Bonnie August

Bonnie J. August (January 2, 1947 – August 9, 2003) was an American fashion designer. In the 1970s, she innovated the disco-era look of unitards under wrap skirts. She favored stretchy materials such as spandex and was among the first designers to incorporate prints and bright colors in activewear. She won a Coty Award in 1978 for "changing the way women dressed". August graduated from Syracuse University and was hired as a design director by Danskin in 1975. She wrote the 1981 book The Complete Bonnie August Dress Thin System. She started the labels Bonnie August Activewear and Bodywear and the Bonnie August Design Studio. Her designs are in the collections of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Early life and education Bonnie J. August was born on January 2, 1947, in River Edge, New Jersey. She earned a BFA in fabric design from Syracuse University in 1968. She later studied knitwear design at the Fashion Institute of Technology, jewelry design at the Haystack School of Arts and Crafts and the Craft Students League, and computer graphics at the Parsons School of Design.

August was hired as a design director for the women's clothing brand Danskin in 1975. Her designs were inspired by sportswear, particularly ballet dancewear, including tights, leggings, and leotards. In 1975 she created the collection Freestyle which paired knit leotards with jeans or skirts. She added a self-tie wrap skirt the following year. The late-1970s disco look, with a wraparound skirt over a unitard, was innovated by August.

Magazines that featured her designs included People, Women's Wear Daily, Harper's Bazaar, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and Vogue. She devised an alphabetical Body ID scale for classifying body shapes that allowed for the combination of frontal and side views.

After leaving Danskin in 1984, she started the label Bonnie August Activewear and Bodywear. They had one son and later divorced.

August was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. She recovered and joined Wells Hosiery to start an online catalogue business that donated some of its profits to charity in 2001. She died of ovarian cancer on August 9, 2003, in Manhattan.

August's designs are in the collections of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology museum, Seattle's Rock 'n' Roll Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.