Adolfo

Adolfo Faustino Sardiña (February 15, 1923 – November 27, 2021), professionally known as Adolfo, was an American fashion designer who started out as a milliner in the 1950s. While chief designer for the wholesale milliners Emme, he won the Coty Award and the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award. In 1963 he set up his own salon in New York, firstly as a milliner, and then focusing on clothing. He retired from fashion design in 1993.

Early life Adolfo Sardiña was born in Cárdenas, Cuba on February 15, 1923. His mother, Marina Gonzales, was Irish; his father, Waldo Sardiña, who worked as a lawyer, Spanish. Marina died in childbirth, and Waldo died sometime during Adolfo's early childhood. As a result, he was raised by his aunt, María López, and his godfather. He attended the St Ignacio de Loyola Jesuit School in Havana and served in the Cuban Army.

Adolfo won a Coty Award in 1955 for millinery. In 1959, Emme were awarded the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award.

Fashion Gloria Vanderbilt and Wyatt Emory Cooper, 1970. She is wearing a 1967 Adolfo dress made from an antique quilt, now in the V&A Museum. With financial help from Bill Blass, Adolfo opened his first salon in New York in 1963, where he met many of the customers who would become his patrons when he gave up millinery to focus on clothing. He had met the Duchess of Windsor by 1965, through whom he met regular customers Betsy Bloomingdale, Babe Paley and Nancy Reagan.

At first Adolfo's extravagant, elaborately ornamental clothing seemed at odds with the relaxed principles behind American sportswear. In 1978 he launched Adolfo Menswear Inc. and Adolfo Scarves Inc, and in 1979, a perfume line.

Personal life His partner, Edward C. Perry, died in 1993 from esophageal cancer.

Adolfo died on November 27, 2021, in his Manhattan home. He was 98 years old at the time of his death. He was buried in Restland Memorial Park in East Hanover, New Jersey.