{{short description|American fashion designer}} {{Infobox fashion designer |image=Fashion designer Clare Potter, 1944.jpg |caption= |name=Clare Potter |birth_name=Clare Meyer |birth_date= {{birth date|1903|7|7}} |birth_place=Jersey City, New Jersey |death_date= {{death date and age|1999|1|5|1903|7|7}} |death_place=Fort Ann, New York |education= Art Students League of New York and Pratt Institute of Design |label_name= |awards= 1937 Lord and Taylor Women's Sportswear Award, 1939 Neiman Marcus Fashion Award, 1946 Coty Award |}}
'''Clare Potter''' was a fashion designer who was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1903.{{#tag:ref|In 1998 the Metropolitan Museum of Art published alternative dates of 1892-1974,<ref name=martin/> which are still published on their database.<ref>{{cite web|title=Dress Clare Potter (American, 1892–1974) (''sic'')|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/84000?rpp=20&pg=1&rndkey=20140115&ao=on&ft=*&who=Clare+Potter&pos=1|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=15 January 2014}}</ref> However, their curator, Richard Martin, who wrote the 1998 book, subsequently spoke about Potter for her 1999 obituary, confirming that the earlier published dates were erroneous.<ref name=ny/>| name=dates| group=dates}} In the 1930s she was one of the first American fashion designers to be promoted as an individual design talent.<ref name=naw/> Working under her elided name '''Clarepotter''', she has been credited as one of the inventors of American sportswear.<ref name=ny>Schiro, Anne-Marie, ''[https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/11/nyregion/clare-potter-who-set-trends-in-women-s-clothes-dies-at-95.html Clare Potter, Who Set Trends In Women's Clothes, Dies at 95]'' ''The New York Times'', January 11, 1999</ref> Based in Manhattan, she continued designing through the 1940s and 1950s. Her clothes were renowned for being elegant, but easy-to-wear and relaxed, and for their distinctive use of colour.<ref name=naw>{{cite book| title = Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary| publisher = Harvard University Press| year = 2004| isbn =978-0-674-01488-6}}</ref> She founded a ready-to-wear fashion company in Manhattan named ''Timbertop'' in 1948, and in the 1960s she also established a wholesale company to manufacture fashions. Potter was one of the 17 women gathered together by Edna Woolman Chase, editor-in-chief of ''Vogue'' to form the ''Fashion Group International, Inc.'', in 1928.<ref name=fgi>[http://chicago.fgi.org/index.php?news=675 History of the Fashion Group International]</ref>
==Early life and education==
Born '''Clare Meyer''' in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, she studied at the Art Students League of New York and began her studies at the Pratt Institute of Design in fine arts. After seeing clothes that Potter designed and made for herself, the director of the Pratt Institute recommended that she study costume design.<ref name=naw/>
In 1925, before her graduation, Potter left Pratt to work for Edward L. Mayer, a wholesale dress manufacturer in Manhattan, where she spent three years developing her skills and designing mid-market sportswear.<ref name=martin>{{cite book|last=Martin|first=Richard|title=American ingenuity : sportswear, 1930s - 1970s|year=1998|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York |isbn=9780870998638 |page=91|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ByvsBRNapAC&pg=PA91}}</ref><ref name=naw/>
==Career==
Following a six-month hiatus in Mexico, Potter returned to Manhattan in 1930 and gained employment with the ready-to-wear firm of Charles W. Nudelman Inc. on Seventh Avenue, which specialized in affordable fashion.
Unusually, at a time when designers for large companies were not acknowledged by name, Potter was promoted as a named designer by Dorothy Shaver, then vice-president of Lord & Taylor department store.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0631.htm |title=Other Collections |access-date=2009-03-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419145251/http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0631.htm |archive-date=2009-04-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Potter was one of the first American designers to achieve such name recognition.<ref name=ny/>
In 1936, Potter was featured alongside Elizabeth Hawes and Muriel King in the second Lord & Taylor "American Look" promotion, which championed home-grown American design talent.<ref name=naw/><ref name=spinach15>{{cite book| last = Hawes| first = Elizabeth| title = Fashion Is Spinach| url = https://archive.org/details/fashionisspinach00hawerich| publisher = Random House| year = 1938| pages = Chapter 15}}</ref> She was awarded the first Lord & Taylor Design Award in 1938 for distinguished designing in the field of sportswear for women.<ref name=naw/>
Potter was a keen sportswoman who particularly enjoyed horseback riding.<ref name=ny/> She designed for women like herself, saying in 1948:
<blockquote>Large numbers of American women want clothes that are refined. I aim to give them in a medium-priced, ready-to-wear costume what they would find in custom-made styles.<ref>Interview to ''The New York Times'' in 1948, quoted by Schiro, Anne-Marie in ''[https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/11/nyregion/clare-potter-who-set-trends-in-women-s-clothes-dies-at-95.html Clare Potter, Who Set Trends In Women's Clothes, Dies at 95]'' ''The New York Times'', January 11, 1999</ref></blockquote>
[[File:Eleanor Roosevelt, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth in London, England - NARA - 195320.png|thumb|200px|Eleanor Roosevelt (centre) wears a Clare Potter dress to meet King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in London, October 23, 1942.]] During the 1940s, well-known Potter designs included a two-piece bathing suit consisting of separate small top and bloomers, a sweater designed for evening wear, and a sidesaddle-draped skirt. Examples of these designs were featured in the 1998-1999 exhibition ''Designing Women: American Style 1940-1960'' at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.<ref name=la/> Her use of colour was distinctive, with one 1940s evening outfit consisting of a pink blouse, green belt, and pale blue skirt.<ref name=ny/> Other designs were made up in one single, unique shade, such as the blue wool dress worn by Eleanor Roosevelt to meet George VI and his queen consort, Elizabeth in London on October 23, 1942.<ref name=la>[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-12-mn-62829-story.html Obituary] in the ''Los Angeles Times'', 12 January 1999</ref> Roosevelt had been a fellow founder with Potter and others, of an association of women interested in advancing elegant and fashionable clothing for women, the ''Fashion Group International'', FGI.<ref name=fgi/><ref name=aha>[http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0631.htm Overview of the Dorothy Shaver Archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419145251/http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0631.htm |date=2009-04-19 }}, part of the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History</ref> In 1946, Potter was awarded a Coty Award for her casual clothes and her distinctive use of colour.<ref name=naw/> She shared the award with Omar Kiam and Vincent Monte-Sano.<ref name=mara>{{cite news |last1=Mara |first1=Margaret |title=Omar Kiam, Former MGM Designer, gets Fashion Award |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1978388/the_brooklyn_daily_eagle/ |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=13 March 2015 |work=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle |date=19 July 1946 |page=9}}</ref> Although she is considered an important figure in the world of sportswear design, the curator Richard Martin has stated that Potter was "not a pure sportswear advocate, she was a figure with a discreet, negotiated relationship to sportswear."<ref name=martin/>
In 1948, Potter launched a ready-to-wear company called ''Timbertop'', with former magazine editor, Martha Stout. The company shared its name with the turkey farm in West Nyack where Potter and her husband, architect J. Sanford Potter, lived. They had married about 1930.<ref name=ny/>
==Later life==
By the mid-1950s Clare Potter worked independently from a barn on her farm. Her business became a husband-and-wife concern, with J. Sanford Potter assisting by drafting her clothing patterns.<ref name=ny/> Her later clothes were more tailored and dressy than her earlier designs.<ref name=naw/>
In the late 1950s the Potters moved into a Japanese-style house on Lake Nebo in Fort Ann, New York that was designed and built by J. Sanford.<ref name=ny/> In addition to their professional work, they bred Dalmatian dogs, grew camellias, and enjoyed riding and hunting.<ref name=ny/><ref name=la/> They kept their horses in Virginia, where the local hunt clubs enjoyed a long season.
J. Sanford Potter died in 1994 and, at the age of 95, Clare Potter died in 1999 at their home in Fort Ann. They left no surviving family.
==Notes== <references group="dates"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/42547 American Ingenuity: Sportswear 1930s-1970s], an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Clare Potter (see index)
{{American sportswear}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Potter, Clare}} Category:1903 births Category:1999 deaths Category:Art Students League of New York alumni Category:Fashion designers from New York City Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:People from Fort Ann, New York Category:20th-century American designers Category:American women fashion designers