Before Bill Cunningham took a picture of a fashionable New Yorker for the New York Times, he dressed some of them as William J of Milliner.
Along with social stars among Doris Duke, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe and Ginger Rogers, his fans included people like Venella Macaluso of Queens who died in 2018 and went to Netti. Eight of her unique hats designed by Cunningham are now auctioned as part of a sale that will end March 21st.
The style of the block includes a small purple pancake-like hat with valley silk lilies, a mesmerizing man with gold sequins and black velvet stars, and a buggy hat like a bapper sandwiched over an impact layer of neutral tone silk chiffon.
When Cunningham was making hats, some were sold for $35, while others were sold for $65. He wrote in his memoir, Fashion Climbing. Bids at publication ranged from around $150 to $250.
After Mrs. Makaruso passed away at the age of 93, her son, Robert J. Makaruso, found a hat on the shelves in her closet. Makaruso, 72, is a retired salesman at Scalamandre of Textile House, a butler of St. Margaret's Parish in Madison, Connecticut, and kept it in his garage on tissue paper.
He explained that his mother's initial connection to Mr. Cunningham was through her brother-in-law and his wife. They invited him to a party and Sunday dinner at Mr. Makaruso's grandmother's house in Queens.
“My grandmother served pasta with cattle cutouts,” said her father, Makaruso, a photo printer for the New York Times from 1965 to 1990. “Bill came. He was so charming and energetic.”
Makaruso said his mother loved to go out with her father and friends to two now-closed Manhattan restaurants, Green and Plaza Hotel taverns.
“Bill was intrigued by her mother's sense of fashion,” recalls Macaluso. “Because of Bill's enthusiasm, he'll sometimes say, 'Netty, this will look like Mabbella to you.” ”
Makaruso's cousin Barbara Staras (now 80), is also the goddess of Mrs. Makaruso, who said “always looked like a movie star.”
Starse recalled that he was wearing the star-fascinating Mrs. Makaruso, designed by Cunningham on the Great Year Day. Ms. Starse was given another of Mrs. Makaruso's William J. Hat (styled pink velvet coke bullets) after her death.
“I put it in a toy pig that I stuffed into my bed,” Staras said, adding that she had never worn a hat. “It reminds me of my aunt Netty.” Mrs. Makaruso also wore a very tall, feathered William J. Hatt at Starlas' wedding in 1960.
Of the bunch for sale, the hat — a 13½-inch sweet in purple silk velvet topped with cock feathers — is a favorite of Tanner C. Branson, head of selling luxury handbags and couture at Freeman's Hindman, which is holding the auction. He described it as “typical William J.”
Other hats for sale include black velvet fez with cock feathers, space age black style with nets, pink straw hats, birds made of wings facing the net and beak.
“People who wear these are very interested in fashion,” Branson said. “They are interested in being seen and are making a statement.”
He added when Mrs. Makaruso's hat arrived at Freeman Hindman in Chicago.
Sometimes small rhinestones were embedded as periods on William J. Hatt's label. Other labels described as folded into corners in a particular style of couture clothing. “Balenciaga did the same thing,” he said. “Coco Chanel did the same thing.”
Like high fashion brand items, William J. Hutt is currently owned by museums and other institutions. Those with designs in Cunningham's collection include the Costume Institute at the New York History and Metropolitan Museum.
“He had a sense of perfectionism and a sense of sense and style,” said Valerie Paley, senior vice president and director of the library at New York Historic, which also has William J. Print Plate and label.
Mr. Cunningham's hat is also available for sale on websites such as eBay. The site retired Carol Dietz, the New York Times art director who purchased William J. Croche hats at Grograin Ribbon Bow for $135 in 2020.
Dietz also has several feathers from the collection that Cunningham holds. “He loved the feathers of his hat,” she said. She “wrapped in paper and doesn't collapse,” she added.
Fashion designer and author Stephen Stolman said he called him “a crazy, crazy hatter” at the height of Cunningham's Millinoly's career in the 1950s and '60s.
“Every hat had a bit of wink,” said Stolman, who wrote, “Bil Cunningham was there,” with John Kurdwan, a production artist from the New York Times who worked closely with Cunningham. Stolman, former president of Scalamandré, worked with Macaluso at the Textile Company to help promote the sale of Mrs. Macaluso's hat behind Freeman.
Stolman said he can hear Cunningham, who passed away in 2016. “But then, in a typical self-deprecating way,” he added.
