The late designer Willi Smith's legacy will live on in the new book and exhibition, “Willi Smith: Street Couture.'
The fashion designer Willi Smith and his sister, the model Toukie Smith, in New York, 1978.When Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, the curator of contemporary design at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, set about organizing a show on the late fashion designer Willi Smith, she found no shortage of material. There was footage of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane’s 1984 dance piecefor which Smith designed the striking costumes.
, and received a crash course in the art and science of the high-end atelier, the job was ultimately most useful in allowing him to recognize, as he would later put it, “the clothes I didn’t want to make.”Photography by Max Vadukul, Bill Bonnell papers, Vignelli Center for Design Studies, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY.
Smith’s first major role, in 1969, was as head designer of an upstart sportswear label called Digits, where he quickly made a name for himself with bright, bold prints; flowy high-waisted pants; and an ahead of its time marketing campaign featuring women kicking it on the gritty streets of New York. Two years later, he became the youngest designer to be nominated for a Coty Award, then the fashion equivalent of an Oscar. Digits was also where Smith first encountered Mallet.
The accessibility of WilliWear was about more than just price point. Simple, adaptable, and forgiving, Smith’s designs suited a wide variety of body types and aesthetics. “When you look at things that came later, like Issey Miyake’s Plantation line, Smith was already doing that sort of stuff in the ’70s, the loose silhouettes and cotton garments,” says Kim Jenkins, a fashion historian who debuted the first course on “Fashion and Race” at Parsons in 2016. “It was absolutely novel at that time.
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