The native New Yorker never set out to have a career in fashion.
University, she started her career with an entry-level post at Bloomingdale’s. The experience turned out to be fortuitous – she met her future husband Richard, who worked in merchandising there. The couple wed in the mid-1950s, starting what would be a 56-year marriage and a powerful fashion union. Together they launched the women’s dress business Brenner Couture in 1968. By 1979, they had built a $10 million company.
Neat, slender and 5’3” Brenner designed clothes that didn’t just suit her but also legions of other petite women, whose physiques were not a focus for most Seventh Avenue labels and designer companies at that time. By her own account, her decision to do so boiled down to the fact that “there just weren’t chic clothes for short people.”
To avoid getting lost in a mis-roportioned look or becoming a “halved-off figure,” Brenner favored two-part styles, especially skinny coats or jackets paired with a dress or skirt. Precise shaping was key, with Brenner preferring longer tops and shoulders cut high to give an illusion of added height. Anything fussy was off limits for petites from her point of view. Nubby tweeds with printed silks and real antique buttons were more her style to relay a French dressmaker feel.
As for the challenge of working and living with your business partner , Brenner once explained its advantages. “You can have a quarrel with your husband and not speak for days; you can’t afford to do that with a business partner.” Years after closing their company and taking a three-year hiatus, the Brenners returned to Seventh Avenue with another company that had three divisions – Eleanor P. Brenner bridge sportswear, EPB Busy weekend wear and TPR progressive sportswear. The designer’s son described her as a visionary with “perfect-pitch, photographic memory.” Her “three-dimensional ability to envision things” could be applied to clothing, home [décor] or just about anything else, he said.
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