Betsey Johnson (born ca. 1941), dress designer for the young and young-at-heart, set fashion trends during four decades.

Fashion designer Betsey Johnson, with her red hair and perpetual ear-to-ear grin, was a colorful burst of energy in the fashion world. She first exploded onto the style scene in the swinging 1960s, a turbulent time when fashion designers were considered stuffy, pretentious, and totally out-of-touch with the growing wave of street-inspired chic and the unmistakable influence of British rock and roll on American youth culture.

During this decade, Johnson helped launch the American fashion revolution with her space age silvery sci-fi dresses, see-through plastic shifts with discreet stick-on cover-ups, a "noise dress" with metal grommets at the hem that went clink-clank when the wearer moved, elephant bell-bottoms, and 14-inch metal micro-miniskirts. In those years her designs were worn by style setters such as actresses Julie Christie and Brigitte Bardot, model...