Scarves for Georgians
Frankie Welch designed many scarves related to her home state of Georgia, and especially her hometown of Rome. Being southern was an important part of her persona, and reporters rarely failed to mention her southern accent. One reporter noted her “syrup and hot biscuits voice,” while another suggested that she “could be the original ‘Designing Woman,’” referring to the popular sitcom starring Delta Burke and Dixie Carter. Her authority as a southern voice in fashion was underscored by her role as fashion editor for Southern Living magazine in the early 1970s.
Welch debuted her See Georgia First scarf in 1969 in Rome, where she was honored by the Rome Area Chamber of Commerce with a Frankie Welch Day. It is a variation of her Discover America scarf and was made into skirts that were worn by hostesses in the state’s welcome centers.
The National City Bank of Rome commissioned this scarf, as well as another, to use as premiums to encourage increased savings deposits among its customers. They both show Rome’s historic Clock Tower and Capitoline Wolf sculpture, and the second adds the Chieftains Museum, and Home on the Hill. The bank’s president, Lloyd C. Summer Jr., called the first ones “collectors items,” and wrote to Welch about the second scarf, “we are very happy with a ‘premium’ that has so much nostalgic appeal.”
Frankie Welch designed scarves for many colleges and universities, but usually just one or two designs for each. She created at least five designs for the University of Georgia, plus another specifically for the College of Home Economics (now the College of Family and Consumer Sciences). In 1946 and 1947, while working in Rome as a high school home economics teacher, she took summer courses at UGA to meet her teacher certification requirements. The experience led to her lifelong love of the university.
Mrs. Clarke Duncan of Buena Vista, Georgia, worked with Welch to create this scarf. The garden design comes from the boxwood garden in the Founders’ Memorial Garden on UGA’s North Campus, behind the Garden Club of Georgia headquarters, and the architectural details are from a house on Prince Avenue in Athens where the first garden club originated in 1891.
In 1982 Welch designed a scarf for members of the university’s Presidents Club based on Greek revival architectural details from the ceiling of the UGA’s mid-nineteenth-century Presidents House. She sometimes joked that this was her most expensive scarf because it cost $10,000—the membership level for the Presidents Club at the time—to get one.
In 1982, the University of Georgia presented an exhibition of her work called Frankie Welch Designs. At this time she also donated a large collection of her scarves and papers to the university, the first of many such donations. She loved teaching, and, by placing her work in academic institutions, she hoped that students could learn from her designs.