INTERVIEW: South Beach fashion icon remembered in new exhibition

Irene Williams, a fashionable presence in South Beach, Miami, for many years, would have turned 100 in 2017. To celebrate her centennial, the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU has created a pop-up show that remembers and honors Williams’ unique fashion choices and contributions to the local culture.

The exhibition, called “If These Hats Could Tawk,” begins Thursday, July 13 with a special event that includes a screening of Eric Smith’s documentary Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road. Smith was a personal friend of Williams for years and is chiefly responsible for the new exhibition. He will be in attendance at the screening to answer questions.

“I met her in 1994,” Smith said in a recent phone interview. “I was living in New York working in the fashion industry, and in the winter, I used to just go down to Miami for kind of weekend getaways to get away from the winter. You know, you could kind of be on the plane at 7 in the morning and on the beach by 11, and at the time, South Beach was really starting to just come alive again and, you know, kind of getting redeveloped.”

Smith would spend the day on the beach and head to Lincoln Road in the afternoon. It was on this pedestrian-friendly street, which was half-abandoned at the time, that Smith saw Williams and her fashionable sense for the first time.

“I saw this little older woman in hot pink,” he said. “Then I noticed the next day I saw her out in purple, and I just thought, oh, this woman looks really interesting. And at the time, I was just starting to use these handheld video cameras that were coming out, these 8mm video cameras that you could just hold in your hand, and I was carrying it around with me. And I just thought, oh, if I see her, I would just want to stop and kind of take her photo. I happened to see her that day in this green outfit, and I just stopped [her] and asked her to take her picture, which she was very used to because I think a lot of people stopped her just to take her picture.”

Smith bravely hit the record button even before formally meeting Williams, so the documentary, which runs 23 minutes, includes their initial encounter. The fact that she took to the camera and later became friends with the filmmaker speaks to her indomitable spirit.

“When I saw the colorful outfits, but more importantly the sharp, funny, witty person inside them, I just thought, oh, I like you, and I invited her to tea the next day,” Smith said. “It basically started a 10-year friendship, so every time I would go down to South Beach, I would hang out with Irene. And I would bring my camera with me, just to record things. I don’t think I had a specific intention of creating a documentary. I was just kind of recording things in my life and people around me, and that’s how this kind of progressed. And in 2004, after she passed away, I just decided this story needs to be preserved. It needs to be told, so that’s when I kind of went through all the stuff I shot and worked with this editor here in San Francisco.”

The video camera that Smith used didn’t require him to put an eye to the viewfinder. He could hold the camera in a secret way and carry on with his filming, almost like a fly on the wall. This meant that Williams, a stenographer by trade, didn’t feel compelled to play to the camera, and actual authenticity is achieved.

“She often used to say, ‘Eric, what are you doing? Who is going to want to look at this stuff?’” he said. “Little did she know that a lot of times when my camera was on, there were these lovely pearls of wisdom about life, about her work, about survival, about creativity, and that’s kind of the story that I wanted to tell.”

Williams’ fashion choices, which are celebrated in the museum exhibition and also caught the eye of photographer Annie Leibovitz, amazed Smith. He was, in fact, working in the fashion industry at the time, designing socks and tights.

“I could appreciate what I saw,” he said. “I found these vintage Pierre Cardin beach towels in a flea market, and I sent them to her. And four months later, I came back, and she had taken the towels and turned them into [a] head-to-toe [outfit]. And when I say ‘to toe,’ if you look at the shoes, they’re a masterpiece in themselves. That kind of creativity and individuality for me says: Follow your own instincts. Follow your own bliss. She would often say that. She said, ‘Everyone in life has a hidden talent, Eric, and if you’re lucky in your lifetime and you discover it, it’s the greatest gift in the world.’ And she made clothes by instinct, not by patterns, not by going to school for it. It was all from her imagination.”

When Smith realized that 2017 would be Williams’ centennial, he began searching for a way to honor his longtime friend. He received advice that he should reach out to the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU in the heart of South Beach’s Art Deco district.

“They are doing this exhibition this year on fashion, fashion through Jewish history,” he said. “So I was on my way to Puerto Rico in February, and I made an appointment to meet with them. And I showed them the documentary, and I told them that I have 32 of her hats and some other facts from her life. And they were very interested in kind of including her in the exhibition and telling her story, so I was really happy. And ultimately they’re also going to receive all 32 hats in their permanent collection and preserve her story and artifacts. You know, I’m very excited about it. It’s part of South Beach history, and I think her story is one which kind of speaks to a lot of what happened in South Beach with elderly people and retirees living there, and just the whole culture, and the shift in the culture that was going on. And I think they realized that and wanted to be part of telling her story, but also preserving it.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

If These Hats Could Tawk, featuring the hats of Irene Williams, will continue until Nov. 5 at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. Eric Smith’s documentary, Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road, will screen the evening of Thursday, July 13. Smith will be in attendance for a Q&A. Click here for more information.