Happy Birthday, Suzie Zuzek!
Installation of ‘Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
Excerpted from The Textile Eye Report no. 10 - Fall 2021
SUZIE ZUZEK: THE HAND THAT MADE THE BRAND
The anonymous force behind original Lilly Pulitzer designs is rescued from obscurity.
The work of Suzie Zuzek (1920-2011) received some well-deserved attention this past year. A beautiful monograph, “Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Artist Behind an Iconic American Fashion Brand, 1962-1985”, a solo show at the Cooper Hewitt, and a stellar presentation by Susan Brown, Associate Curator of Textiles at the Cooper Hewitt and co-author of the book, all shed light on Suzie’s beautiful but little-known work.
Suzie Zuzek, ca. 1943, unidentified photographer, image courtesy of the de Poo family
Tropical Harvest, 1973, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
In the early 1960s, Palm Beach socialite Lilly Pulitzer unwittingly launched a fashion brand that would resonate with fans for the decades that followed.
The magic of the Pulitzer collection was in its patterns: densely packed and cheerfully colored, the designs featured a world of exuberant flora and fauna. The prints elicited a sense of carefree Bohemianism that captivated Pulitzer’s customers, who would routinely purchase their favorite silhouette in every new pattern that was introduced, and new patterns were always rolling out.
Thanks to the recent discovery of a nearly-lost archive, we now know the “hand” behind these iconic patterns: a Floridian artist named Suzie Zuzek.
Suzie Zuzek, Zek's Zoo, 1974; brush and watercolor, pen and ink, graphite on paper ,image courtesy of The Original I.P. LLC.
Zuzek grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York, the daughter of Yugoslavian immigrants. As a child, she loved to draw, and thanks to a stint in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II she was able to attend Pratt on the GI Bill.
At Pratt, Zuzek was an exceptional student, studying illustration and eventually textile design. Following school, she stayed in New York, worked as a print designer, married, and became a mother. Eventually the family migrated from New York to Florida’s southernmost point.
The marriage ended in separation shortly after they arrived, leaving Zuzek a single mother of three young daughters and looking for work. Key West Hand Print Fabrics, a local silk-screen printing company, jumped at the chance to employ the well-trained and experienced designer.
Suzie Zuzek, Garden Paisley, 1, 1975, image courtesy of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
Suzie Zuzek, KWHPF, INC. 1543, early 1960s, image courtesy of The Original I.P. LLC.
To find out more about Suzie, including her influence on the Pulitzer brand, and how the archive was saved from obscurity, read the full article in The Textile Eye Report no. 10 - Fall 2021.