The 2025 Hazel Rowley Prize, honoring the best book proposal by a first-time biographer, has been awarded to Liz Schott, who is working on a biography of Dorothy Wright Liebes. Liebes was renowned for textile design, color artistry, and experimentation with innovative fibers from the mid-1930s until her death in 1972. She dominated women’s magazines, was featured in newsreels, television, and radio programs, and created the “Liebes Look,” a modern aesthetic we still embrace without even knowing her name.

Liebes was a woman ahead of her time, but also very much of her time. She separated from her first husband to establish her business, but remained married to and supported by him for over a decade. She consulted with Dupont in the 1960s and pioneered fabrics for space exploration, yet she identified herself as a “housewife” on travel manifests rather than as the powerful businesswoman she was. In Useful and Beautiful: The Life of Dorothy Wright Liebes, Schott will tackle these contradictions to unveil a life story that has gone untold for too long.

Nigel Hamilton and Paula Tarnapol Whitacre served on the committee.