Norell: Elegant Then, Elegant Now

From Traina-Norell, during Norell’s long business collaboration with manufacturer Anthony Traina, a 1959 sequined sheath. Here Norell is shown with fabled model Dovima. The Traina-Norell business began in 1941 and lasted till 1960, when Traina retired. / Photo by William Helburn.

From Norell, a wool-jersey shirtwaist with leather belt and silk-taffeta bow, from 1971. / Photo of Kenneth Pool Collection, © Marc Fowler.

Fun from 1965, a Norell giraffe-print sequined chemise. / Photograph of the Kenneth Pool Collection, © Marc Fowler.

From Norell in the late 1960s, this Prince of Wales reefer coat. / Photograph of Kenneth Pool Collection © Marc Fowler.

From Norell in 1964, a pair of belted dresses with mini-capes, in pink linen and black wool. / Photo of Kenneth Pool Collection © Marc Fowler.

A 1965 sequined evening dress from Norell. / Photo of Kenneth Pool Collection © Marc Fowler.

Two Norell “mermaid” dresses of silk jersey and sequins. The purple dress is circa 1965. / The Museum at FIT, gift of Mortimer Solomon. / The gray dress is circa 1968-69. / The Museum at FIT, gift of Lauren Bacall.

Detail from the Norman Norell exhibit at The Museum at FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology, in Manhattan. / Photo © 2018 The Museum at FIT.

IF YOU SAW the movie Phantom Thread and swooned over the clothing (even as you were trying to figure out what on earth was going on); if you delighted in the 1950s outfits worn by Rachel Brosnahan in Amazon’s Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, now hear this: You’re ready for the Norman Norell exhibit at the Museum at FIT , at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, which runs through mid-April.

We civilians don’t hear too much about the modern-day master born in 1900 as Norman David Levinson—or, as my late, great friend Madeleine called him, “my cousin,” though she never had the nerve to approach him for a fashion fix. But he’s among the 20th-century designers whose names cause fashion scholars to nod their heads and sometimes moan, audibly. Mainbocher and Charles James are two others who come quickly to mind.

Did you see all the craziness that hit the Gucci runway last month (models carrying severed heads, that sort of thing)? That’s so not this! This is clothing. Quiet clothing. Elegant, simple, impeccably tailored clothing. Expensive, yes, but arguably timeless too. There are two evening gowns in the FIT show that could be worn to a gala tonight without anyone guessing they were  designed in 1959 in one case, 1965 in the other. There’s an exquisitely simple wool-jersey shirtwaist dress with a killer silk-taffeta bow at the neck that first lady Melania Trump could rock at her next public event; even she would have to be told that it dated from the year after she was born.

The mother of a friend died in Washington DC some dozen years ago. On the upstairs landing of her mother’s stately brick home were racks of dresses, coats, furs, gowns. Some of them, my friend told me with a hint of awe in her voice, were by Norell, who died in 1972. But the dresses were size 16s and she feared no one would be able to use them. Really? Well, I hope some lucky woman did seize the opportunity, even if she had to alter them to fit. What treasure!

For the rest of us there’s the FIT exhibit, open through April 14, 2018.

—Nancy McKeon

Norell: Dean of American Fashion, The Museum at FIT, Seventh Avenue at 27th Street, New York, New York 10001; fitnyc.edu; closed Sundays and Mondays; open Tuesday-Friday noon-8pm, Saturdays 10am-5pm. Through Saturday, April 14, 2018.