All dolled up: Mini couture clothing collection on display at Kemp Center
Dallas-based couturier Judy Ninman laughingly says she emerged from the womb wearing lipstick and earrings. After seeing her work in fashion, there’s no reason to doubt her.
Growing up in Tulsa, she had begun making all of her clothes by the time she was in 6th grade. “I couldn’t babysit enough so that I could go the fabric store and buy fabric. I would make them so fast. We couldn’t buy it fast enough.”
“We couldn’t afford to buy all of the lines that were so popular at that time, but I could copy them,” she said.
Ninman remembers taking the bus downtown with friends to visit major department stores and try on clothes, which she would later duplicate. “I would take Chanels into a dressing room and take the measurements. At the time I could copy anything in a short period of time. in two days, sometimes.”
She would later earn her degree in fashion design and serve as the head of the Design Department for Bauder Fashion College, a private college in Arlington, Texas, from 1974 to 1981. The college focused on degrees in fashion merchandising, interior design and fashion design.
“Textiles was always my focus. I loved beautiful fabrics,” Ninman said. “I left the college to partner with Richard Brooks in 1983, who owned a couture fabric store in Inwood Village in Dallas. He and I started designing together, and I had my own private clientele. We also did a ready-to-wear line together. I maintained studio space there and had my own label. Everything was one of a kind. Anything a customer wanted; I could do. I could design dresses around jewelry along with specific gowns for balls and wedding dresses.”
Looking back to her elementary school days and her love of fashion, Ninman doesn’t really remember which came first. Her fascination with sewing her own clothes, or the amazing collection of doll clothes that her fraternal grandmother gifted her. Her grandmother’s collection is currently part of an exhibit in the Kemp Center for the Arts as “The Katy Collection,” which runs through September 17. The exhibit also includes a significant collection of couture for dolls that Ninman began making for her granddaughter Katy Arriola (hence “The Katy Collection”) a little over two years ago.
The dolls are approximately 18 inches tall, and the couture is very articulate, employing amazing fabrics made with both women’s seasoned skills and ideas. Because the pieces are behind glass (or are in shadow boxes) it’s easy to overlook some of the wonderful craftsmanship, details and fabric in the exhibit.
“My grandmother back then had made all of these clothes she gifted me for vintage dolls, “I adored and loved this collection. I kept them, showed them to my daughter who was never big on dolls but then one day I brought them out to show Katy.
“When I got them out, I was touching the fabrics and began visualizing the love and the passion, and the time that my grandmother put into those clothes. As a kid, I didn’t pay attention to that. Bringing them out again, it really stirred me,” she said. Ninman’s grandmother was a formidable figure, she said, who taught in a college but lived in Sheldon, Missouri, a town of 500 people. “She was very sophisticated and fashion forward and had an elegant taste and style.” I always wondered, “Where did she get the fabrics? Maybe Joplin? I would love to ask her.”
Katy enjoyed the dolls and the dresses Ninman showed, and shortly after she returned to school, the couturier began making a new wardrobe for the dolls.
“I have this treasure trove of fabric of imported silks, wools and laces and trims and buttons. Richard had the best fabrics,” she emphasized. “I didn’t buy one thing to make these clothes. Once I got started. I went nuts. I copied my daughter’s wedding dress and there’s a picture here with her in it. I just got carried with it.”
Everything Ninman made for the dolls is on display. 18 pieces, in addition to her grandmother’s vintage collection.
The couturier is not sure where the collection will lead to, “But I believe it’s important for people to feel their connectedness, their humanity to these things. How it represents where we are in our life, the way we dress. My grandparents were very instrumental in my life as I am with my granddaughter’s. I would love to tell my grandmother what has happened to these clothes she made. To me, it’s a tribute to her. It’s not so much about me but how I feel about her and Katy. I want this to be a representation for her.”
When the Dallas Museum of Art had a major Christian Dior exhibit recently, she took Katy who brought a sketch pad and sketched some of the Dior dresses.
Ninman’s exhibit should appeal to anyone who loves fashion. The pieces are timeless including a “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” dress and other pieces people will certainly recognize. The pieces are superb on an aesthetic level as well as fashion design and bring back memories.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: All dolled up: Mini couture clothing collection on display at Kemp Center
