Although I was only dimly aware of him, the exhibit caught my eye because his heyday coincided with the Studio 54 era. While I was figuring out who I was at Columbia, Burrows was sketching this.
He was one of five American designers who fought in the Battle of Versailles, and the only black one. Walter Cronkite included a segment about it on the CBS Evening News.
Color certainly didn't scare Burrows.
I especially like this birthday candle print. It's definitely something my mother might have worn, even in El Paso.
All the mannequins in the show are black. Pretty fierce, huh?
Apparently his dresses were quite comfortable, cut on the bias and unstructured. He expected the women who wore them to go commando. Easy to imagine Cher or Liza (who actually performed at the Battle of Versailles) doing that, but Barbra not so much.
The chick in the background of this photo is his muse Pat Cleveland. I once rode a boat with her to a beach called Super Paradise in Mykonos. Trust me, it wasn't anything like it is today.
Burrows' designs definitely reflected the hypersexuality of the times. He called this his "cock and balls" dress
. . . and used the pattern more than once on clothing that could be worn by women or men who were brave enough.
I bought the catalog when I learned that we had something more than Studio 54 in common: he and his models were often photographed in the Pines, where he had a house. It's a wonder we're both still alive.
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