Betsey Johnson

Four hours into her field trip to the big Vintage Fashion Expo at the Masonic Auditorium recently, Betsey Johnson was down on the floor, sitting under a rack of 1930s floral chiffon dresses, exhausted and exhilarated from the hunt.

She and her design director, Monica Paolini, had been at it since 9 a.m., filling up bag after bag with those lovely dresses, plus embellished skirts from the '50s, kitschy T-shirts from the '70s and sweaters from all eras.

"We buy for inspiration, elements, details,'' Johnson said, holding up a white lace party dress from the '50s with a full circle skirt, embellished with pale blue ribbon woven through the lace.

"Mon! Oh my God. Look at this!'' Johnson shouted. "The way the ribbon winds through the lace, the cut of the skirt. Oh, that handwork is a long- gone art. This is so inspiring!''

Johnson was in town recently for a day of vintage scouting and a personal appearance at her 160 Geary St. boutique. When she gets back to her studio in New York, Johnson will show the white lace dress to her seamstresses, who will reproduce some element of the design. "I do a great prom business,'' she said. "I would recut this to be strapless, I wouldn't touch the skirt; it's perfect. ''

Johnson may be 62, but she isn't having any of that; she's in tip-top shape and dresses like a quirky art student. She made her name in the mid-'60s as the top designer for Paraphernalia, one of the country's first specialty boutiques carrying the hottest London labels, like Mary Quant; it became a magnet for a new customer, the with-it young women who were wearing their miniskirts up to there and didn't care.

The designer is as colorful and whimsical as her line. Her eyes are rimmed in black; her lips are bright red; and she's wearing pieces from various Betsey Johnson lines, consisting of a "Marilyn'' top, a tie-dye straight velvet skirt, green espadrilles with pink ribbon ties and green leopard velvet slouchy bag. Then there's the hair: choppy and haphazardly braided, and on this day, several shades of blond. "Hair extensions!'' she said cheerily. Her energy is infectious. One reason she seems so happy to be alive? Johnson is a breast cancer survivor.

She's had a long and successful career. At 30, she became the youngest designer to win the Coty, fashion's equivalent of the Oscar. At 36, she started her own label. At 58, the industry honored her with a Timeless Talent award created expressly for her by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In 2002, her name was imbedded in the Fashion Walk of Fame in Manhattan.

That summer, Johnson threw herself an all-out 60th birthday bash at her home in East Hampton, attended by dozens of the most important people in fashion. Instead of executing the trademark cartwheel with which she closes out all her runway shows, she catapulted herself into the pool instead, fully clothed.

So it's no surprise that her boutiques (there are two in San Francisco, on Fillmore Street and on Geary near Union Square), are a girls-just-want-to- have-fun riot of color and ruffles and lace and petticoats. These are, of course, clothes she wears herself.

What would she never wear? "A suit,'' Johnson said instantly. "Never in a million years.''

Her business, which suffered along with the entire retail industry after Sept. 11, 2001, has bounced back, she says. The San Francisco stores are among the top five performers in the country (Honolulu's is first). Johnson's core customer, she says, is probably around 25, and looking for a cute, sexy but feminine dressy dress to wear to a special occasion. "I do going-out-to-dinner dresses, bar mitzvah dresses,'' she said. read more...