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Gimmicks Don’t Interest Jo CopelandBy SARAH HINTON Women’s News ServiceNEW YORK — Jo Copeland is one New York designer who hasn’t succumbed to the mod, mad whirl of fashion sweeping about her. On Seventh Avenue, where she’s vice-president and head designer of Pattullo-Jo Copeland, Inc., she’s known as “the woman who refused to conform.”Miss Copeland has never put a single miniskirt in her collections and no matter what anybody else does with hemlines, hers are staying at two inches above the knee. ‘‘A designer should interpret her clothes for the market she caters to. I don’t think the miniskirt belongs on the women who buy my clothes,”she remarked over a cottage cheese and fruit salad lunch in her showroom recently. Petite and attractive with softly-blonde hair and brown eyes, she said she likes to eatsparingly during the day since it helps her to work better.She’s not interested in attracting the “stoppers”—her word for exhibitionists—nor does she wow the fashion press and buyers with “flash-of-the-moment gimmicks” because “they’re dead after two appearances and a woman should be able to get some wear out of her clothes.”Too ImpracticalWhile many designers are swooning over the new midcalf length in dresses, coats and suits, Jo Copeland maintains, “The midi is not for daytime. It’s too impractical. Just imagine rushing aroundtrying to get a taxi with a midi flapping about your legs!” Her summer collection will feature a few midis but for evening only. “To some extent the midi will replace the short formal and add alook that’s quite distinct from the little cocktail dress,” she commented.The big brouhaha over the “Bonnie and Clyde” gangster look of the ’30s hasn’t caused a ripple at Pattullo-Jo Copeland.“Faye Dunaway is pretty so she made the clothes appealing—but who wants to emulate a gangster’s moll,” Jo Copeland wants to know. “It just shows the sickness of our society that women are dressing like that depraved, decadent nitwit of a dame,” she declared, referring to the real Bonnie.“The way we dress has a great impact on our behavior,” she pointed out. “A vulgar dress automatically reflects that attitude in a woman, even though she may not be aware of it. She becomes more brazen. Women all have a bit of the actress in them.This is the whole idea of fashion,” she emphasized. “It brings out other facets of her personality that are not obvious.”Besides her busy 30-year fashion career, Miss Copeland, twice married, has a son and daughter and four grandchildren.Occasional FlashUnlike other designers, she doesn’t believe in jetting to Paris twice a year for inspiration. “There’s that occasional flash of genius, but it’s unrealistic for us to use Paris as our yardstick to determine how American women should dress. We don’t copy them in other ways of life, why this? Fashion should reflect the way one lives or it’s not true art.”One reason she thinks the Paris designs are so highlytouted is this: “Designers and buyers love that trip to Parisso they’re going to have to justify it. They’re not going to come back and say there’s nothing there.”While she herself shudders at the stunts, Jo Copeland frankly admits that “in order to focus public attention on the change in fashion, change has to be exaggerated. It’s like a pendulum swinging way out. But in knowledgeable hands a new look becomesan acceptable thing.”Miss Copeland knows how to interpret change for the woman who wants to look feminine, chic and with it—no matter what her age.“My clothes have no age,” she said, offering her spring samples as proof. “Older women who wear my clothes have a youthful look and the younger ones take on an elegance and assurance.”
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Burlington Daily Times News
Burlington, North Carolina, US
Thu, Feb 22, 1968
Page 65
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USA 30 Jan 2020
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