Celebrity Biographies
Betsey Johnson Biography, Age, Fashion Stylist Career, Cartwheel and Husband.
BETSEY JOHNSON
Betsey Johnson is a prominent American fashion designer. She is best known for her feminine and whimsical designs and for doing a cartwheel that ends in a split at the end of her fashion show.
BETSEY JOHNSON AGE
She was born on August 10, 1942 in Wethersfield, Connecticut. She turns 76 in March 2019.
BETSEY JOHNSON MARI
She has been married three times, first she married John Cole in 1968 and dissolved their marriage in 1971. In 1981 she married Jeffrey Oliviere and later divorced in 1984. In 1997 she married her current husband Brian Reynolds.
BETSEY JOHNSON KID
She has a daughter Lulu born in 1975.
BETSEY JOHNSON HEIGHT
She stands at a height of 5 feet 4 inches.
BETSEY JOHNSON EARLY LIFE
She was born in Wethersfield, Connecticut and raised in nearby Terryville. As a child, she devoted herself to her two greatest lovers of drawing and dancing. She had developed a talent for the art and in her youth trained in various dance styles.
Her great interest in dance and drawing led her to the world of fashion design. During her high school, she was a cheerleader. She graduated in 1960 and later joined the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to pursue her interest in art and design. After a year, she transferred to Syracuse University where she proved to be an outstanding student. In 1964, she graduated magna cum laude as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
BETSEY JOHNSON CAREER IN FASHION DESIGNER
After graduating from college, she made her first appearance in the New York fashion industry by winning Miss Magazine’s Guest Essay Contest and landing a job in the magazine’s art department. In 1965, she landed a job as a designer at Paraphernalia, an offbeat clothing store in New York.
She developed her whimsical, hippie-inspired style, characterized by the use of unique fabrics such as shower curtains, the interior lining of automobiles, and the pinstriped wool of old New York Yankees uniforms.
She is known for using bright neon dyes, puff sleeves, deep necklines and low waists. Along with designer Mary Quant and artist Andy Warhol, she took her cues from the more avant-garde London fashion scene and helped pioneer what became known as the ‘Youthquake’ movement in fashion, art and Culture.
She left Paraphernalia in 1970, to assume creative control of Alley Cat, a fledgling sportswear brand, where she continued to design clothes with bright colors, extravagant patterns and sexy cuts. In 1971, at the age of 29, she won the prestigious Coty Fashion Critics Award in honor of her work at Alley Cat and became the youngest designer to receive this honor.
Betsey Johnson
BETSEY JOHNSON LABEL
Her career as a fashion designer stalled after her rapid rise to the top of the fashion world. Its younger demographic “went to work and dressed for work, and my client disappeared.” She supported herself with freelance work designing children’s and maternity clothes.
She thought it was all over until Punk started in London. She teamed up with ex-model Chantal Bacon to start their own company, the Betsey Johnson label in 1978, after the punk movement revived her work. Together with Chantal Bacon, they opened Johnson’s first retail store in Manhattan’s trendy SoHo neighborhood. The company currently has 65 stores worldwide, including locations in London, Toronto and Tokyo.
She celebrated her brand’s 0th anniversary with a retrospective fashion show with Cyndi Lauper performing on September 12, 2012.
Betsey Johnson