 In 1947, a glamorous designer posed for Life magazine. She was hailed as one of the most all-pervasive cultural influences in U.S. life. This charismatic and talented woman was the path-breaking Dorothy Liebes, a master weaver and champion of innovative textile design. Food, shelter, clothing, these three things are very basic in our lives. And two of those brackets are concerned with cloth. Dorothy Liebes opened her San Francisco weaving studio in 1930, sparking the attention of prominent architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Samuel Marx. They admired how Liebes' textiles captured light and responded to space, creating elegant and luxurious modern interiors. The Liebes look soon appeared in glamorous spaces from Hawaii to New York City, including the Plaza Hotel's swanky Persian Room nightclub. Here, Liebes chose a palette of blues, greens and sparkling metallics. Her team then wove hundreds of tiny lights throughout the panels to evoke a starry night sky. I used to weave almost everything I could lay my hands on. Some of it was not engineering-wise, too-wise, but it was a chance for me to experiment with colors and textures. I found that unusual materials were not badly suited to certain kinds of cloth. Along with unconventional materials, bold, unusual color combinations came to define Liebes' unique style. Color, as you know, is the magic of Lexus, the alchemy of life. All people love color. The impact of beautiful color combinations is just undeniable. Overseeing two studios in San Francisco and later New York, she worked with a diverse team of talented weavers to create hand-woven textiles for restaurants, passenger ships, airliners and couture clothing. Fashion designers including Bonnie Cashin, Adrian and Claire Potter designed clothing to showcase her striking one-of-a-kind fabrics made of metallic yarns, cellophane, brocade ribbons, beads and other materials. But her designs weren't just for the wealthy. Liebes believed good design should extend to all Americans, regardless of budget. For decades, she teamed with textile mills to interpret the colors and textures of her hand-woven fabrics for mass production, leading her industry partners to commercial success. For DuPont, Liebes experimented with newly developed fibers such as Dacron and Antron. By demonstrating the design capabilities of these materials, she helped build consumer confidence in synthetics. In general, I think that fabrics are a woman's number one weapon for enhancing her personality. So when you do your fabrics, they must do something for you as a person and an individual. And I think the man-made fire picture has given us this world of new material with which to work. As a spokesperson and color stylist for Lurex, she curated new palettes like this collection inspired by the Celadon greens and soft salmon pinks of 18th century Chinese porcelain and introduced glittering metallics into everything from automobile upholstery to handbags, shoes and swimwear. Overseas, international manufacturers also sought Liebes' expertise as she helped rebuild and modernize the global textile market following World War II. Through these various collaborations, Liebes became a household name. She routinely appeared in magazines and on radio and television, cementing her status as one of the foremost voices on color, home design and decoration. After decades of extraordinary success, Liebes was honored by New York's Museum of Contemporary Crafts with this career retrospective. The colorful 1970 exhibit featured some of her most successful fabrics and demonstrated the profound influence Liebes had on nearly every aspect of 20th century design an influence which can still be felt today.