John, Timothy (f/k/a Kennedy, Timothy).

[Collection of Photographs and Original Fashion Designs].

Mostly New York City: 1970s-1980s. 28 leaves of fashion drawings on 8½” x 11” sheets, 15 photographs (most measuring 8” x 10” or larger) and a few other items of ephemera. Generally very good or better.

This is a collection related to a little-known fashion designer, Timothy John. What we know of Timothy comes from the materials on offer as well as a 2021 New York Post article entitled “Manhattan Hoarder is a fashion designer who 'needs help' friends say.” Some excerpts of that article:

The hoarder who turned an Upper West Side block into his own personal junkyard was a talented fashion designer who once admitted that he had “no aspirations for sanity.”

Timothy John, who drew the ire of locals by stashing piles of junk along the sidewalk at West 77th Street and Columbus Avenue, was known by artsy friends as a creative designer with a penchant for turning trash into fashion . . .

John was born in Washington, DC, and lived in Maryland and Virginia before moving to the Big Apple, according to a 2013 interview on the fashion website stylelikeu.com [which may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMaUiKaYZ2I]

'I have no aspirations for sanity whatsoever,' he said during the interview. 'When I look around and see what’s considered normal, I am not tempted. I don’t think normal exists, but a lot of people attempt to conform to some standard they think is normal. The fact of the matter is that most of my wardrobe is really basically debris from other people’s lives, other people’s travels, other people’s experiences,' he said . . .

Spencer Throckmorton, owner of the Throckmorton Fine Art Gallery on East 57th Street — and a former classmate of John’s at Virginia Commonwealth University — said his old schoolmate 'did several things in fashion. He went to Cali, Colombia, and he did a show there last year,” he said. “He is usually reserved. As an art collector, he looks for bargains at flea markets and objects that could be incorporated into fashion.'

The collection consists mostly of photographs of models wearing John's clothes and his original designs. Around half the photos are studio portraits with two of them having attached fabric swatches. Several show an African American woman modeling John's clothes at a show and there's a photo of John as well. Eight leaves of drawings have multiple sketches, the rest have one each. One group was intended to be a design booklet and has a titled cover reading “Welcome to the Mod Fashion Show.” These designs are initialed “TK” as Kennedy was John's birth name, so these were likely done in the 1970s, possible earlier, before he moved to New York. Six of them are colored with watercolor or gouache.

There are also a few letters from family members as well as one from 1983 that Timothy wrote to his mother. Rounding out the group is a couple of press releases for John's firm, one of which is handwritten.

A varied collection documenting a talented designer. Very good. Item #9027

Price: $850.00