NEW YORK, NY.- Stan Herman, New York’s godfather of fashion, knows what makes life worth living for. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
I wake up each day with a sense of expectation. Once you lose that, you grow old. I’ve signed new contracts, I have new work, and with those things come new expectations. Do I ask myself, “Should we do another account?” Often the answer is yes. I never expect things to end.
People say, “Oh, you’ve got so much energy.” Energy is expectations, challenges, moving forward.
Nostalgia can be wonderful, of course, so long as you don’t abuse it. It’s great for a memoir. Having written one, I’m so much more aware of my life at this point. It’s all bubbling to the surface. I think now that I would love to have lived in the 1910s, the ’20s and ’30s in Europe. That’s where my heart is — it’s Zurich, it’s Munich, it’s Vienna. It’s the music. I could cry at the sound of a single musical note. If that’s nostalgia, I’ll buy that any day.
I do long for the touch of my lover of 40 years (the writer Gene Horowitz, who died in 1991). It’s something that I would like to have had longer in my life. A great deal of the strength of my life was my long-term relationship with Gene. As a writer, he brought out the parts of me that may never have flowered. His shadow has been rich enough for me to walk with.
My father didn’t like the fact that I was homosexual. He told me: “You’re going to have no children. You’re going to die a very lonely man.” It didn’t work out that way.
In a different life Gene and I probably would have adopted children. I think I would have been a good father. Now, if anything, it’s my circle of friends that has expanded. I like being surrounded by younger people. It makes a big difference, being exposed to their attitudes. At the same time, people respect my privacy. As you get older, you want to be alone a lot. I do, anyway.
I like the life I live in New York. It’s a young city. You could live in Passaic, New Jersey, and meet the same people every day. Every day in New York there’s a constant rub-up against new people. That makes it exciting.
At this stage of my life, I’m happy getting up in the morning. At the same time, I’m not a ballerina anymore. I have to look and listen before I move. But once I get going, I’m good.
I do sometimes find myself falling into old patterns that aren’t relevant. I can sketch like a demon, but I can’t type. Rudi Gernreich once said to me, “Herman, you’re going to be the next Gernreich.” But he didn’t want change. There has to be change to stay relevant, especially in the fashion business, which is built on youth.
But when I look ahead, there is absolutely nothing I dread. I don’t want death sitting on my shoulder, but I’m not afraid of death. These days I think of all the people in my life and Gene’s. They’re all my children. They’re all around me, all of them.
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Recent and upcoming projects: “Uncross Your Legs: A Life in Fashion,” a memoir; designing uniforms for FedEx and Sandals Resorts; designing loungewear for QVC.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
