JAMES GALANOS, who was born on this date (d: 2016) was an American fashion designer and couturier. Galanos is known for designing clothing for America’s social elite, including Nancy Reagan, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and others.

Galanos was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the only son of Greek-born parents. His mother, Helen Gorgoliatos, and his father, Gregory Galanos, a frustrated artist, ran a restaurant in southern New Jersey, where Galanos had his first glimpses of well-dressed women. He grew up a shy boy and learned to work hard from an early age. Galanos recalled that he was “a loner, surrounded by three sisters. I never sewed; I just sketched. It was simply instinctive. As a young boy I had no fashion influences around me but all the while I was dreaming of Paris and New York.”

Many of the world’s most socially prominent women were Galanos customers. “James Galanos designs for wealthy women who go to luncheons and cocktail parties, dine at the finest restaurants and are invited to the best parties,” reported The New York Times. “His clothes are rarely seen in business offices. It isn’t only because of the five-figure price tags, although they are daunting to all but the highest-paid executives. It’s also the glamour quotient of the clothes.” Galanos agreed, “I design for a very limited group of people,” he told Time magazine in 1985. In the 1980s, he made national headlines as First Lady Nancy Reagan’s favorite designer. Reagan first met Galanos in 1951 at a boutique in Beverly Hills. At the time, Reagan was working as an actress in Hollywood. She wore dresses created by Galanos to Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural ball as governor of California in 1967, and again in 1971 and 1981. The fact that Mrs. Reagan wore a 16-year-old Galanos gown to her first state dinner at the White House attested to the timelessness and durability not only of his workmanship, but more importantly, of his design.

This type of occurrence was commonplace among his faithful customers, who included Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Grace Kelly, Diana Ross, Betsy Bloomingdale, Rosalind Russell, Marlene Dietrich, Dorothy Lamour, Judy Garland, Loretta Young, Ali MacGraw, Ivana Trump, Carolyne Roehm, Kim Basinger, Arianna Huffington and many other notable personalities and film and media stars.

In 1982, John Duka, the New York Times columnist, described in his column, Notes on Fashion, a black tie party in Galanos’ honor attended by his A-list fans, “James Galanos, the designer whose clothing is unmatched in quality and price in this country, was in town, and almost immediately the level of social exchange seemed elevated as if by ripple effect. Betsy and Michael Kaiser – he is the photographer – gave a black tie buffet dinner for the designer Saturday. Among those at table were Lyn Revson, Gordon Parks, Barbara Walters, Arianna Stassinopoulos, former Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff and his wife, Casey, Freddie and Arlette Brisson, Mary McFadden, Tammy Grimes, Stephen Paley, John Loring, Gloria Vanderbilt, William Macomber, Sybilla Clark, Alex Gregory, Frank and Gloria Schiff and Bob Colacello. Mr. Galanos was the center of attention: Almost every woman in the room was wearing one of his designs.”

Galanos was the youngest designer to win the Coty Fashion Award in 1954. He was also a winner in 1956 and he was inducted into the Coty Hall of Fame in 1959. His other honors included the Crystal Ball Award from The Fashion Group of Philadelphia, 1963; the Fashion Award from the Drexel Institute of Technology, 1965; the London Sunday Times International Award, 1968; the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Golden 44 Award, 1980; a Diploma di Merita from the Universita delle Arte Terme, Italy, 1981. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1982. Galanos also received the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985. In the year 2000, the City of New York began honoring American fashion designers by placing bronze plaques along the pavement of Seventh Avenue. Dubbed the “Fashion Walk of Fame”, Galanos was one of the first designers to be so honored. In 2007, he became the recipient of the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style Award, and one year later, in 2008, he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree honoris causa from the San Francisco Academy of Art University.

He retired in 1998 and lived in Palm Springs, California, and West Hollywood. Galanos died in October 2016, at his home in West Hollywood, California, at the age of 92.