Named for the 70-carat Kimberly Diamond, the Kimberly knitwear company was "the Rolls Royce of the knitwear industry," according to Women's Wear Daily–a description the company's car-collecting founder must have appreciated. Jack Lazar (1911-1990) liked to say he learned about knits "from the broom on up." At 16, he dropped out of school to work in a knitting mill, eventually mastering every aspect of the trade. After serving in the Army during World War II, Lazar launched Kimberly in 1946. He married his wife, Helen, in 1947; she joined the firm a year later, bringing valuable design experience.

Kimberly
1969
Gift of Patricia G. Waldron, M.D.
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Knitwear had fallen on hard times. Because knits would stretch, sag, and shrink, many women refused to buy them. But Kimberly was not afraid to experiment with sturdy novelty yarns and synthetics, and the Lazars always emphasized fashion as well as quality, trekking to Paris for the couture shows to keep abreast of trends. They were early fans of Yves Saint Laurent, André Courrèges, and Emanuel Ungaro. Slowly, they led the knitwear industry away from the handknitted look and into flat, lightweight double knits. Easy to wear, wash, and pack, Kimberly knits appealed to everyone from secretaries to celebrities including the Duchess of Windsor, Barbara Walters, and Jackie Kennedy, who favored the company's Chanel-style unstructured knit suits. Barbra Streisand modeled colorblocked Kimberly dresses paired with white go-go boots for Vogue in August 1965.

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On February 27, 1967, Women's Wear Daily noted that "jazzier styling, brighter colors and new blends are making converts out of women who might not have bought knitted suits, dresses and ensembles as well as shells for spring in past years." Kimberly was at the forefront of this trend, offering short skirts and day-glo colors aimed at the growing youth market. In 1968, the company introduced pantsuits, previously unheard of in knitwear. This empire-waist minidress in a wool and metallic pomegranate pattern dubbed "Persian poetry" appeared in a Kimberly ad in Vogue on September 15, 1969. By the this time, Kimberly was one of the largest privately owned clothing manufacturing companies in the United States, with annual sales of $30 million. In 1972, Kimberly was acquired by the General Mills Corporation; Lazar retired in 1977, sending sales into a nosedive that culminated in the closure of the company in 1979.