Polly Smith (inventor)
American designer and inventor (b. 1949)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Polly Smith (born November 10, 1949)[1] is an American inventor and costume designer. Smith was the costume designer for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.
Polly Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 10, 1949 Montclair, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Other name | Polly Palmer–Smith |
| Alma mater | Moore College of Art and Design New York University |
| Occupations | Inventor, costume designer |
| Employer | The Jim Henson Company |
| Awards | Emmy award, BAFTA (1989), National Inventors Hall of Fame (2022) |
In 1977, Smith co-created the "Jogbra", the first sports bra, working alongside Lisa Lindahl and Hinda Miller.[1] She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2022.[2]
Early life and education
Polly Palmer Smith was born November 10, 1949, in Montclair, New Jersey.[1] Smith attended Montclair Kimberley Academy.[3] Her mother made quilts and her grandfather was an illustrator.[4]
She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1971) in fashion design at the Moore College of Art and Design, and a master's degree (1975) in costume design at New York University.[4][5][6]
Career
In 1978, Smith joined The Jim Henson Company.[7] She was a costume designer on The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.[8] Her design for Miss Piggy was featured in an exhibition on Women Designers in the USA.[9][10][11] She received 7 Emmy Awards for her work on Sesame Street.[1]
In 1977, Smith was working with Lisa Lindahl on costumes for the William Shakespeare festival in Burlington, Vermont. Lindahl was a keen athlete, and experienced discomfort when running in a regular bra. Together they came up with the design for a sports bra, and worked with Hinda Miller to source the materials and conduct a test run. When Smith visited New York for work, she returned with new fabrics – elastics and Lycra – and created a bra for Lindahl's measurements. Lindahl and Miller co-founded Jogbra, Inc.[12]
In 1989, she won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for her costume work on the television series The StoryTeller.[1]
When asked about their contributions to the design of the sports bra, Smith commented, “Lisa was the idea, I was the fabrication, and Hinda was the driving force behind making it happen. And this is one of the things we all agreed on — [that] it couldn’t have happened if one of us had been missing — because it needed all three.”[13]
Further reading
- Busch-Vishniac, Ilene; Busch, Lauren; Tietjen, Jill (2024). "Chapter 28. Lisa Lindahl, Polly Smith, and Hinda Miller". Women in the National Inventors Hall of Fame: The First 50 Years. Springer Nature. ISBN 9783031755255.