DORIS DODSON

In 1934, Irving Sorger of the department store Kline’s Inc. in St. Louis surveyed customers and found that young women wanted clothes that differed from what their mothers wore.

He identified what would become known as the ‘Junior’ line in fashion and St. Louis became the manufacturing hub of Junior ready to wear fashions. Among the many lines created by manufacturers in St. Louis for the ‘Juniors’ market (‘Frances Dexter’, ‘Minx Modes’, ‘Carole King’, ‘Mary Muffitt’, ‘Ellen Kaye’, ‘Paula Brooks’ and ‘Nelly Don’ created by the Donnelly Garment Company in nearby Kansas City since 1916) was Doris Dodson, a label created by Forest City Manufacturing Company in September 1936.

 Designers for Doris Dodson over the years included Grace Davile in the late 1930s and Alice Topp Lee in the 1950s. The Doris Dodson name was trademarked in 1948 and survived until c. 1968.