Screening of Film “Dressing America” and Filmmaker Q&A

New York’s fashion district — otherwise known as the Garment Center — has always held sway over the imaginations of the style-conscious and those seeking glamour. This little slice of Manhattan has nurtured the likes of retailers and designers — from Hattie Carnegie to Donna Karan — in their quest to create world-class fashions that have made generations of Americans feel and look stylish.

Rich in storytelling and sumptuous visual detail, Dressing America encompasses one-hundred-fifty years of fashion history, populated by pioneering, larger-than-life characters. It’s also the story of individuals, like 84-year old Holocaust survivor, Charles Edelstein, who still travels from his home in Oceanside, Long Island, to peddle fabrics to a new generation of foreign-born garment center businessmen. In short, the film is a tribute to a vibrant, colorful and creative industry that has grown up and been nurtured by a Jewish presence for over a century and a half.– excerpt from NY Times article on “Dressing America” before its showing on WNET, PBS, New York, 2014.

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About the filmmaker – Steven Fischler
Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher founded Pacific Street Films in 1971, and they have produced and directed documentary films for venues as diverse as the United Nations, the BBC, and commercial and public television in the United States. They have received numerous awards including Guggenheim Fellowship in Films, Emmy Awards, Cine Golden Eagles, and the John Grierson Award for Social Documentaries.

Pacific Street Films produced many social and historical documentaries, such as “From Swastika to Jim Crow,” which tells the story of Jewish Refugee scholars driven from Germany by the Nazis who found teaching positions in the Jim Crow South. Their films include portraits of Hollywood artists like Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, and Jessica Lange, as well as investigations of police surveillance and misconduct.

Fischler was the director of the PBS-broadcast documentary, “Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & The Movies” and the producer of “Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center,” as well as the writer and director of the documentary “Five Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History.”