1905-1977
Milliner

The Dean of Hats.

The creator of many hat fashions, Sally Victor has been called "the dean of American millinery design." Among the best known of her designs are the baby bonnet, the collapsible straw hat, the Flemish sailor hat, the war worker's turban, the Grecian pillbox, and the airwave hat. She received the Fashion Critics Millinery Award in 1943. She was also an ardent advocate of establishing American designers in the fashion world and did much to promote New York as a fashion center.

Getting Started.

Born in 1905 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Victor was one of eight children. When she was two her family moved to New York, where as a teenager she learned to sew her own clothes. In 1926 she took a job as head millinery buyer at Bamberger's, a large New Jersey department store. The following year she married Sergiu F. Victor, head...