Gordon Conway

Gordon Conway was born in Clairborne, Texas, USA in 1894. She was educated in America and Italy. She was holidaying in Switzerland when World War I began and had to rush back to the United States.

Around 1915, she began working for Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harpers Bazaar. Her soft colourist style was strongly influenced by Barbier, Erte and Lepape. During her career she drew around 5,000 finished drawings which appeared in some 26 magazines. She designed costumes and sets for 119 stage productions and 47 films.

In 1920, Gordon married Blake Ozias. They moved to London and Paris where she worked for many French and British publications. After her divorce in 1927, she and her mother Tommie Conway lived in London.

From 1929 to 1933, she designed costumes for British films and theatre productions. Some of the films she designed costumes for were: 1929 High Treason, 1931 Michael and Mary and Sunshine Susie, 1932 Faithful Heart, Love on Wheels, the Good Companions, After the Ball and Rome Express.

In the 1930's she designed for the films Falling for You, It's a Boy, Orders is Orders, the Lucky Number, I was a Spy, Just Smith, the Fireraisers, Friday the Thirteenth, Britannia of Billingsgate, Cuckoo in the Nest, the Constant Nymph, Red Ensign and Aunt Sally (in collaboration with Norman Hartnell).

The long arduous hours of the film industry led to severe exhaustion and a heart attack. She withdrew from her heavy workload when she was 39. In early 1936 she and her mother returned to New York. She retired to her family estate near Tidewater, Virginia, USA when she was in her early forties. Not very strong, she nevertheless entertained and kept in touch with her vast network of friends. She lived her days restoring, decorating and landscaping the 18th century Conway family estate, and tending to her garden, though the last 3-4 years of her life she suffered with malignancies.

Gordon Conway is credited with portraying the "New Woman" image that the Conde Nast publications like VOGUE and VANITY FAIR so vigorously presented.

She died in 1956 at the age of 62.