Lucie Porges (née Eisenstab) was a fashion designer at the fashion house of Pauline Trigère (1951-1994) and instructor at Parsons School of Design (1999-2011). She was born in Vienna, Austria on November 23, 1926. In 1938, Porges’s father was arrested and imprisoned at a time when anti-Jewish demonstrations were increasing in the city. After his release, the Porges family fled first to Cologne and then to Brussels. When the German army advanced on Brussels in 1940, the family fled again. Their train arrived in Toulouse in the south of France, where her father was taken to a French internment camp. The family were moved between French internment camps until 1942. In Lyon, Porges found a job painting silk scarves. The family arrived in Geneva in September 1942 and were finally taken to the Eriswil refugee camp.

After the war ended in 1945, Porges attended the École des Beaux Arts where she studied drawing on a scholarship awarded by an American committee. There she met her future husband, gag cartoonist Paul Peter Porges (1927-2016), in a modelling class. In 1947, Paul emigrated to the United States. Porges herself left Geneva for Paris in 1948. There she worked for a number of Parisian couturiers, including Maggy Rouff (1896-1971). During this period she learnt the skills of haute couture. She also put together a portfolio, finding work as an illustrator for L’Art et la Mode magazine.

Porges left Paris for New York in 1951 to join her now-fiancé in the United States. Paul Peter Porges (known as PPP) had been drafted into the United States Army for the war in Korea. Determined to find employment in fashion, Porges showed her portfolio to Pauline Trigère (1912-2002), who had a large showroom at 550 Seventh Avenue.

It was a partnership that would last forty-three years. Porges was the main sketcher, as Trigère did not sketch her designs but draped them instead. Lucie’s daughter, Vivette Porges, ventures that Trigère was not necessarily trained as an artist and therefore may not have possessed that skill. In addition to her role as a sketcher, Porges was also a fashion designer in her own right. She often accompanied Trigère to Europe on trips to select fabric.

Trigère closed her showroom in 1994 to open P.T. Concepts (which itself closed in 2000). Upon its closure, Porges associated herself with a small couture studio which served only private clients. She supervised the design, selection and adaptation of daytime and evening wear, and consulted with clients on their wardrobes (organizing clothing, advising new combinations, and advising additions).

Porges also taught a fashion design course, "Fashion Atelier," in Parsons School of Design's Continuing Education division beginning in 1999. It was Porges's only teaching experience, and her family assisted her in the more technologically-based administrative tasks associated with teaching as she had not learned how to use computers.

Lucie Porges taught fashion design at Parsons up until her death in June 2011.

References

Hanak, Werner. "Lucie Porges." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive. March 1, 2009. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/porges-lucie>.

"Lucie Porges." Stylelikeu.com. March 11, 2010. http://stylelikeu.com/profiles-2/closets/lucie-porges/

"Porges, Lucie Eisenstab." United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Accessed April 7, 2017. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/about-us/promref/3b72551423/porges-lucie-eisenstab-porges.html.

"Studio portrait of the Eisenstab family." Photograph # 66662. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Last modified April 22, 2005. https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1156120

Willis, Mary Pleshette. "ARTS ABROAD; Two Who Fled Austria in Terror Return in Triumph." New York Times. July 13, 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/13/arts/arts-abroad-two-who-fled-austria-in-terror-return-in-triumph.html