Betsey Johnson
A woman of purpose

Betsey was born on August 10th 1942 in Wethersfield, Connecticut. She loved dancing throughout her childhood which later inspired her love of costumes. She studied at the Pratt Institute before graduating from Syracuse University.

Her career in fashion began where she won a guest editor competition in Mademoiselle magazine.

She moved on after a year to Paraphernalia – Andy Warhol’s underground fashion scene together with Edie Sedgwick and the Velvet Underground.

She married John Cale (of the Velvet Underground) in 1967 although they divorced after a year. By 1969 she had opened a store called Betsey Bunki and Nini on New York’s Upper East Side. Edie Sedgwick was her in-house model and Betsey designed the clothes Edie wore in the film Cio! Manhatten.

It was in the 1970’s that the “Ally Cat” label was born, which was highly fashionable amongst musicians and other equally trendy folk.

She had a daughter in 1975 named Lulu then in 1978 she began her own fashion line and opened a retail store in SoHo – until there were some 45 stores worldwide.

Betsey has dressed a variety of well known modern stars such as Courtney Love, Heather Graham and Salma Hayek.