{{Short description|American fashion designer}} thumb|Chester Weinberg in 1976 '''Chester Weinberg''' (1930–1985) was an American fashion designer. While he was very highly regarded for his design work in the 1960s and early 1970s, he is now mainly known for being the fashion industry's first high-profile AIDS-related death.
==Early life and education== Chester Weinberg was born in New York on 30 September 1930.<ref name="jr">{{cite web |last1=Reisman |first1=Jessica |title=Weinberg, Chester |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/fashion/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/weinberg-chester |website=www.encyclopedia.com |publisher=Encyclopedia.com}}</ref> He was Jewish.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fischel |first1=Jack R. |title=Encyclopedia of Jewish American Popular Culture |date=30 December 2008 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-08734-9 |pages=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wpFxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 |language=en}}</ref>
Weinberg graduated from Parsons in 1951, and between 1955 and 1985 regularly returned to the school as a guest lecturer and visiting critic.<ref name=nsa>{{cite web |title=The New School Archives : Collection : Chester Weinberg publicity scrapbook and sketch [KA004601] |url=https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/collections/KA004601 |website=digital.archives.newschool.edu |access-date=31 December 2021}}</ref> He also taught at the Art Institute of Chicago.<ref name=jr/>
==Career== thumb|Chester Weinberg with model, 1971 [[File:Chester Weinberg, January 1971.png|thumb|Chester Weinberg in a safari suit, January 1971]] After spending the 1950s and early 1960s working for various Seventh Avenue clothing houses, Weinberg launched his own label in 1966, which ran until 1975.<ref name=jr/>
In her 2015 memoir Betty Halbreich remembered Weinberg as being "ahead of his time", as well as designing in suede and with dramatic prints.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Halbreich |first1=Betty |last2=Paley |first2=Rebecca |title=I'll Drink to That: A Life in Style, with a Twist |date=4 September 2014 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-101-63455-4 |pages=60 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lyZ0AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT60 |language=en}}</ref> Weinberg was one of the designers who actively championed the midi skirt in the face of opposition from American buyers and retailers.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Chrisman-Campbell |first1=Kimberly |title=The Midi Skirt, Divider of Nations |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/the-return-of-the-midi-skirt/379543/ |work=The Atlantic |date=9 September 2014 |language=en}}</ref>
By 1970, the year that he won a Coty Award, Chester Weinberg was seen as one of the most important designers on Seventh Avenue, equivalent to Bill Blass or Geoffrey Beene.<ref name=insp/> He gave Bethann Hardison her modelling debut.<ref>{{cite news |last1=France |first1=Louise |title=Black. Beautiful. Barely seen |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/02/bethann-hardison-black-models |access-date=31 December 2021 |work=The Guardian |date=2 November 2008 |language=en}}</ref> Despite the hostility of the audience towards Hardison's Blackness, Weinberg was supportive of her and she remembered it as an empowering and groundbreaking experience.<ref name=insp>{{cite book |last1=McCrary |first1=Crystal |last2=Williams |first2=Nathan Hale |title=Inspiration: Profiles of Black Women Changing Our World |date=1 March 2012 |publisher=Abrams |isbn=978-1-61312-344-7 |pages=171 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wtYwrjk7sCkC&pg=PT171 |language=en}}</ref>
After the closure of his label in 1975, Weinberg worked freelance, creating cashmere knitwear for Ballantyne of Scotland, dress patterns for Butterick and Vogue, and dance costumes for Twyla Tharp's ballet ''As Time Goes By''.<ref name=jr/> In 1978 Weinberg joined Calvin Klein as a consultant, and in 1981 became design director for Calvin Klein Jeans.<ref name=nsa/> Weinberg had been one of Klein's heroes as a young designer, and the two men developed a strong friendship and working relationship.<ref name=marsh>{{cite book |last1=Marsh |first1=Lisa |title=The House of Klein: Fashion, Controversy, and a Business Obsession |date=4 May 2004 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-471-47895-9 |pages=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7RLw63appZsC&pg=PA34 |language=en}}</ref> Weinberg recruited several design assistants for Klein, including Charles Suppon and Jeffrey Banks who went on to create the Klein logo shirts.<ref name=marsh/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Marsh |first1=Lisa |title=The House of Klein: Fashion, Controversy, and a Business Obsession |date=4 May 2004 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-471-47895-9 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7RLw63appZsC&pg=PA34 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=manlow>{{cite book |last=Manlow |first=Veronica |title=Designing clothes : culture and organization of the fashion industry |year=2009 |publisher=Transaction Pub |location=New Brunswick, [N.J.]|isbn=9781412810555 |pages=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hRHUOxramGEC&pg=PA99|edition=1st pbk.}}</ref> After Weinberg was diagnosed with AIDS, Klein fired him.<ref name="9781559722353_1994">Sharon Churcher and Steven Gaines: "Obsession: The Lives and Times of Calvin Klein" (1994). {{ISBN|9781559722353}}</ref>
While lecturing at Parsons, Weinberg mentored designers such as Isaac Mizrahi, Marc Jacobs, and Donna Karan.<ref name=kcc>{{cite news |last1=Chrisman-Campbell |first1=Kimberly |title=The Day AIDS Hit the Fashion Industry |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/04/fashions-darkest-day/391340/ |access-date=31 December 2021 |work=The Atlantic |date=24 April 2015 |language=en}}</ref> Karan, whose academic record was underwhelming, was accepted into Parsons on Weinberg's recommendation as her mother was his employee.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tikkanen |first1=Amy |title=Donna Karan, American designer |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Donna-Karan |website=www.britannica.com |publisher=Britannica |access-date=31 December 2021 |language=en}}</ref>
==Personal life and death== Chester Weinberg was gay, although until his label closed in 1975, he was firmly closeted and refused to acknowledge his sexuality.<ref name=kcc/>
He died of AIDS on 24 April 1985, aged 54, making him the first high-profile fashion designer known to die of the disease.<ref name=kcc/> As Weinberg was no longer the household name he had been in the 1960s and early 1970s, the fashion industry actively moved to erase him from history.<ref name=kcc/><ref name=jl>{{cite web |last1=Layne |first1=Jodie |title=The Fight To End HIV/AIDS Stigma In Fashion |url=https://www.bustle.com/articles/79015-chester-weinberg-reminds-us-to-fight-for-an-end-to-hiv-stigma-in-and-outside-the |website=Bustle |access-date=31 December 2021 |language=en |date=26 April 2015}}</ref> Until 1990, when Halston publicly acknowledged that he was dying of AIDS, the majority of AIDS-related fashion deaths typically went unacknowledged, or were attributed to other causes in order to protect a designer or brand's reputation and value (the New York Times obituary stated that Weinberg died of encephalitis).<ref name=kcc/><ref name=jl/> Weinberg almost completely disappeared from writings about the fashion industry, the main scholarly acknowledgement of him being a few brief passages in the curator Richard Martin's 1995 encyclopedic work ''Contemporary Fashion''.<ref name=kcc/>
Despite the attempts to downplay Weinberg's significance after his death, Calvin Klein placed a full-page memorial in ad space in ''Women’s Wear Daily'', and endowed a Chester A. Weinberg Memorial scholarship fund at Parsons.<ref name=kcc/> When the AIDS Quilt was created, Weinberg was included in the panel commemorating Calvin Klein employees.<ref name=kcc/>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weinberg, Chester}} Category:1930 births Category:1985 deaths Category:American fashion designers Category:AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) Category:LGBTQ fashion designers Category:Parsons School of Design alumni Category:Jewish fashion designers Category:Designers from New York (state) Category:20th-century American designers