Vera was born July 24, 1907 to Fanny and Meyer Saloff in Stamford, Connecticut. She was the third of four children: Grace, Alice, Vera, and Phillip. Her penchant for art began when she was a small child. She would wander the outdoors picking wild flowers and ferns and then drawing them in her little sketchbook. Her father and mother encouraged her artistic endeavors: her father would pay her fifty cents to fill a sketchbook with her drawings and her mother would paste paper onto cardboard for her to paint on. Vera knew from a very young age that she wanted to be an artist and nature was her inspiration from the very start.

Vera graduated from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art institute in NY and then went to the Traphagen School of Design. After graduation, she began her career as a textile designer. Her first boss asked her to knock off another company’s design, so she left—as she had a strong moral code.  She started designing fabrics and murals for children’s rooms as a freelancer—then she met George.

George Neumann was from Vienna and his parents were in textiles as well. He noticed her talent early on and encouraged her to be the artist she wanted to be. They married in 1938 and moved into a small apartment in New York City and decided to merge art and textiles. They built a small silkscreen to fit on their kitchen table and started making placemats because that was the only thing they could think of that was small enough for their tiny apartment table. They named their company “Printex”. They were joined by Werner Hamm the next year and he became their sales manager. He brought them their first order—1500 placemats for B. Altman Department Store. They couldn’t meet the order because of the sheer quantity of materials they would need, so the store agreed on a smaller sized order and they filled it. The textile company Schumacher and company soon took notice of Vera’s art and asked her to design some fabric for them. She designed several designs for them in the coming years—one included “Jack-in-the-Pulpit” that was personally chosen by First Lady Bess Truman to decorate the third-floor solarium in the White House. You can see pictures at http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor3/sun-room.htm. They are the black and white ones showing the Truman reconstruction. The curtains and pillows are the Jack-in-the-Pulpit fabric.

During WWI, there was a shortage of linen and cotton that was used in placemat production. Vera was on her search for the fabric when she happened upon some excess parachute silk at an army surplus store. The idea for scarves was spawned in her mind and she started her scarf business that she is so famous for now. Of course, the small apartment couldn’t hold the sheer size of her and her husband’s business, so they moved into a larger loft on 57^th street, but that soon was also too small. They found a derelict old mansion in Ossining, NY and purchased it. Vera noted that she thought it was so big she didn’t even know how many rooms were in it. Four were made into their living quarters and the rest was made into the printing plant. Printex, as far as I know, still stands today. There are current plans on making it into condos.

Many people asked how Vera became so successful. She was the first person to put print on a bed sheet. She was the first person to bring bright colors to the table. She was the first person to limit colors on a scarf to 3 or 4 to make them more outfit-friendly. But I think the biggest reason was that she painted up to the public. She was of the belief that fine art shouldn’t just be for the wealthy. It should be available to all and it should be incorporated in everyone’s everydays. By wearing a Vera dress, you can take your art with you. By wearing a Vera scarf, you can dress up pretty much anything. By having Vera linens in your kitchen, it puts a smile on your face while you’re doing the drabbest duties. Vera had the philosophy that you should change the art around you every once in a while because you soon stop seeing it. She made it to where a person can change their art as often as they change their clothes. Literally. 

Unfortunately, George died in 1962 of a heart attack. In all the articles I’ve read, almost all of her interviews she mentions him and the power he gave her while by her side. She missed him terribly. After his death, she sold the company to Manhattan Industries to better support her growing brand. They kept her on as chief designer and also brought in Perry Ellis to help with her sportswear division. Everything was still printed in the Ossining Printex plant. Scarves, however, had grown so much that they started making them in Japan to keep up with the demand.

In the following years, she was honored by the Smithsonian as the first person in their artist in residence program. They commissioned her to paint something for them and she did—the Foucault Pendulum. It hangs in their offices today. The Fashion Institute of Technology’s Museum mounted a retrospective, as well as the EmileWaltersGallery (these are only a few—I could be here forever if I told you all of her accomplishments).

She was still painting when she fell ill in 1993. She was taken to the hospital where she later died. At that time, the Salant Corporation had taken over Manhattan Industries and was licensing the sportswear to a catalog company called “The Tog Shop”. The Salant Corporation then sold Vera Industries to The Tog Shop. It was there that Susan Seid, president of The Vera Company now, “found Vera”. That’s another great story, one that we’ll have to share another time.