Betsey Johnson

Born on August 10, 1942, Betsey Johnson was a designer in the East Village from the 1960's to the 80's.

Johnson, present day

Johnson in New York, 1970

In her youth she took many dance classes which inspired in her a love of costuming. It also taught her how to perform her trademark cartwheel. She studied first at Pratt and later graduated from Syracuse University.
She first became involved with the youthquake fashion movement and Warhol's underground scene. The youthquake movement was based in London and centered around the prevalence and domination of teenagers in the music and fashion scene. Through Warhol, Betsey came to know Velvet Underground, Edie Sedgewick, and Lou Reed, among many others.

In 1969, Betsey opened her own boutique, Betsey Bunky Nini, on the Upper East Side with Edie Sedgewick as her house model. In the 1970's she took control over the fashion label Alley Cat, which was popular with many rock n' roll musicians of the era.

In 1978 she debuted her first fashion line. Unfortunately, her second collection fell short, leaving her with much surplus and insufficient funds to continue her business. To combat this, Betsey opened a retail store in 1981 to sell her surplus goods. She now has over 65 stores nationwide.

Betsey frequented both the Mudd Club and CBGB's. Her goal in starting her own fashion line was to create clothes that her and her friends would want to wear, similar to the garments she saw around the Mudd Club.

Betsey Johnson is still alive, well, and designing to this day.