Beatrice Fox Auerbach was a titan of a woman, commanding a workforce of 3,000 to 5,000 as president of G. Fox & Co., the largest family-run department store in the country. All that toughness came in a little package. She was not quite 5 feet tall, with size 4 1/2 feet.
Her small stature didn’t stand in the way of Fox’s becoming a Hartford style icon, famous for her dark-colored work clothes, her red party dresses, her fondness for exotic frocks bought during her world travels and her habit of altering all her garments to put in pockets.
Auerbach’s wardrobe included designer clothes: Dior, Pucci, etc. Still, her devotion wasn’t with any brand but with her own company. Whenever she purchased a garment, she had a “G. Fox & Co.” label sewn into it. For this reason, it’s often hard to determine who made the clothes she wore.
A new exhibit at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford focuses on this aspect of Auerbach’s legacy. “Beatrice Fox Auerbach: The Woman, Her World & Her Wardrobe” features more than 100 of her dresses, suits, gowns, play clothes, coats, hats, shoes, purses and accessories. The collection, which spans the 1890s to the 1960s, is so large that the exhibit spills over from the second-floor gallery into the lobby.
Laura Crow, a professor of costume design at the University of Connecticut, is the exhibit’s curator. Items are owned by the UConn Historical Costume and Textile Collection. As visitors enter the second-floor landing, they are greeted by three of Auerbach’s bright red holiday gowns. “She was Jewish, but she celebrated Christmas, too,” said Andrea Rapacz, the head of interpretive projects at the historical society.
Rapacz said that Auerbach (1887-1968) “never threw anything out,” and her parents saved clothes, too. The first garment in the gallery dates to when Auerbach was 8. The exhibit then moves into adulthood, with a lovely 1907 cream-silk ball gown, with a short train and pearl-trimmed sleeves.
Beatrice Fox married George Auerbach in 1911 and the two lived in Salt Lake City until 1917, when they returned to Hartford to help G. Fox & Co. recover from a fire. The fashion parade picks up in the Roaring 20s, with a chic black silk flapper dress and a white rabbit fur coat. A clingy ivory silk knit day dress in the style of the ’30s is displayed beside a formal, puffed-sleeve evening gown that Auerbach wore in 1936. Auerbach’s husband died in 1927 and her mother died in 1932, and Auerbach often acted as hostess for her father.
When Auerbach took over the company upon her father’s death in 1936, she began a practice of wearing dark skirt suits or dresses to work every day. She was competing in a man’s world and needed to be taken seriously. Various examples of her work wardrobe are offered as proof that a limited palette needn’t be any less chic than an unlimited one.
One element to this segment of the exhibit is an incongruous one: a bracelet given to her, on the occasion of G. Fox’s 100th birthday, by her sister Fan. The ostentatious heavy gold chain is accented by gems reading “1847 – BFA – 1947.”
A more adventurous side of Auerbach is seen in an adjoining gallery, which reflects her international travels: a peach silk sari from India, a Turkish outfit topped by an embroidered fez, a Chinese jacket and skirt. Some flashier-than-usual Western-style ensembles are across the gallery, as well as two pantsuits, which deviate from Auerbach’s usual dress.
The next gallery features “play suits” that Auerbach wore on beach outings, an array of custom-made shoes — all the same pattern, just different colors — and an outfit quite unlike anything else on exhibit: a Pucci dress in a bright multicolored geometrical pattern, with shoes to match.
The last gallery is most formal, showing gowns that Auerbach wore to annual employee functions, banquets honoring herself and other people — in one photo she stands beside Jackie Robinson, who was honored at the same event — and nights in New York City, where she was fond of the Metropolitan Opera and the symphony. A few nightgowns spice up the display, including one that was a bit risque.
In the lobby, behind the reception desk, are two armoires showing purses, handkerchiefs, vanity sets and liquor flasks that Auerbach used during the Prohibition era. “She was against Prohibition,” Rapacz said. In fact, Auerbach was devoted to her afternoon cocktails. “Every night, she had a Manhattan while she went over the books,” she said.
“BEATRICE FOX AUERBACH: THE WOMAN, HER WORLD & HER WARDROBE” will be at the Connecticut Historical Society, One Elizabeth St. in Hartford, until April 30. Admission is $8, $6 for seniors, $4 for youths, free to members and children younger than 5. CHS is open Tuesday to Thursday from noon to 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. chs.org.
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