Fashion designer Geoffrey Beene was born in Haynesville Louisiana on August 30, 1924. He studied fashion in New York and Paris. In 1949 beginning a design career noteworthy for unconventional designs even before he started his own New York Company (1962). His high-quality, ready-to-wear clothing for women and men, subtly colored and distinctively simple, brought him eight Coty Awards. Won him eight Coty awards before his death in 2004.