Obituary: Designer Marva Martindale
Designer and merchandiser Marva Martindale died on April 11 of a brain hemorrhage.
Her age was a well-kept secret, according to her closest friends. “She never said, so I never asked,” said friend and fellow designer Carlos Vasquez. “She once said in an interview that a woman’s age was her business and not even her best friends knew. And we didn’t.”
Well-known among industry insiders on both coasts, the Jamaican-born, New York–raised designer is remembered for her elegant looks, witty sense of humor, inquisitive nature and generous spirit.
“Gifts, cookies and cupcakes—she never went anywhere empty handed, even to a showroom,” said Vasquez, a designer and instructor at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising who met Martindale in the 1970s when the two worked at Los Angeles apparel label Alex Coleman. Martindale designed for the company’s R.H.I.P. contemporary division, and the two remained good friends ever since.
Pat Tunsky, creative director for the Doneger Group, also met Martindale in the mid-1970s when Martindale was at Alex Coleman. The two remained professional colleagues—“She was certainly a sounding board for me and I for her,” Tunsky said—as well as personal friends.
“She never forgot my birthday—or my daughter’s or my husband’s birthday,” Tunsky said. “We always spoke on holidays. It’s our loss because she was so good to us all.”
Ilse Metchek, president of the California Fashion Association, recalled that the first Christmas party she was invited to after moving to Los Angeles was hosted by Martindale. Metchek praised Martindale’s “superb” networking abilities.
“She was interesting and interested in a lot of things,” she said. “She looked you in the eye and was interested in what you were doing and wanted to learn from you.”
Many recalled Martindale’s striking good looks. She had worked as a model when she first moved to Los Angeles, Vasquez said.
“She was a woman of impeccable taste,” he said. “When she walked into a room, you noticed her and wanted to meet her and get to know her.”
Tunsky agreed, saying, “She was beautiful, stately, a woman who was always cheerful with an irreverent sense of humor. She always saw the positive side of life.”
Born in Jamaica and raised in Amityville, Long Island, Martindale moved to the West Coast to study business administration and economics at the University of Southern California. She opened a boutique in Beverly Hills called The Collector, where she sold natural objects and artwork.
She switched to the wholesale side of the apparel industry in 1974 when she took a job at menswear company Louis Roth, which launched a line called Marva for Louis Roth. She then went to work for Alex Coleman for four years and then as a designer and merchandiser at Chiori sportswear before launching her own business as a free-lance designer in product development.
“She was a terrific lady with a heart of gold and a very talented designer,” said Pat Brandt, owner of trend-forecasting company Patricia Brandt Co.
In recent years, she was planning to turn her baking talents into a business. She had been working on establishing her own cookie business—with a Hollywood theme, Tunsky and Vasquez said.
“From fashion to cupcakes, Marva always had a smile,” Metchek said.—Alison A. Nieder
