Cindy Crawford, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan: An ’80s Fashion Mystery

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On a late-summer afternoon 11 years ago, Gaetane Bertol was hurrying past the corner of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, when she noticed a large stack of yellowing boxes on the sidewalk. At the top of the pile was an open binder containing color slides.

At the time, Ms. Bertol, an artist and set designer, was creating small collages from colorful bits clipped from magazines, so the slides caught her eye. When she held one of the sleeves up to the sun, she could see tall women parading down a runway in vivid clothes.

“The colors — that’s what really caught my eye,” she said. “I thought to myself, ‘What is this? Whose stuff is this?’” She looked around, but it seemed clear the boxes were left on the curb as garbage.

She decided to take a few boxes home and incorporate the slides into her own artwork. So she hailed a taxi. The 6-foot-4 cabdriver, who didn’t entirely understand her instructions, loaded all of the boxes — 22 in all — into the trunk.

Source: The New York Times

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Keywords:

Cindy Crawford • Ralph Lauren • Donna Karan • 1980s in Western fashion • Glory (Britney Spears album) • New York (magazine) • 14th Street (Manhattan) • Ninth Avenue (Manhattan) • Manhattan • Visual arts • Scenic design • Color • Reversal film • Runway (fashion) • Taxicab •