From his hemless lettuce-edged chiffon skirts to slinky Whiting and Davis mesh halter tops, Stephen Burrows is synonymous with the heady days of disco. The designer's first retrospective at Museum of the City of New York — “Steven Burrows: When Fashion Danced” — sheds light on Burrows’s golden period between 1968 to 1983, when the sexual revolution, free love, an emerging club scene were radically liberating codes of dress and behavior. The exhibition charts his evolution from the groovy color-blocked threads and unisex leather pieces that epitomized Greenwich Village hippie culture to the glamorous glittering gowns worn by Cher, Diana Ross, and Liza Minnelli.
In 1970, Burrows was propelled to commercial success when he opened his own mini-boutique inside the high-end department store Henri Bendel, but he never left his playful, irreverent spirit behind (his first Bendel collection included a sweatshirt with a penis applique). The first African-American designer to achieve international fame, Burrows was also a participant in “The Battle of Versailles,' the 1973 fashion competition that pitted five Americans against the French couture establishment, asserting American design as a force to be reckoned with. Blouin ARTINFO spoke to the curator of the costume curator Phyllis Magidson about Burrows and his party-hardy designs.