The rich in the country that flocks to Palm Beach in winter at the turn of the century, would be better off differently if they are alive today, but the island, which was then an emerging as a resort town, was not a famous fashion mecca.
Don’t get me wrong: The wife of the American financier and industrialist looked chic in a la mode with the neck-to-toe beach flocks, ornate feathered hats or elaborate evening dresses needed here.
But beyond the standard oil partners of two resort hotels, railway tycoons and developer Henry Flagler built it in the 1890s just south of today’s Royal Poin Cianaway.
The famous fashion hub Paris was not.
But World War I began to change that, and it became useful for visionaries, especially one, to secure a place for Palm Beach in the fashion world.
“During World War I, wealthy Americans couldn’t go to Europe because of fashion,” local historian Rick Rose, who is a popular tour of Worth Avenue, told Daily News.
“At the same time, European designers inevitably sought their careers from America, first in New York, then Palm Beach, where the wife and daughters of the president and industrialists were winter.”
From 1916 to 1917, during the winter season at Palm Beach, Fashion Boart, now a long-hearted fashion shopping complex, opened just north of the Flagler hotel, with entrepreneurial owner Stanley C. Warwick claiming the island is the “winter fashion capital.”
It was an exaggeration, but Palm Beach was heading that path, especially after seeing the real estate boom of the 1920s, including new mansions, fragmentation and commercial districts, including Worth Avenue, the exclusive Everglades Club, at the western edge.
World War II overwhelmed momentum, but its ending marked a return to female appeal, with a refocus on fashion. Palm Beach adds its own spin in colour on whimsical.
Now enter your game changer.
She was known for her independence: as Martha.
Her worthy avenue salon, which debuted in the 1940s, has been the fashion epicenter of fashion shows starring everyone from Halston to Valentino for decades. The client spent a lot of money because it made Martha feel like it looked like $1 million.
“I modeled after her Worth Avenue boutique at a fashion show in the 1980s, and she was still strong,” said former Palm Beach model Judi Van Vaughees.
“It seemed like designers like Pauline Trigier and George Stavrolos were there for their shows and worshiped her,” Van Voorhees said. “She knew fashion, she knew customers, she knew business.”
And Martha, a wise businessman, “You can’t exaggerate one thing,” said local historian Rose.
She was “one of the greatest women,” President Donald Trump said in the 1990s when Martha’s New York Salon included one at Trump Tower.
Martha debuted her Worth Avenue Salon at Martha Phillips, but was born in Brooklyn in the late 1890s.
Her father owned a clothing business specializing in riding outfits.
She later married Philip R. Phillips, a ready-made clothing manufacturer. She became restless: “I had to do something.”
She was known for being meticulously groomed with complete hair, as fashion and friends were raving about her style – in the early 1930s he opened a fashion salon on the 12th floor of the Madison Avenue building.
Despite depression, Martha refused to sell bargain look: high quality and expensive or bust.
Later she moved to other New York locations, but she had finally been stakes her claims on Park Avenue since the 1960s.
Early on, some of the world’s wealthiest women, Marjorie Merriweather Post and Brooke Astor, became her clients.
And they went over at Palm Beach.
After Martha opened the salon at 230 Worth Avenue in 1945, the fashion needs of such clients could be met with subtropical spoiled utopia with models parading in elegant styles as saleswomen, fitters and change experts awaited on the wings.
“She was just as a fashion expert and talented businessman as she was the best friend of both designers and clients,” said Andrew Bernstyn, grandson of Martha, an associate professor of fashion, marketing and business at Linn University.
“It was the golden age of fashion, and personalized services were paramount,” said Bernstein, who worked for her grandmother for many years.
“It was all first class, but when I first started, there was a time when I might have to quickly get something from a bike salon to a client’s mansion on Salon Boulevard,” he said.
Eagle Eye, detail-oriented Martha was also not the first businesswoman to amplify fashion at Palm Beach.
Early fashions, Maven Hatty Carnegie, Elizabeth Arden, Queen of Skincare and Makeup, and Helena Reubenstein, have arrived here.
Others included Sara Fredericks, who opened in 1958 and later owned a fashion salon at Royal Pointe Cas Plaza.
And the weekly women’s winter fashion show at the Everglades Club began in the 1930s.
“However, many of Martha’s geniuses recognized the talent of fashion designers, especially when their work met the needs and desires of her Palm Beach clients,” said Rose Guerrero, research director at the Palm Beach County Historical Society.
“Some of these designers may just have come to the fashion world,” Guerrero said. “But Martha helped them become the common name.”
The list of designers whose careers have been heavily influenced by Martha is long – from the aforementioned Halston and Valentino to James Galanos and Pauline Trigier.
Martha’s daughter Lyn Manulis was Martha, Inc. in the late 1950s after a theatrical career. joined as a key partner (she soon emerged as a fashion expert of her own), and the two spent millions each year in Paris, Milan and elsewhere.
The two also visited the up-and-coming designer Fashion Ateria.
As designer Mary McFadden once recalled, “One day, Martha appeared and especially saw her name on Park Avenue as long as I remember, which made me so surprised and excited. She bought my dress and then she supported me on the pattern.”
By the 1980s, Martha, Inc. had stores in Park Avenue and Trump Tower in New York, at Palm Beach Salon and at Bal Harbor in Miami-Dade. They were said to have sales of around $40 million a year.
In 1995, a year before Martha passed away at the age of 98, the salon at 230 Worth Ave was closed, and Manulis moved eastward through it and remained until 2003. With her death in 2004, she was believed to live on Martha’s legacy.
