Fira Benenson

Fira Benenson was born on 14 April 1898[1] in Baku, which at the time was located in the Russian Empire, as the middle daughter of Sophia Borisovna (née Goldberg, Russian: Софьей Борисовной Голдберг) and Grigory Benenson (Russian: Григорий Иосифович Бененсон), a Jewish financier and oil magnate.[2][3][4] Her mother was born in Pinsk[5] and her father was born in Minsk to a wealthy timber merchant and had begun his career managing his father's estates. In 1889, he moved with his wife and young son, Jacob (1885–?) to Baku, opening a rice processing plant, which was the first in the area and began exporting rice in the domestic market. Within a decade, he bought a kerosene plant and expanded his business interests into oil production.[6] Grigory was one of the pioneer oil prospectors of the Baku fields and a chief stockholder in the Lena gold mining company,[7] as well as a director of the Russian and English Bank Limited of Saint Petersburg.[8]

Berenson was raised with her older sister Flora (1895–1984)[7] and younger sister Manya on the top floor of the home built by Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky in Saint Petersburg and spent time on a country estate known as Redkino.[3] Her father then bought a home on Nevsky Prospect, from which he operated his businesses as well and eventually installed a cinema in 1912. The following year, the business was moved to Sadovaya Street, to the building which now houses the St. Petersburg currency exchange.[6] In 1914, while visiting in Germany, the family decided to relocate to London[3] and moved there permanently in 1915.[7] Grigory began investing in New York City in 1919, buying the City Investing Building.[9] Berenson lived in Paris with her mother in the 1920s, but traveled often to New York.[10][5] After her mother's death on 27 April 1926, in Nice,[11] Benenson moved permanently to Manhattan,[12][Notes 1] where on 19 March 1931, she married Janusz Ilinski, a Polish nobleman and soldier.[12] [15]

When the family fortune took a downturn due to the Great Depression and the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Benenson opened a dress shop in New York City, gaining a reputation in the fashion industry.[7][12] In 1934, she was hired by Bonwit Teller to manage their Couture Salon, traveling four times a year to the fashion markets in Paris.[12] In 1940, with travel restrictions due to the war and the German invasion of France, Paris was closed off to the industry.[16] American designers began to create their own designs, and Benenson launched Fira Benenson Inc.[12][17] Her plan was not to create haute couture fashion, but rather simple, but elegant clothing in which women could walk and sit, while wearing throughout their normal daily routines.[2][17] While other designers utilized padded shoulders, Benenson preferred natural lines and silhouettes that balanced a woman's figure.[17][18]

In 1946, the Hoving Corporation made a bid to purchase Bonwit's,[19] which resulted in Benenson's resignation by 1948 to open her own shop.[2][20] She had become one of the top fashion designers in the United States by 1950,[21] and counted among her clients, Princess Grace of Monaco[22] and Pat Nixon.[23] Increasingly she designed clothes for women over forty, putting out two collections each year for the ready-to-wear market,[2][17] while still keeping her styles though available in a range of sizes, with the feel of made to order garments.[12] She continued designing through the end of the 1960s.[24]

Benenson died at her home at 333 East 57th Street in Manhattan on 23 October 1977.[2] She was influential in giving a start to many young designers during her career, including George Halley[25] and Monte Streitfield.[26] Her sister Flora was the mother of Peter Solomon Benenson, founder of Amnesty International[27] and her sister Manya was the noted translator of Doctor Zhivago.[3]