The Signs of a Modern Renaissance

Irene Kasmer is on a roll. She’s delighting in another moment of fashion glory. And well she should, she’s been in the fashion business in Los Angeles since mid-century. Her line of misses clothing under her own name sells in department stores. Although it is the backbone of her business, which she says brings in just over $1 million a year, it is not the stuff that makes fashion news.

The attention-getters are a new, select group of sheer dresses and velvet cocoon coats. They bear the Modern Renaissance label, are priced from about $200 to $500 and sell at the Shauna Stein boutique in Los Angeles and Giorgio in Beverly Hills.

“Irene does special things for a niche that I have trouble filling,” Stein says. “I can’t find very feminine, flirty dresses for less-than-perfect figures.”

Kasmer’s chiffon dresses, which camouflage any number of figure problems, come in black, vivid floral prints and large polka dots in three lengths, from over-the-knee to mid-calf. Her cocoon coats, very reminiscent of the embroidered versions made popular by Italian designer Romeo Gigli, are figure flatterers, too.

Stein considers Kasmer “totally eccentric, and I say that with all respect and love. She lives in the past.” Kasmer’s insistence on hindsight is evident in her workmanship and her old-style dressmaking techniques of finished seams and hand-rolled hems, and those Stein considers a plus. “Most customers don’t care about those things but a select few do.”

Kasmer won’t tell her age. “Why? Do you think I’m a little old lady? I won’t tell you. I will admit to starting my design business in 1951,” she says.

“I did get nice recognition, but I am not in the league with Karl Lagerfeld. Not that I think he is more talented than I am--nobody is.”