Swimwear Co-Founder Dies
Nina Kessler, co-founder of the iconic swimwear brand Rose Marie Reid, died Feb. 10 in Westlake Village, Calif. She was 94.
Kessler and her late husband, Jack, founded the brand, which was the epitome of glamorous swimwear, with designer Rose Marie Reid during the 1940s.
Born in Harbin, China, Kessler and her family immigrated in 1917 to Seattle, where she grew up. She graduated from the University of Washington in 1934.
In the late 1940s, she and her husband met Reid, a fashion designer from Vancouver, British Columbia. The trio decided that Southern California was the best place to start a swimwear label and, despite warnings of possible fabric and sewing-machine shortages, they moved to Los Angeles.
The brand maintained its popularity through the post-war era with form-fitting styles and high-end fabrications until the 1960s, when bikinis became all the rage.
The Kesslers became important figures in California’s apparel industry. After selling the brand to Munsingwear, Jack became a general partner in the California Market Center until his death at 75 in 1983.
Nina, who focused on marketing Rose Marie Reid swimwear to retail heavyweights such as Lord & Taylor, Bullocks and Marshall Fields, went on to serve as an officer of the Beverly Hills Hadassah, a women’s Zionist group, for several years.
“My mother was part of the real glory days of Rose Marie Reid, and she was a big force in the California apparel industry in the 1950s,” said Richard Kessler, Nina’s son.
Nina is survived by her sister, Mary Merport; her daughter and son-in-law, Miriam and Henry Warshow; three sons and their wives, Bruce and Joan Kessler, Richard and Pat Kessler, and Stephen and Daniela Kessler; plus seven grandchildren, 11 greatgrandchildren and one great, great-grandchild. —Erin Barajas
