Knitwear designer Joan Vass dies at 85
Joan Vass, a popular knitwear designer in the 1980s and ’90s, died Saturday. She was 85.
In 1990, Vass came to Oklahoma City for the opening of Joan Vass Oklahoma City, a boutique owned by Mike and Jane Webb.
I interviewed her then. What a treat. She said she always got nervous about personal appearances, worrying that no one would come see her. And if they did, she worried they would be disappointed.
“I’m just an old woman with a second career,” she said. “I design very forward clothes so people think I’m going to be young and kicky, and I’m old and decrepit.”
She told me she designed with comfort in mind.
“If the clothes aren’t comfortable, it’s not because I haven’t tried,” she said. “I really want the clothes to be as comfortable and as free as possible.
“There’s never been anything, I hope, to make them uncomfortable. I’ve never had a shoulder pad in anything. None of my clothes have any construction at all. They’re like old rags. Comfortable rags, I hope.”
Although Vass retired about five years ago, clothes are still produced under her name by Global Sourcing and Design, a licensee that completed an acquisition of Joan Vass last year.
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