A son brings his late father's dreamworks to national attention
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As a teenager in the late 1940s, Charles Solof began creating designs that he hoped would someday be worn by an actress to the Academy Awards.To see more of Mr. Solof's drawings, use the links to the left of this article. -
As a teenager in the late 1940s, Charles Solof began creating designs that he hoped would someday be worn by an actress to the Academy Awards. -
Michael Solof of Baltimore, Md., discovered about 100 drawings of women's clothing after the death of his father, Charles Mark Solof, who worked in the furniture industry. -
Charles Mark Solof's designs were featured in a publication called The Costume Designer in the fall of 2008. -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration -
Charles Solof illustration
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Charles Solof earned a living by selling furniture, but his heart belonged to the magical world of entertainment. His passion for design overflowed into doodles on telephone pads, sculptures in the sand on New Jersey beaches plus oil paintings of Pittsburgh landscapes.
"I knew he was a good artist," said his son Mike Solof, who grew up in Mt. Lebanon and lives in suburban Baltimore, where he works as a writer for Gemstone Publishing, a publisher of comic books and collectors' guides.
A few months before Charles Solof died last March, his son, while cleaning out closets in his father's Florida home, unearthed a large portfolio. Inside were 175 vivid sketches of women attired in elegant suits and stunning gowns.
"I am not in the costume design field, but I was stunned at the beauty and vision that these designs still displayed more than 60 years after they were drawn," Mike Solof said, adding that one dress made him think of Audrey Hepburn immediately.
Others have been impressed, too, and the designs, which had been hidden away for so many years, have since been displayed in a magazine and a documentary, and may be headed for Hollywood.
Charles Solof, a Taylor Allderdice High School and University of Pittsburgh graduate, served in the Air Force and followed his father into the furniture business. He also attended summer classes at Parsons School of Design before meeting his wife and settling down to raise two sons, Mike and Jeff.
He produced the sketches between 1948 and 1952, starting at age 17 and finishing when he was 21. The 11-by-17-inch drawings he did during those five years represented his unrealized hopes of becoming a top fashion designer and his fondest dream -- that a Hollywood actress would wear his creation to the annual Academy Awards.
"Dad was a Bill Blass fan and a Bob Mackie fan," Mr. Solof said. "If somebody ever wants to make them, wonderful. This stuff needs to be seen."
The designs are strictly for uptown girls, recalling a time when well-turned-out American women wore hats and gloves, long before our national wardrobe slouched into collections of athletic sweatshirts, Juicy Couture running suits, low-slung blue jeans, Aeropostale T-shirts, tennis shoes and Crocs.
"The colors are just so gorgeous," Mr. Solof says of his father's designs. "They have texture. He used stone and colored sands and tiny, shiny jewels. He was able to nail style."
Charles Solof left Pittsburgh for Fort Lauderdale 10 years before his death last year. At his father's funeral, Mike Solof told mourners that if Mr. Solof had pursued his dream, "the world would have been a much better dressed place. He would have been big, like Bob Mackie big. But I wouldn't be around."
Last July, Mike Solof took 25 of his father's sketches to Comic-Con International, a vast annual gathering of comic book, movie and television representatives and their fans. While at the San Diego convention, he showed the sketches to costume designers who participated in a panel discussion.
The designers were impressed. One told him, "These are master-level designs. They captured an era that right now people are trying to copy."
Phillip Boutte Jr., a member of the Costume Designers' Guild, featured Charles Solof's designs in the fall 2008 issue of The Costume Designer, a magazine for people in that industry. Another costume designer insisted that Mike Solof be interviewed for a documentary on the fashion industry while a third wanted to have the sketches archived at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.
While there's no time for a well-known actress to model one of his father's creations this year, Mike Solof says, "I'm still hoping some designer for a film or a play looks at them and says, 'Oh, this would be cool.' "
So, he's sent notes to famous talk-show hosts, including Oprah Winfrey and Tyra Banks.
Although he did not inherit his father's drawing ability, Mike Solof always shared his love of the visual and the theater. To celebrate his 18th birthday, his father took him to New York City to see "The Phantom of the Opera."
Recently, Mike Solof continued the tradition by taking his nephew to Manhattan to see the famous show.
First Published February 15, 2009 12:00 am
