Vintage Trash to TreasureCall me a “junker” if you will, I do admit to being drawn to other peoples trash especially if the item has “possibilities.” So it was a matter of course that I would see a potential treasure when I eyed a tattered old hat box sitting on a pile of cartons and reusable packing materials. I’m a dealer in all things vintage. Apparently, a fellow mall dealer had tossed the old hat box. Thinking yes it had obvious flaws , there still might be a chance it could be restored or at least made presentable with some TLC.
The treasure from the trash went home with me that day. I placed the old hat box on my patio where I could get a much better look at it in the light of day. Oh, it was really pretty battered and there were lots of water marks and damage too. Darn. Oh well, I do love to decoupage old boxes and such, or it could be covered it with some really cool zebra paper saved for just such a project.
After a couple of days of eying the box and studying the possibilities, it was the designer name, Sally Victor, scripted on the rumpled paper-covered lid that kept drawing my attention. There is was again stamped in bold type repeatedly around the bottom half of this treasure-keeper. Curiosity took hold and put an end to any thought of re-covering this old hat box. Distinctly mid century in design, I ruled the battered box had plenty of character just the way it was. Even damaged, empty and abandoned, the hat box displayed itself as a piece of American fashion history.
So, now who was this designer Sally Victor? I hit the net, did a quick search and found a wealth of information about this renown 20th Century milliner. A TIME magazine article dated March 30, 1959, described the designer as one of the most successful businesswomen in the U.S., the biggest fashion hat maker of the times, a trend setter, and the only female milliner to win the Coty award, the fashion world “Oscar.” In fact, my research found she won the Fashion Critics millinery award in 1943 and the Coty award in 1944 and again in 1956.
So how did this woman climb to the top of the competitive world of fashion design? As her bio tells it, Sally Josephs was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1905. She was one of six sisters who were taught to “sew, and sew well.” By her early teens young Sally was designing her own hats and clothes. At age 17, she went to Paris to study painting, stayed for two years and returned to Manhattan to work for Macy’s in sales, then moved up to assistant buyer. L. Bamberger & Co. hired her away and before long Victor was their head millinery buyer. She married New York hat manufacturer, Sergiu F. Victor, in 1927, quit Bamberger’s in 1929 to have a baby, then went to work designing hats for her husband.
In 1934, with a start-up stake of $10,000 and blessings from her husband, Victor set up her own shop. Since her designs were already featured at Lord & Taylor, the shop was an immediate success. Her “customer list read like the who’s who of the world famous.” Within five years her husband Sergiu closed his operation and joined his wife.
Armed with a background in art, the hands of a sculptress and the vision of wonderful head pieces that would flatter a woman’s face, Victor admitted she was often influenced by art exhibitions and architecture. Her Franco-Flemish mode designs were inspired by paintings from the museum of Berlin on exhibit in 1948 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Victor designed pretty hats, net and floral designs, Easter bonnets, big sculpted Panama straw hats, very sophisticated designs done in felt, runway accessories for couture designers like Anne Klein and Hattie Carnegie, and the list goes on and on. The Victors also developed a subsidiary “Sally V” line of moderately priced hats for young girls. Later, Vogue launched the popular Sally Victor hat patterns.
Victor retired in 1966 just about the time when American fashion styles changed. Hats were out , suburban style was in. But her story didn't end there. Today vintage and retro fashions are “in” and Sally Victor Hats, and the many copied styles, are as desirable now as they were when the renown designer created them.
Ah, who would have thought this old hat box, tossed out by one and saved from the trash by another, would launch a brief but fascinating adventure into fashion history and allow a peek inside the life story of a treasured millinery icon named Sally Victor.
Sally Victor, 1905 - 1977.
This article by Ellie Clinton Issa was originally published in September-October issue of The Country Register in several states around the USA.
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