This photograph, taken for a spread in the SF Chronicle, features a wide array of Jeanne’s designs and a peek into her personal life as both her young daughter Amber Rose and her great dane George are posed among prolific Bay Area icons.
Jeanne stands front and center in a corduroy tw- piece look with flared pants and ruffle detailing along the sleeves and neckline. “There was a lot of bare midriff showing” in those days, Jeanne recalled.
In this powerful photograph, Jeanne is flanked by Amber Rose on the right and Berkeley designer Liane Chu on the left. Jeanne sold some of her garments at Liane’s Berkeley dress shop The Red Square, among other Berkeley boutiques. To the right of Amber stands Janis Joplin in a yellow poncho made of a Moroccan print. “Oh we were crazy about ponchos then,” said Jeanne, reflecting on trends of the time.
Both model Jana Miles in the lower left of the composition and Jaqueline Chris, a local art student at the time, who is posed above Jeanne in the tree, wear different versions of her signature San Francisco Fog Suit.
The leftmost figure in the tree is Michele Sevryn in a boldly patterned dress, made of silk, as Jeanne was whole-heartedly committed to natural fibers.
The figure perched to her right is a young man named Bard Dupont, who wore one of Jeanne’s inventions in menswear, the pullover top. Given her preference for making menswear, it’s interesting that this feature includes only one male model. (The SF Chronicle felt womenswear would make for a more appealing visual for the Style Section.)
Last but not least, to the left of Janis stands Maureen Kirby in an intricate men’s blouse of an Irish fabric. She wears it as a dress because as Jeanne said of the times, “We wore really short clothes then. Short dresses.”