Frankie Welch (March 29, 1924 – September 2, 2021) was a fashion designer from Rome, Georgia. She is primarily known for designing scarves for prominent political figures, which she sold from her boutique in Alexandria, Virginia. After a career as a home economics teacher which spanned nearly two decades, Welch began working as a fashion consultant. Developing a clientele, she moved into designing accessories and then dresses. Welch was the designer of a dress worn by First Lady Betty Ford, which is now on display in the Smithsonian's First Ladies' Hall in the National Museum of American History. She also designed dresses on display at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Early life
Mary Frances Barnett was born in 1924 in Rome, Georgia, to Eugenia (née Morton) and James Wyatt Barnett. As a high school student, Barnett enjoyed fashion and consulted her friends on style. Her father worked for the telephone company and her family had deep roots in Georgia. She claimed to be 1/32 Cherokee; however, she is non-Native American. Her great-grandfather built Georgia's first lumber mill and her grandfather served in the Confederate Army.
Barnett graduated from Rome High School in 1941 and then enrolled at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. At the completion of her junior year, on June 3, 1944, Barnett married her childhood sweetheart, William Calvin Welch, in Rome, Georgia. After graduating from Furman, with her bachelor's degree, Welch continued her studies at the University of Georgia, before following her husband, who had been discharged from the military, to Wisconsin. There she studied design at the University of Wisconsin.
Career
Welch began her career in Madison, Wisconsin, teaching elementary school and the couple had their first daughter, Peggy. When Bill was transferred to work with the CIA in 1952, the family moved to Washington, D. C. in 1953 and Welch continued teaching. She worked as a sewing instructor at the Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia and had her second daughter, Genie. In 1960, she designed a versatile dress known as "The Frankie", as an instructional aid to help her students visualize waistline treatments. That same year, Ingenue, a teen magazine named her the "Outstanding Home Economics Teacher of the Nation" and awarded her with a trip to visit the fashion houses of Paris and Rome. In September 1963, she opened a shop at 305 Cameron Street in Alexandria, Virginia, operating an official guest house on the upper floors and her clothing shop on the street level. The house was noted in guidebooks as a tourist attraction, because George Washington and his men dined there and it was the first bank in Virginia. By 1964, she was marketing "The Frankie" nationwide. The adaptable design came in various fabrics and hem-lengths, and could be worn in multiple ways, depending on how the waist ties were joined.
Meeting Washington's elite women at various social functions, Welch began consulting with them on fashion. Developing a clientele, she soon switched to design. In 1967, as part of an initiative for the Native American education service, she designed a scarf featuring the Cherokee syllabary. Welch donated one dollar from the purchase of each scarf to the higher education fund of the Eastern Cherokee. The scarf caught the attention of First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. Johnson asked Welch to create a scarf which would promote her "Discover America" campaign. The scarf became a featured item at the first fashion show ever held at the White House. In 1968, she designed a scarf with a daisy pattern for the Republican National Convention and was then asked to design a scarf for Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign featuring his HH logo. When Richard Nixon won the presidency, Welch was commissioned to design a scarf with his slogan "Forward Together" as a commemoration of his Inaugural.