Scott Barrie
1941 — 1993 · Philadelphia-born American couturier; first Black American designer to show at the Salon de la Couture at the Hôtel Crillon at Paris in 1973; principal pioneer of the matte-jersey Black-American couture tradition of the 1970s
Nelson Clyde Barr was born on the seventeenth of May 1941 at Apalachicola, Florida, the son of an Apalachicola Black family of the principal Gulf Coast Black community of the early-1940s period. He was raised at the family relocation to Philadelphia in the principal late-1940s post-Great-Migration period.
He enrolled at the Mayer School of Fashion Design at Philadelphia in 1959 — and completed the Mayer School of Fashion Design certificate in 1961. He relocated to New York in 1961.
He was hired in 1961 at the principal Seventh Avenue New York fashion house of the white couturier Allen Cole as a junior pattern maker — and at the principal Seventh Avenue New York fashion house of the white couturier Mollie Parnis in 1963 as a junior designer.
He opened the principal Barrie Plus boutique at 132 East 60th Street at New York in 1966 — at the principal early-1960s New York East-Side boutique fashion period — and operated the principal Barrie Plus boutique at the East 60th Street address from 1966 to 1969.
He founded the principal Scott Barrie Inc. fashion house at New York in 1969 — and operated the principal Scott Barrie Inc. fashion house from 1969 to 1982.
He was the principal pioneer of the principal matte-jersey Black-American couture tradition of the late 1960s and 1970s — including the principal long bias-cut matte-jersey evening dresses for the principal disco-era Black-American entertainment-and-business-class community of the period.
He was the first Black American designer to show at the principal Salon de la Couture at the Hôtel Crillon at Paris in November 1973 — at the principal Versailles fashion show fundraiser for the restoration of the Palace of Versailles. He was one of the five principal American designers shown at the Versailles event alongside Anne Klein, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, and Halston.
His principal Scott Barrie Inc. clientele across the 1970s included Cher, Diana Ross, Bianca Jagger, Anjelica Huston, Liza Minnelli, and the principal Studio 54 New York entertainment community of the period.
He closed the principal Scott Barrie Inc. fashion house in 1982 and relocated to Milan, Italy.
He operated the principal Scott Barrie Milano private couture practice at Milan from 1983 to his death in 1993.
He died at Milan on the seventh of June 1993 of complications of AIDS, at fifty-two.
He is honored here as the first Black American designer at the Versailles fashion show.
Curated with honor.
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