James Galanos

Galanos' nephew Vincent Polisano, president of the James G. Galanos Foundation, described his uncle as someone who spent his whole life focused on his career. "From the time he was a teenage boy, he would sit in his parents' restaurant and draw fashion sketches on the back of customers' checks." Polisano said, "He always knew that he was going to be a fashion designer, and he knew he wanted to be a designer of beautiful things for very special people. And ever since he was a little boy, he tried to stay on course and never deviate from that." That focus earned him not just A-list clientele but just about every plaque, trophy and recognition the fashion industry could bestow, including Coty American Fashion Critics awards in 1954 and 1956, plaques on New York City's Seventh Avenue's Fashion Walk of Fame in 2001 and on the Beverly Hills, California, Rodeo Drive Walk of Style in 2007, and a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1985. He was also the subject of a career retrospective at the Los Angels County Museum of Art in 1997, a year before he officially retired at age 74. "Galanos on Galanos," a short film created for the LACMA exhibition, can be viewed online. A testament to the timelessness of his work. Galanos' vintage gowns would continue to grace the forms of supermodels and superstars including Heidi Klum, Amber Valletta, Nicole Kidman, Celine Dion and Renee Zellweger. From his retirement in 1998 until his death in 2016, Galanos split his his time between homes in the Hollywood hills and Palm Springs, traveling and dabbling in art photography. He is survived by a sister, Dorothy Chrambanis of Langhorne, Pa., who, along with his nephew Vincent Polisano and his wife, sits on the board of the Philadelphia based James G. Galanos Foundation, which is preserving the designer's legacy. "One of the things the foundation did - and it was one of Mr. Galanos' wishes - was donate his atelier collection to Drexel University," Vincent Polisano told The Los Angeles Times. "And they're going to take the lead in preserving what was left in his archives." Over the last year, the foundation has donated more than 700 garments to the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection in the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel, and plans include a designated study room for Galanos' archives, a book and something that perhaps will help the next Galanos-in-the-making turn a sketch scribbled on the back of a restaurant check into career-launching wearable art. "We're going to to give scholarship funds to people who are deserving - to help them get careers in the fashion world," Polisano said. James Gregory Galanos, a designer to the stars who kept a profile as low as his clients' were high, died of natural causes, peacefully and surrounded by his sister and family, on a Sunday morning, October 30th, 2016 at his home in West Hollywood. He was 92.

Judy Garland wore a black leotard and chiffon skirt of his for the inaugural September 24th,1955, CBS' Hollywood Television City live-color-broadcast "Ford Star Jubilee Judy Garland Special." Diana Ross was clad in a purple-beaded Galanos gown at the 1985 Academy Awards. And Grace Kelly, in the run-up to her 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco, had the designer make her a couple of dresses: a white silk organdy ball gown embroidered with huge floral bouquets and a more understated blue dress she was photographed wearing the day before the wedding ceremony. Other film and stage star personalities who counted on him included Edie Adams (whose Galanos pieces reportedly numbered in the hundreds), Loretta Young, Dorothy Lamour and Rosalind Russell. Another thing that set Galanos apart was his approach to business. He not only designed the clothes that bore his name but also chose the fabrics, arranged sales and called on clients, often with wheeled steamer trunks full of dresses and gowns. Likewise, he never leveraged 'Galanos Originals' into a Galanos life-style brand with the kind of product extensions that have been part of fashion brand synergy for the last several decades. Galanos reportedly signed just two licensing deals in his career, one for fragrances and the other for furs.

He is known for his work on Never Wave at a WAC (1953), Ginger in the Morning (1974) and Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (1967).

James Galanos was born on September 20, 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.