DONALD J PLINER : The Selling of One’s Sole

Description

DONALD J PLINER: The Selling of One’s Sole

Authors:  R. Scott French & Vivian Kelly

Forewords:  Kevan Hall & Vanessa Noel

Design:  Roman Katona

Storyline: Donald J Pliner is one of America’s most worn shoe designers. His route to being the comfort king of fashionable footwear was quite circuitous. Starting on the shores of Lake Michigan in the storied “Black Belt” of 1950s Chicago where he grew up in the shoe business working in his father’s Pliner Florsheim Shoes for Men and Women boutiques, it wasn’t long until Donald wanted to sow his own roots and struck out for the West Coast. Following an opportunity brought to him by his brother, to launch and manage several outposts of the iconic The Shop for Pappagallo stores in Los Angeles, Donald found himself yearning for more. After an unexpected business turn, he launched one of the most celebrated boutiques in America, The Right Bank Clothing Co. on the 300 block of Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive. At Right Bank Clothing Co. he found himself assuming the role of fashion purveyor to the stars with a client list that read like a Hollywood A-list phone book.

Donald’s story, however, was just beginning as he launched his own eponymous shoe brand that would eventually send him into the fashion stratosphere. However, it wasn’t all a dream ride to the top. As he was on his last dollar and contemplating giving up his dream, he found “Love in the stairwell” of a Nordstrom store in his hometown of Los Angeles, and everything changed overnight.

DONALD J PLINER: The Selling of One’s Sole chronicles a fashionable version of the American dream where the main character lives a life of rags to riches to rags to riches to… that is only comparable to what Donald himself calls a real-life rollercoaster ride. It is a story that is rife with the unexpected and even a brush with the KGB… The only two constants throughout his life are a seemingly bottomless pool of creative talent and the seemingly endless support of his wife, a talented artist, model, fashion muse, and noted shoe designer in her own right, Lisa F Pliner.

This title is a tale of business, creativity, good ideas, bad decisions, legal turmoil, international intrigue, pop culture, and love all wrapped into one story that will prove as inspirational as it does precautionary to anyone interested in creative ventures, shoes, or fashion entrepreneurship on any level. Donald J Pliner is an American design icon, and his story is one that deservingly joins the great stories of creatives the world over.

About The Authors

R. Scott French is a fashion publicist, fashion show producer, journalist, designer, and an active member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). He brings to any project a broad skill set with an eclectic experience ranging from retail and wholesale to design and production. Scott has been a regular commentator on fashion in a myriad of media outlets, as well as having his design work covered in 8 books including the titles: “Tartan, Romancing the Plaid” (Rizzoli), “Designers on Instagram #Fashion” (Abrams), “The World’s Best Lingerie Design” (Batsford), “American Fashion” (Assouline), “American Fashion: Menswear” (Assouline), “Uncovering Fashion” (Fairchild), “American Fashion Travel: Designers on the Go” (Assouline), and, most recently, “IMPACT: 50 Years of the CFDA” (Abrams). He currently splits his time between New York City and Connecticut living with his wife and two sons.

Vivian Kelly has a long history in fashion that began as assistant to legendary editor, Grace Mirabella, before moving on to fashion public relations with stops at Chloe’s Paris headquarters and Michael Kors in New York as PR Director, before finally settling down to her true love – fashion writing and fashion history. Vivian is a journalist/fashion historian who honed her skills writing for The Hartford Courant, Greenwich Time/Stamford Advocate and global digital fashion publication, Lucire for over 20 years. She has covered over 1,000 fashion shows and presentations at fashion weeks in New York, Toronto, Paris, and Miami while teaching fashion history and journalism. Her current work can be found on www.thefashionlist.com and @thefashionhistorian on Instagram. She resides in an historic Civil War era log cabin in Northern Virginia with her husband.

Book Information

Publish Date. : July 2024 & reprinted December 2024
Category         : Fashion Biography, Non-Fiction
Publisher        : TheFashionList
ISBN                 : 979-8-89412-468-1
Format            : Hardcover
Trim Size        : 8-1/2 x 11
Pages               : 263 pages with 62 pages of full color photography