Groom's Suit

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Ed Schlossberg as part of Willi Smith: Street Couture.

In 1986, Willi Smith designed suits for Ed Schlossberg and the nine ushers attending his wedding to Caroline Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Schlossberg’s navy-blue linen suit with silver-gray tie and the ushers’ violet-blue linen blazers, white linen pants and pink ties preserved the iconic oversized silhouette of Smith’s fashions as well as the easy spirit that characterized Smith’s brand, WilliWear. Carolina Herrera designed Kennedy’s dress. Schlossberg first collaborated with WilliWear in 1984 as one of the artists behind the brand’s artist T-shirt series and later designed accessories for the WilliWear showroom and store. Schlossberg wrote that Smith "composed clothes that drifted onto people rather than ones that were connected to them. He made bodies seem as if they were moving even when they were still. There was a gracefulness to the clothes and an edge that made you notice them."

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Willi Smith: Street Couture.