Muriel King sketches, 1931-1943

Born in 1900 in Bayview, Washington, King aspired even as a young girl to be an artist. She moved east when she was 19 years old to study watercolor painting and theater design at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. While still in school, she worked as a freelance fashion illustrator for _Women's Wear Daily_, _Vogue_, and various New York department stores. In 1927, she went to Paris where she sketched clothes for such publications as _Modes and Manners_ and _Femina_.

In the early 1930s, she started designing dresses for herself. Her friends were so impressed that they encouraged her to start her own line. In 1932 she was discovered by Lord & Taylor, the first department store to sell her garments. She opened her own couture salon on East 61st Street in New York City, which ran from 1932 until 1940, designing for Hollywood as well as retail stores such as B. Altman, which opened a "Muriel King Salon." King's fashions were particularly popular among socialites. They appreciated the sophistication and sensibility of a dress designed by Muriel King, who believed that "beauty, economy, and usefulness [are] the best rule[s] for the well dressed woman." Her clients included such notable ladies as Mrs. George Backer (Dorothy Schiff), Mrs. Philip Barry, Mrs. Baldwin Brown, Mrs. Thomas Hitchcock, Mrs. Junius Morgan, Mrs. Ralph Pulitzer, and Mrs. C.V. Whitney. She was noted for her classic lines, good material (always American-made) and versatility. From 1941 to 1942 she ran a dressmaking firm, d'Armand-King, and in 1943 created the "Flying Fortress Fashions" for women workers in the aircraft industry.

She stopped designing for a period only to resume in 1954 for Stein and Blane and Lord & Taylor, in New York. She retired permanently from fashion in 1957 to take up a career in painting. Muriel King also founded the Design and Fashion Illustration Department at Stephens College, Columbia Missouri. Throughout her career, King was one of a number of women fashion designers who were influential in both France and the United States. Her designs evoke a distinct interpretation of American chic, best encapsulated in her own words: "Our natural look is our national charm." Her contemporaries in New York included Valentina, Nettie Rosenstein, and Clare Potter. Among them, King is remarkable for the unusual way she designed clothes; she did not know how to cut, drape, or sew. While other designers also sketched, Muriel King created superb drawings–superior because of their structural detail. King passed away in March, 1977.

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