mary mcfadden biography
Adapted from "My Story," by Mary McFadden
Mary McFadden’s story began in Memphis, where, as she recalls, her brothers say she first discovered the art of storytelling through tales of Henry the Dragon, his wife Henrietta, and their fire-spitting Dragonettes. From an early life marked by mystery and imagination, she went to Foxcroft in Virginia and eventually found her way to New York’s Seventh Avenue, the center of her creative life. At a 1963 Dior cocktail party, she boldly approached Henry Sherman, President of Christian Dior/New York, and proposed that he hire her to do public relations, having no experience, and pay her “in kind” with couture dresses. Within months, she had secured magazine covers, stories, and a spectacular Dior gala featuring Count Basie and his orchestra. Her career would soon carry her from Dior to South Africa, where writing, travel, art, textiles, and the ancient cultures of the continent transformed her vision.
As editor of Vogue South Africa, a position arranged by Diana Vreeland, McFadden discovered a new world beyond the social life of fashion. She traveled across Africa and began collecting extraordinary textiles from markets in South Africa, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Malawi, and beyond. With indigo cloth, silks, batiks, linen, and other rare fabrics, she began creating simple, fluid garments inspired by the ancient world—Egyptian tunics, caftans, togas, and weightless forms designed to float around the body. Her early creations led to a legendary 1971 presentation at Henri Bendel’s, where she sold $1 million worth of her samples and made the decisive transition from fashion editor to designer. From these beginnings emerged her signature approach to pleating, eventually known as “Marii” pleating: an innovative technique that transformed fabric into sculptural, fluid forms resembling liquid silk.
For decades, Mary McFadden’s work drew upon the spirits, art, textiles, architecture, and mythology of the cultures she encountered around the world. Her collections found inspiration in the Shona stone ruins of Zimbabwe, Mughal gardens, ancient Egypt, Africa, Asia, and the mystical traditions that ultimately led her toward Sufism and the Persian Nimatullahi order. Her New York studios became extensions of this imaginative universe, including the “Jewel Box,” a Gothic-inspired room with gold stenciling. Although Mary McFadden Inc. closed in 2002, her legacy continues through her couture archive, and Woodmere is delighted to breathe life back into the presentation of her beautiful garments and accessories. Her bejeweled robes, ancient textiles, jewels, crowns, and extraordinary garments remain a testament to a life spent transforming the memories of travel, art, and the ancient world into clothes that seemed to exist outside of time. And now, everyone has a chance to see, and even borrow, some of these masterpieces.
