Born 1905 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, American milliner Sally Victor took an interest in design at age eight, when her family moved to New York where her aunt had a millinery shop. As she reflected in a 1949 interview:
“Like most kids, I liked to copy the grown-ups, so it seemed perfectly natural for me to start fashioning scraps of felt and ribbon into hats for my dolls. When I got a little older, my aunt taught me to help her retrim and shape hats for her customers and on the side, I started dreaming up hats for myself and my friends, too.”
Classic beauties wearing hats designed by Sally Victor in the 1950s
Victor began working in the millinery department of Macy’s at 18. Within a year she had become assistant millinery buyer, and three years later she was hired as chief millinery buyer at Bamberger’s department store in Newark. In 1934, she established a fashion label under her own name, with a millinery salon on East 53rd Street in New York. Her hats began to be sold in high-profile stores, including Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue. Fortune compared her work with that of Lilly Daché and Mr. John.
Victor was regarded as an innovator, and her hats remained popular through her retirement in 1967. Along with Lilly Daché and Mr. John, she is seen as one of the most prominent milliners of the period. Her designs were popular with Hollywood actresses such as Irene Dunne, Helen Hayes, and Merle Oberon, as well as First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower and Jacqueline Kennedy, and Queen Elizabeth II.
Victor died at Doctors Hospital in New York in 1977, aged 72. These stunning photos captured fashion portraits of classic beauties wearing hats designed by Sally Victor in the 1950s.
Jean Patchett in suit with shirt-shaped jacket of worsted and fine Egyptian cotton by Harry Frechtel, veiled hat by Sally Victor, glacé kidskin gloves by Superb, photo by John Rawlings, Vogue, February 15, 1950
Lisa Fonssagrives in dinner suit of navy blue silk taffeta accented with sprays of white lilacs at the neck, by Larry Aldrich, veiled white straw hat by Sally Victor, photo by Diane and Allan Arbus, Vogue, March 1, 1950
Nina de Voogt in a suit that doubles as a dress in gray nubbed worsted by Ben Zuckerman, hat by Sally Victor, photo by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, January 1, 1952
Jean Patchett in brown Fouke-dyed Matara Alaska Sealskin coat by Fredrica, white mink hat by Sally Victor, earrings by Van Cleef & Arpels, photo by Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Harper’s Bazaar, November 1954
Jean Patchett in white tucked crêpe dress tied with red and white stripes by David Crystal, wide circle straw hat banded in white chiffon by Sally Victor, bracelets and earrings by Accessorcraft, photo by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, 1954
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