreme exaggeration of seondary sexual characteristics, I can’t help thinking how women were defined by their gender in the 1950s, subordinated to men, and profoundly unfree. There’s a Max Ophuls movie, called “The Reckless Moment” with James mason (it was remade as “The Deep End” with Tilda Swinton a few years ago) that uses these tight, highly structured 1950’s-era dresses to make a point about how suffocated the heroine is by her role as wife and mother.But if I could look at the garment as nothing but a garment, deracinated from history, it is very beautiful.
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ooh ooh ooh – Secret Lives are so much better than “actual facts”!
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Believe it or not, I saw a similar drawing on the wall in the ladies room of a furniture store this past weekend. The subject was wearing a two-toned kimono sleeved jacket and a pencil skirt, and the drawing was labeled: “C26-250, Helene E. Simke (or maybe ‘Sinake’), DeZine Studio, 1054 40th Street, NYC”.
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I just love the picture~~it reminds me of Mad Men, too. (Which I watch solely for the style and clothing!)Michelle
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The drawing and the location raise the possibility that this might have been (DeZine Studio might have been…) costume designers for Broadway shows.
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Designer, if you don’t know already, is Helen E Simke
De Zine Studios, NYC
Circa 1950s, near as I can tell (on two designs I have it appears to read “100 west 40th street”… there are also (2021) several on fashion design websites as well as eBay that show either just the studio name- with no address; Helen Simke’s name only or neither; but you can tell the designs are part of her work/portfolio and you pull it up when you “Google” her works/name!
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Anonymous’s post on gender roles reflected in dresses, along with the dress design, remind me of a post on Go Fug Yourself this week with a dress that has a scarf that reaches up from the bodice to wrap around the nick. On first glance I thought this dress was similar (now I see that it is a necklace worn with it). I’ll drink to modern day freedom to wear either slacks or froufy dresses.
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Hello, Helen E. Simke was my mother. DeZine Studio was the name of her company that she owned with Jack Kalkstein. She was the creative force and he took care of business. She was born in Germany and trained there, working in the super-charged fashion scene of Berlin in the 20s. She often went to Paris to preview the opening collections. She and my father came to the US in 1941. Not long afterward she formed her own company, Dezine Studio. Her illustration style was unique, always very free and loose. Many other sketch services at the time preferred a tighter style, but most who subscribed to her service wanted the feel of the garment rather than extreme attention to detail. If you have specific questions Id be happy to answer them. I was so delighted to see this…she too would have been thrilled to see the comments.Cathy
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Yes…amazing woman!
She was my grandmother, Oma!
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Sorry Cathy
I did not see your post before I sent my comments
I recently purchased two of your mother’s framed and matted sketches/designs in a shop in Park Rapids, MN. The seller told the shop owners that they were worth a lot (of money? of sentimental value? ) and that apparently Helen- your mother- was A RELATIVE OF THEIRS AS WELL!! Small world… that is unless you happen to live near Bluegrass, MN?…..
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Thanks so much for posting I have many sketches from your mothers studio found in a yard sale in Connecticut about 15 years ago. My friend bought them because I was a fashion designer. I have 52 hand painted gouch sketches and then I have sketches by Fay kozuck, Florence Anne Schatkin all from Cardinal Fashion Studio 117 W. 48th Street, New York 19, NY. Do you know anything about this studio? Would you be interested in making a book of her sketches from the studio? I have 30 in my study at home and 30 in the attached guest bathroom. People go crazy over them. I think its a story worth telling and publishing. And very inspirational to future designers. My father was a designer and he always said the inspiration always comes from somewhere before. My best–thrilled to see your comment Catherine Magid cmagid@triad.rr.com
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Hi, I came across one completely done in pencil with the number D-9386XX and titled “Mousseline De Soie Black Lace”. I purchased this at a store in Denver. Were you ever able to find out more information? Mine also has the DeZine Studio 105W 40 St NY
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Just found 9 original drawings that appear to be from the same artist, Helen E Simke, DeZine Studios, 105 W 40th Street, NYC
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I just found 9 of these renderings from apparently the same artist at an estate sale in Chicago.
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I have 6 of these drawings, cannot recall where I picked them up, but it was a thift store, or maybe the flea market in NY. I am a thifter and flea marker stalker. I cannot find anything about these mystery drawings, but they are framed and in my bedroom..
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Hi everyone, I’ve not been back to this website for a while. I just love that so many people enjoy my Mom’s work. I (and my sister and brother) have many sketches and they are awesome. My granddaughter Ava, who is 8, colors the sketches as I used to do sometimes to help my Mom out at “imports” time. Dezine Studio made its money by offering subscriptions to other fashion enterprises: sole designers (Ciel Chapman), larger firms, pretty much anyone who wanted inspiration. Four times a year when Paris and Milan showed their new work my mother offered a special service that provided designers with the latest. This had to go very fast. She had people in several cities that air-mailed the sketches from the runway shows, she quickly drew each one onto a master lithograph sheet, and then the copies were run off, colated and mailed to her clients. Imports time was always a crazy time at the Simke household! I’m not surprised that there are many of these sketches out there; they were mailed far and wide. I remember that Cardinal was one of her competitors, but don’t know anything about them. I wonder if there’s a book that’s been written about the 50s NY fashion scene…
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DeZine Studio was at 110 W. 40th St. on the 11th floor. Helen E. Simke retired in about 1970. I’m glad so many of you like my mother’s work. Would you like to see more? I’d be happy to post a few.
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Hello to all interested in this fashion sketch. I am now doing research on the many works I inherited from my mother’s studio. Up until now there has never been the time. But I am retired now and have some new information. For a time, when my mother partnered with a Mrs. Schreiber, there were several other women who did illustration. And this sketch is by one of those women. When compared to my mother’s work it is the head that gives it away. The females my mother drew had larger heads with less detail. My mother’s work would never have all the fussy detail. So I’m afraid this sketch goes back to the “Mystery” category. Would you like me to send an example of my mother’s work?
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Cathy I received a lovely email from you and then my computer died. Long story and everything was lost. I have over 80 sketches– many hand painted of your moms designs. I am a retired New York fashion designer and want to make contact.
Please email itscatherinemagid@gmail.com— I want so to speak with you.
I love your mothers work!
Best
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Hi, so good to find this information. I have six sketches, which I have always loved but never found information about. Now I have a little more of the puzzle. I will have to see how I can upload the pictures. I don’t see where to do that. If I figure it out maybe Cathy or someone will be able to comment on them?
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I have a sketch too! I actually found two of them in my great aunt Louise’s attic but only took and framed the one I liked best. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why my countrified plain Jane aunt had these in her possession. She lived in Memphis, TN and I don’t ever remember her going anywhere outside of Tennessee. I guess a gal still dreams though, right?
If you want a photo of it then send me an email to kharwood159@gmail.com. Mine says C21-99 short flaring cardigan topper, is signed by Helen, and has the address 105 W 40 St. New York.
I’m so glad I decided to look for information on the designer!
Kathy Everett
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