About the Collection
The Alvin Colt Design Drawings, Photographs, and Other Materials for Neiman Marcus Fortnights collection, 1958-2001, contains more than 2,100 items related to the annual Neiman Marcus Fortnight celebrations in Dallas, Texas. Materials include original drawings, sketches, floor plans, design elevations, blueprints, posters, photographic prints, correspondence from Stanley Marcus to Alvin Colt, and clippings relating to the Neiman Marcus department store’s Fortnight events.
From 1963 to 1986, Colt designed installations for the Fortnight extravaganzas at the downtown Neiman Marcus store in Dallas. Fortnights were splashy cultural, social, culinary and fashion celebrations that greatly broadened the horizons of North Texans at the time. Each Fortnight had a theme based on a different country, and featured products imported from that nation. The Fortnights were attended by such dignitaries as ambassadors from Denmark and Thailand, the Queen of Thailand, Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly, movie star Sophia Loren, and artist Françoise Gilot, to name a few. Planning and construction took thousands of miles of travel and hundreds of people to produce. Neiman Marcus Fortnights were a brilliant blending of the commercial, theatrical, and cultural.
Alvin Colt was an award-winning designer born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1915. His Broadway debut was with "On the Town" in 1944. Colt designed costumes for "Guys & Dolls" in 1950 and received a Tony award for Costume Design for "Pipe Dream" in 1957. Over the years, Colt worked as a costume and set designer for more than 80 Broadway shows, television and movies.
![[Elephant Flower Sculpture]](/-/media/site/libraries/digital-collections/alv/alv_landing_new_elephant.jpg?h=400&iar=0&w=600&hash=C42CD2EF8D5D427E9F1BF5497E217B26)