Ruth Rogers-Altmann (geb. Karplus)

Ruth Karplus was born in Vienna, the daughter of architect Arnold Karplus and Elsa, née Zemanek. She is the youngest of four children in the middle-class Jewish family. After elementary school, she attended the Albertgasse girls' secondary school in Vienna's 8th district and then the School of Arts and Crafts under Albert Paris Gütersloh and Eduard Wimmer-Wisgrill.

The whole family was enthusiastic about skiing. In 1929, Ruth Karplus officially became a member of the Alpen-Skiverein, in 1934 she became an apprentice. She also took dance lessons with Gertrud Bodenwieser, one of the best-known representatives of Austrian expressive dance. There is evidence of performances at the Urania ('Neuzeitliche Melodiker Oesterreichs', March 1930) and at the artists' examination at the Straußtheater (May 1930).

In 1935, Ruth Karplus worked on the decorations for the 'Gschnasredoute' at the Künstlerhaus. She also gave drawing lessons to the daughter of textile industrialist Max Delfiner. Impressed by her talent, he employs Ruth Karplus as a decorator and designer in the Herzmansky department store that he runs.

On March 12, 1938, Ruth Karplus witnesses the downfall of a free and independent Austria when the German Wehrmacht invades. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Ruth Karplus was considered a 'full Jew'. At the time of the occupation, she was in Prague attending her grandmother's birthday party. She decided not to return to the now occupied Austria, but emigrated to the United States of America, where she arrived in New York in May 1938.

There she initially began working as a stylist and designer. In September 1938, she married Martin Rogers, with whom she subsequently had three daughters. In 1944, Ruth Rogers was employed at Bloomingdale's Department Store and in 1945 witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic. In 1951, she founded her own consulting firm for clothing manufacturers, the "Ruth Rogers Enterprise".

After divorcing Martin Rogers, she married Hans Carl Altmann, son of the Viennese textile industrialist Bernhard Altmann, who had also emigrated, in 1964 and took the name Rogers-Altmann. She is a well-known and successful designer, responsible for many innovations in the sportswear sector and for a long time a special consultant for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She also teaches at the prestigious American design schools Parsons School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology.