TZAIMS LUKSUS PRINCE OF PRINTS

The Memoirs & Artistry of:

TZAIMS LUKSUS, FRSA

Tzaims Luksus created the 'Print Explosion' in the early 1960s with a group of tie dyed silk chiffons that he offered Count Ferdinando Sarmi, an Italian architect turned haute couture designer established on New York City's Seventh Avenue. This group of "silk prints" as the fashion press called them ..not ever having seen "tie dye" before and the fact that Sarmi wouldn't reveal his source for them catapulted Luksus into the highest echelons of fashion claiming him first to be the 'Phantom of the Haute Couture" which created instant fame for him once his name was released but also with the release of full colour photos in all the major fashion magazines launched what became the nucleus of 'tie dyed' fashion later into the world of pop art culture. Luksus stayed his course with the haute couture moving quickly on and never produced another tie dye into fashion but instead invented a new silk screen technique that boggled the minds of silk printers around the world. Prints so large they couldn't be put into mass production and required four printers to handle one screen creating panels that literally dominated the design of a dress as was next offered to Ronald Amy of the famed house of Burke-Amey on 57th Street. Socialites of the most avant garde in fashion such as Isabel Eberstadt and Mica Ertegan were the first to launch into the Luksus phenomenon and Freddie and Isabel Eberstadt introduced Andy Warhol to Tzaims one evening at their Park Avenue apartment when Warhol was still painting Campbell's tomato soup labels. Luksus' influence on Warhol was so great that Warhol launched immediatly into using silk screening for all his next portraits of famous "beautiful" people but never giving Luksus credit. The art world at large was taken in as well and to this day Robert Rauchenberg who adopted silk screening when he saw Luksus' work in fashion became his major medium of expression.

Luksus continued to amaze and next, when Geoffrey Beene first launched his ready-to-wear collection backed by Ben Shaw of Seventh Avenue fame, Luksus offered Geoffery a group of silk printed crepe du chine panels that further stunned the fashion world and led both Beene & Luksus into receiving a 1965 Neiman Marcus Award and Luksus receiving the first Coty Award in 1965 ever given to a fabric designer.

Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus claimed: "Luksus is the fashion artist of the new millennium." and encouraged Luksus to design clothes for his Dallas emporium. Instead Luksus created a full collection of haute couture able to function as ready-to-wear completly in his own printed silks. He invited everyone in fashion to his opening and offered them lunch prepared by La Grenouille afterward. The Press & Store executives were again stunned and the New York Times claimed: "Luksus' collection is considered the most significant fashion breakthrough since Christian Dior's "New Look" in 1946"