Gaby Basora was a costume designer and stylist before founding Tucker with a blouse in 2006. With her use of vibrant patterns and prints, she developed an aesthetic of her own. Similar to the joyfully optimistic designs for her collection, Basora (pictured here with Virginia Thoren) follows her own path, which has helped her grow Tucker to where it is today.
What is one piece of advice that you would give someone who is at the start of their career?
I am going to quote Carlo McCormick’s interview with artist, Terence Koh. “There is an old Chinese proverb that tells us: There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.”
Who is your most admired cultural heroine?
Women who are knowledge developers and pioneers, such as Dianah and Angela from World Bicycle Relief, Shakuntala Devi, and Virginia Thoren.
Shakuntala Devi wrote a number of books about mathematics, puzzles, and astrology. She wrote the book The World of Homosexuals, because her husband was homosexual. She treated homosexuality in an understanding light. Pioneering.
Virginia Thoren is a photographer and was my 97 year old neighbor, landlord and dear friend when I lived in the West Village. She photographed Yves Saint Laurent’s first collection for Dior. Her motto was “Just go with the flow.”
What moment, in your career or personal life, are you most proud of?
There is a lot to be proud of. I have three boys and I am very proud of their friendship with each other, their humor and originality. They make me proud, and in turn, I do my best to make them proud. My career is a continuum; it keeps on going, like the seasons.
Women’s roles in society have changed dramatically over the past several decades. How have these changes had a personal impact on you?
In Virginia Thoren’s archives at Pratt, there is a letter to her mother on Christmas Eve in 1924, saying: “Dearest Mother, I know that I am more often naughty than nice. I hope that you can forgive me and one day when I am grown and making my own living you will see just how responsible I can be.”
She divorced and supported herself and her son [by] shooting campaigns for Bergdorf Goodman, and spent her working life as a commercial photographer.
My mother, when offered the chance to choose her career in school, was [given] the choices of mother, secretary, teacher, or nurse. The boys were asked to select from the open-ended list of possibilities. And yet she went to the Art Institute and Art School in San Miguel de Allende. She had three children by age 25, and opened a movie theater in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. She made marionettes for Claude Lelouch in the 1970’s that are still in his office today.
Shakuntala Devi was born into a circus family and was called the human computer. She was a prodigy. Throughout history, women have done remarkable and courageous things. Beatrice Tucker, a midwife, delivered babies in the sixties in Chicago, for women, some, who never saw a doctor their entire pregnancy.
What future goals do you have for yourself?
To keep building Tucker. It is a beautiful thing that has touched many lives. Women wear it, women and men love in it, live in it. Men and women have made it, sewn it, marked it, graded it, filmed it and photographed it. I also want to keep making my boys proud of their mamma!
Editor’s Note: In celebration of Women’s History Month, we spoke to several women who have spearheaded their way into the Fashion Industry. Follow us through our series that highlights the accomplishments and words of wisdom that all of the women had to share.
