Cooper Hewitt says...
The fashion company Lanz was founded in 1922 in Salzburg, Austria by Josef Lanz and Fritz Mahler. They discovered a niche in the Austrian fashion market for traditional Tyrolean folk wear costumes, selling their designs to attendees of the Salzburg Festival, a performing arts festival also founded in 1922. Josef Lanz, an exceptional skier and mountaineer, also designed attractive and functional ski suits with a Tyrolean flair that proved to be enormously popular with Europeans and Americans. The company began exporting their designs to the United States in the early 1930s, opening a local shop and wholesale location in New York City. There were also American agents that produced “authorized copies” of ski suits and sweaters as well as more modern adaptations of clothing that limited the Tyrolean influences to the buttons, embroidery, and braid trimmings.
Josef Lanz left Austria in 1936 and opened his own New York branch of the Lanz business, leaving his siblings to look after the business in Austria. In New York, Lanz met German immigrants Werner and Kurt Scharff who joined him in a partnership. By the late 1930s, Lanz and the Scharffs had relocated the business to Los Angeles where Lanz of California was created, specializing in Austrian-style ski clothing and sleepwear. Lanz and Scharff both understood that it was the traditional elements of Austrian fashion that appealed most to consumers. When Hedy Lamarr wore Lanz clothing in Ziegfeld Girl, Lanz received film credit. Marlene Dietrich was also an admirer.
The partners created Lanz Originals, probably in the early 1940s, to sell junior dresses. When the Scharff’s bought Joseph Lanz’s stake in the company in 1946, Werner’s wife Nornie became an important part of the firm and worked as a designer. Mindful of the firm’s Austrian roots, they spent time in Europe sourcing fabrics for some of their fashions. In 1953, the Scharff’s introduced the Lanz “granny gown,” a popular nightgown made of inexpensive cotton flannel. Lanz Originals, the junior dresses manufacturer, stopped production in 2001. Lanz of Salzburg, the sleepwear company, is the last remaining American concern and continues to produce sleepwear. The Austrian descendants of the original Lanz company are still in business in Salzburg, Austria, selling traditional Tyrolean folk wear costumes.
