Dynasty at Bloomingdale's: A Very Glamorous Launch

Licensing TV's Most Luxurious Fashions, 1984

While working with Bloomingdale’s a few years ago on a book chronicling the store’s 150 years in business, I was sorting through a pile of papers in a backroom (there is no archive) when I came across some press releases from the 1980s. Among them were bulletins announcing the exclusive New York launch of the Nolan Miller Dynasty Collection, a fashion licensing tie-in with the hit TV series Dynasty, at the Manhattan flagship store in November 1984—a very exciting find for me. Early in my career, I wrote extensively about the costumes in Dynasty—though only a chapter of my work was published (“Krystle and Alexis: The Princess and the Queen Bitch in Dynasty” in Fashionable Queens: Body – Power – Gender, 2014), I presented at quite a few television, media, and fashion conferences in the early 2010s. One of my main areas of interest was the licensing deals surrounding Dynasty; something I discussed with both costume designer Nolan Miller and co-creator Esther Shapiro in interviews—both of whom appeared at this Bloomingdale’s launch.

Bloomingdale’s press release of the schedule of personal appearances by Dynasty cast members, November 18, 1984.

Quoting myself, “The American television programme, Dynasty (1981-1989), was a prime-time soap opera that combined the socio-political mood of the 1980s with human drama set in the rarified world of the very rich.” Central to the creation of this vision of the ultrarich were Nolan Miller’s costumes, which harkened back to the “golden age of Hollywood” and the work of costume designers such as Adrian and Travis Banton. The show’s stars—particularly archnemesis’s Alexis Carrington (Joan Collins) and Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans)—were dressed in extravagant sequined gowns, slinky lace negligees, plush fur coats and “working woman” style suits, all enhanced by thick shoulder pads that broadcast an idea of impossible glamour and conspicuous consumption.

Linda Evans, John Forsythe, and Joan Collins in a press photo for Dynasty.