Hello Everyone,
Well, besides teaching and looking for more freelance clients (I’m available for work), I had the pleasure of viewing “Calendar Girl” at Texas Theater in Oak Cliff, which is a neighborhood in Dallas, TX on Thursday, June 2.
Now, I have to admit, I was unfamiliar with Ruth Finley and her contributions to the fashion industry until I saw this movie. I had no idea that she was the reason for the schedules for New York Fashion Week. If you are unfamiliar with Ruth Finley, she was the person who was singlehandedly responsible for the scheduling of every designer who was showing in New York Fashion Week. When the schedule was finalized, she would type everything out on pink paper, and made a booklet for every designer in the show. She started her business in 1945, and ran it until 2014 when it was sold to CFDA. The documentary is about two hours long. The documentary discussed her life, from the start of the career until she decided to sell it to CFDA. There were cameo appearances from different people throughout the industry, from designers and fashion critics to curators at the The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Each person shared how Ruth Finley gave them the chance to show in New York Fashion Week, and how she was literally at everyone’s show. Whenever she appeared, people were delighted to see her.
Besides discussing her contributions in the fashion industry, the movie also interviewed her three sons, and how she told her parents that she was going to have a career during a time when women were only supposed to be homemakers. She was married twice, and became a widow at the age of 39. After her husband’s death, she vowed that she would never get married, and she was a single parent supporting her sons. When everything went digital, she was still using pen & paper to schedule designers for different shows. When she officially retired at the age of 95, she still stayed busy as a consultant with CFDA. I also loved the fact that they showed her boyfriend (they were so cute together). The movie ended with everyone celebrating her 95th birthday party. Ruth Finley passed away at the age of 98 in 2018. Afterwards, there was a discussion about the movie, and then we ate cupcakes and mingled in the hallways.
I can’t remember every single part of the documentary, but it was very entertaining and educational. If you want to see a thorough summary of the movie, you can read the article about the movie on Fashionista.com (https://fashionista.com/2020/11/ruth-finley-calendar-girl-documentary-review). If you want to watch this documentary, you can watch it on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play movies, Vudu, and Apple TV.
Until Next Time!!!