Early Life and Education
Claiborne was born in Brussels to American parents. She came from a prominent Louisiana family with an ancestor William C.C. Claiborne having been Governor of Louisiana during the War of 1812. In 1939, at the start of World War II, the family returned to New Orleans. She attended St. Timothy's, a boarding school then in Catonsville, Maryland and currently in Stevenson, Maryland. Rather than finishing high school, she went to Europe to study art in painters' studios. Her father did not believe that she needed an education, so she studied art informally.
In 1949, she won the Jacques Heim National Design Contest (sponsored by Harper's Bazaar), and then moved to New York City where she worked for years in the Garment District on Seventh Avenue as a sketch artist at the sportswear house Tina Leser. She worked as a designer for Dan Keller and Youth Group Inc.
Claiborne had a short-lived marriage before marrying Art Ortenberg in 1957. She had a son from her first marriage and two stepchildren from her second.
Read more about this topic: Liz Claiborne (fashion Designer)
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