Joseph Picone, one-half of the successful Evan-Picone apparel company, died this week in Manhattan. He was 83.
Picone was a tailor working out of a storefront on Fifth Avenue near 46th Street when, in 1949, Charles Evans came into the store with a proposition. Evans, the son of one of Picone's customers, had designed a simple skirt with a fly front that he thought would find a market among fashion-conscious women. All he needed was someone to create a sample he could take around to stores.
The two ended up forming a company, Evans dropping the “s” from his name and Picone dropping the final syllable of his name. (It had been pronounced “pi-KOH-nay.”) The Evan-Picone brand was a success almost immediately, and it dominated the sportswear business even after the company was sold to Revlon in 1962. Evans went into the real estate business, but Picone remained and bought the company back in 1966. He sold it again, to Palm Beach Inc., and subsequently retired in 1983 as chairman and ceo. (Evan-Picone had by then become part of the Jones Apparel Group.) But Picone did not stay retired for long. He went on to introduce the MaxMara line, founded by his friend Achille Maramotti, to stores in the United States, and from 1987 to 1992 was chairman and ceo of MaxMara USA, where he remained on the board for several years after his retirement.