| Fashion History My life was planned to become an excellent fashion designer - from learning production as a factory stitcher at age 16 - to studying great designers' workmanship first hand for becoming a superior pattern engineer - and for tapping my own creative depths for truly new ideas. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art in 1955, I worked for many designer firms on Seventh Avenue, New York, to gain expertise as an assistant designer managing design rooms. As a full designer for Joe Forman Petites in Boston, I designed the nationally best selling chemise dress in 1957.
My own company, Shirley Willett, Inc., began in 1960 as a custom and free-lance designer of women's, children's, and men's wear; with Women's Wear Daily naming me Boston's number one custom designer. Later in the 1960s I was hired as the chairperson of the fashion department at Massachusetts College of Art, but maintained my business enterprise. I left formal teaching when I decided to single-handedly set up my own factory producing designer suedes and leathers, teaching stitchers, developing innovative pattern engineering and production systems, and selling to top designer stores throughout the country.
The factory only was sold to a men's wear manufacturer of suedes and leathers fifteen years later, but I continued creating collections, and consulted on pattern engineering and production for stores, manufacturers and other designers. I wrote and published Let's Design A Dress; researched the concept of mass-produced custom; and began documenting permanently the Willett Collection. Many young designers asked me to be their mentor, and I set up fashion departments in some small colleges around Greater Boston. I formed a group, Designers' Business Cooperative, as a marketing front for these young designers and myself as free-lance designers and consultants.
Computer Technology
My high fashion design ideas required a different production system and through unique pattern engineering I created an efficient and elegant system. As example, an evening gown in suede resulted in a 60 percent profit. The concept became the foundation for the Stylometrics™ language and inspired some innovative technologies. Intense interest in how technology could advance my concepts on pattern design, collections of my design ideas, and mass-produced custom, sparked some computer experts, and we formed a group called Tessellation Network Technologies in the mid-eighties. I created the initial Style-A-Wear program, conceived the ideas for Color-A-Wear, Fabric-A-Wear and Fit-A-Wear in a combined program of Self-A-Wear, and developed Telecom Wardrobe Exchange, presented on television. I wrote some grant proposals to the National Science Foundation to get funding in order to research my innovative technologies, and three grants were awarded. Stylometrics, Inc., became the business vehicle for developing computer technology, while Shirley Willett, Inc. was maintained as the business vehicle for fashion design and consultation.
National Science Foundation - Engineering Design Grant Awards | |
| 1988 - "Apparel/Textile Codification and Image Communication Technology": Stylometrics™ Language as 3D/2D image language for CADCAM applications with compression capabilities to sort styles in databases, and to communicate style images electronically.
1991 - "A Computational 3-D / 2-D Model for Apparel Pattern Design and Expert System": NSF-SBIR #ISI 9060864. Stylometrics™ pattern engineering.
1992 - "A 3-D/4-D Computerized Model for Human-Machine Integration in Apparel Manufacturing Engineering"., NSF-SBIR #9161096. Stylometrics™: links style creation and pattern engineering in databases.
Some Publications (Up to 1994)
1981, Willett, S.., "Let's Design A Dress", Self-published through Conde-Nast Publications.
1987, Willett, S.., "Comparative Costs in garment Production", Boston Globe, January 15.
1987, Willett, S.., "Comparative Research Between Apparel Production and Genetics", Boston Globe.
1989, Willett, S., "Apparel-Textile Codification and Image Compression Technology", U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Technical Information Service, NTIS PB93- 229.
1990, Willett, S., "Using Image Codification and Communication Technology to Resolve the Design to Manufacturing Gridlock," Proceedings, NSF Design and Mfg. Systems Conference. Jan. 8-12, Arizona.
1990, Willett, S., Gorin, A., "Syntax and Semantics of an Image Communications Language for Design Management", American Society of Mechanical Engineers - Technical Design Con. Sept. 16-19, Chicago, Ill.
1991, Willett, S., Gorin, A., "A 3-D/2-D Apparel Engineering Design Model to Support Creativity, Manufacturability and Marketability", NSF Conference, Jan. 9-11, Austin, Texas.
1991, Willett, S., Gorin, A., "Stylometrics™, A Visual Language for Engineering Design", International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED-91), Zurich, Switzerland, August 27-29.
1992, Willett, S., Willett, D., "Apparel Design Engineering Room with 3-D/2-D CAD, Object-Oriented Relational Databases and Case-Based Reasonng", NSF Con. Jan. 8-10, Georgia Tech., Atlanta.
1992, Willett, S., "Human-Machine Integration to Achieve Lean Production in Apparel Design and Manufacturing" Apparel Manufacturing Improvement Con. Florida International University., Mar. 23.
1993, Willett, S., Willett, D., Tonkay, G.L., "Intelligent Databases for 2-D /3-D CAD / CAM Systems for Apparel Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, & Marketing Predictions", NSF Con., University of North Carolina, Jan. 6-8.
1994, Willett, S., Willett, D., Mason, A., "Syntax Language of Styles and Skills for Automating Design and Engineering, and Initiating a New Sociotechnology Industry", NSF Con. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, Jan. 5-7.
Acknowledgments
1992, Appointed to Committee on Proposal Evaluation for Manufacturing Technology Centers Program, by the Committee on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council.
1991, Proposed in 1991, "Apparel design Engineering Research center" with National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
1990 to 1993, American Apparel Manufacturing Association, member, Apparel Research Committee on Computer-Integrated manufacturing.
1994, MasTAC, Massachusetts textile and Apparel Council, member.
Political Accomplishments
1986, Elected a delegate, White House Conference on Small Business - Appointed Spokesperson on International Trade - Authored #5 Recommendation on International Trade with innovation of "market-driven databases" - Authored a validated petition #387 "Global Economy and Trade" (GET), global databases incorporating concept of secretaries for each manufacturing industry.
1987 - Planning Committee and Delegate, Massachusetts State House Conference on Small Business - Authored isses: "Apparel Market Technology Center" and "Entrepreneurship As Solutions to Economic Barriers".
Philanthropy
1987 - Proposed a non-profit foundation: "Neighborhood Entrepreneurial Centers", for welfare mothers, displaced workers, young teens - a marketing center for their products and services.
1992 - Hat Engineering Project, 120, 7th graders, Broad Meadows Middle School, Quincy MA
1994 - Hat Engineering Project, 40, 3rd graders, Brown School, Natick, MA
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