From a 1959 article:
"It is one thing to study the art of designing by going to art school, working with and learning from dress designers already established, but it is another thing when you have the background and the knack literally 'fall into' the profession. Such is the case of Edith Small, prominent California designer of custom suits and gowns.
Miss Small's grandfather and uncles were tailors on Bond Street, London, England, counting members of royalty among their clients. She undoubtedly inherited her love of fine clothes from her family. On a trip to California, from her hometown of Chicago, she was constantly asked by friends where she bought her suits -- and in reply she always told them she would cut them one. Hence, from small beginnings and 10(?) years of hard work she has built one of the greatest designing businesses in the country -- it has reached the five-million-dollar mark!
Significant trends in her resort and spring collection, as shown Friday to the fashion and women's editors attending the sixth annual National Press Week as guests of California Fashion Creators, are the young short look in her hipbone-length fitted jackets; the smart long look in several high-waisted, high belted models in imported silk or golden beige worsted; the new "weskit" look in a suit of English sharkskin; the jumper look in a two-tone sheer worsted suit with red accent; the jabot look, the short sleeve look and the "decorative" look -- suits embroidered in motifs.
Miss Small is utterly feminine and this is reflected in her clothes -- a rose at the neckline, white violets on a sleeve, a white carnation on a lapel or a rose accent on a regency scroll bodice. Suit fabrics in this collection include fine chiffon weight worsteds, striped and pincheck worsteds, imported French and Italian silk tweeds, striped and pin-dot silkd and quality striped and teardrop mohair.
Very few designers handle Chantilly laces in as sophisticated a manner as Miss Small. She has created for the coming season cocktail and formal dresses fashioned tier on tier with faille trims and glitter accents. In a long-skirt slender formal she has used Venise lace in daffodil yellow with cascading spiral back panel and in another, the palest pink taffeta in a new old-fashioned silhouette studded with rhinestones.
Important everyday, all-day dresses include a useful black Italian silk with soft bodice, high-buttoned and high-belted; lots of stripe linens, silk shantung, Persian printed cottons, checked ginghams and silk prints blended in springtime's brightest colors."
