Mary McFadden[1] (born 1938 in New York City) is an American art collector, fashion designer, and writer.[2]
She attended the Ecole Lubec and the Sorbonne, and later the Traphagen School of Fashion and Columbia University.[2]
She was working as the director of public relations for Dior New York in 1965, when she married a merchant for DeBeers diamonds and relocated to South Africa.[3] From 1968-1970 she was an editor for South African Vogue, as arranged by Diana Vreeland.[2]
In 1976 she began the clothing company Mary McFadden Inc.[4]
From 1982-83 she was the President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.[5]
She has also licensed her name to many products such as eyewear, footwear, home furnishings, and sleepwear.[3]
She has been on the Eleanor Lambert Vanity Fair Best Dressed List and the International Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame.[6][7]
- Exhibitions:A Passion for Fashion: The Mortimer Collection, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 1993. Mary McFadden: Goddesses, Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, PA, 2008. Designer Indian Golden Eye Exhibit-Cooper Hewitt Museum. The Dixon, Memphis, Tennessee. The Boston Museum, Boston, Massachusetts.
- Lecturer: Bing Auditorium Los Angeles County Museum. Metropolitan Museum, New York for the Ancient Near Eastern Department. Philadelphia Library. Preservation Society of Newport County. The Dixon Museum, Memphis, Tennessee. The Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C.
- Awards: Coty American Fashion Critics award, 1976, 1978, 1979; entered Coty Hall of Fame 1979; Audemars Piquet Fashion award, 1976; Rex award, 1977; Moore College of Art award, Philadelphia, 1977; Pennsylvania Governor's award, 1977; Roscoe award, 1978; Presidential Fellows Award and Doctorate in Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design, 1979; Neiman Marcus Award, 1979; Doctor of Fine Arts, Miami International Fine Arts College, 1984; American Printed Fabrics Council Tommy Award, 1991; Honorary Degree from Columbia University, School of General Studies.Visionary Woman Award, Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, 2008. Women Together Award, United Nations, 2013.
Personal life
McFadden has been married to:
- Philip Victor Harari, a former British Army officer and a company director of De Beers, the South African diamond company. They married on 25 September 1964, at St. Bartholomew's Protestant Episcopal Church in New York City, and McFadden's attendants included Warhol star Baby Jane Holzer (divorced).[1] The couple had one child, Justine, a photographer, film editor and artist.
- Francis Jack McEwen, OBE, the director of Rhodesia's National Gallery of Art, married January 1969 in Salisbury, Rhodesia (divorced, 1970)
- Engaged Jacques Sarlie 1971
- Companion and partner J. Patrick Lannan, 1971-1980
- Engaged Thomas B. Hess 1980
- Armin Schmidt, married 1981 (divorced)
- Kohle Yohannan, married 1989 (born 1967, divorced 1992)
- King of the Dogon, married in Mali, 1993
In 2007, McFadden's engagement to investment banker Marquette de Bary, (born 1918) was revealed by several newspapers.
In 2009, a person close to the family disclosed that McFadden is not engaged, but is dating Marquette de Bary.
