Book Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson is an American fashion designer and artist famous for colorful, playful and gloriously over-the-top designs, and for finishing her runway shows with a cartwheel into a split. Her career launched in 1964 when she won the Mademoiselle Guest Editor Contest, and by 1965 she was the in-house designer at the Manhattan boutique Paraphernalia, a hub of the youthquake movement, with Anouk Aimée and Linda Ronstadt among those wearing her clothes. In 1967 she costumed Edie Sedgwick and Jane Holzer for the underground film Ciao! Manhattan. Two years later she and fellow Paraphernalia alumni Bunky Washburn and Nini Latorre opened the Upper East Side boutique Betsey, Bunky, and Nini, which carried her clothing and introduced Betsey Johnson shoes, including an early high-heeled sneaker that other designers later embraced. In the 1970s she took over the Alley Cat label, a favorite of rock musicians, and in September 1971 she won the Coty Fashion Critics' Award. Her work over the decades earned her the CFDA's Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, and Johnson brings irrepressible energy, creative fearlessness and a lifetime of fashion stories to every stage.