Luxury clothier Wilkes Bashford dies after battle with cancer

Designer Ralph Lauren gets a kiss from Career Achievement Award presenter Wilkes Bashford during Cutty Sark Fashion Awards ceremonies in Philadelphia, June 21, 1983. Lauren received the award for "continuing leadership and outstanding contributions to men’s fashions." Bashford was last year's recipient of a Cutty Sark award for creative retailing. The winners are selected by a panel of U.S. fashion writers. (AP Photo/George Widman) less Designer Ralph Lauren gets a kiss from Career Achievement Award presenter Wilkes Bashford during Cutty Sark Fashion Awards ceremonies in Philadelphia, June 21, 1983. Lauren received the award for "continuing ... more Photo: George Widman / AP Photo: George Widman / AP Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Luxury clothier Wilkes Bashford dies after battle with cancer 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

Clothier Wilkes Bashford, who helped to change the world of high fashion in San Francisco when he opened his eponymous luxury store in 1966, died on Saturday after a brief battle with prostate cancer. He was 82.

Late Saturday, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown confirmed the death of his longtime friend and favorite store owner.

Mr. Bashford’s store, where the city’s society set shops for clothes for work, weekends and opening-night galas, was one of the few of its kind in the nation when it opened and remains so today. Originally a men’s store, Wilkes Bashford opened under the Sutter-Stockton garage and was the first in San Francisco to promote an aesthetic he called “bold conservative,” carrying Brioni, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Versace and other designer brands, a contrast to the counterculture, hippie clothing of the day. He added womenswear in 1978 and later moved nearby to 375 Sutter St.

Brown, a Chronicle columnist and a famously natty dresser, told The Chronicle in October: “This town was devoid of any attention to quality of fabric or style until Wilkes came along. The first time I walked into the store, I was frankly blown away.”

But more than solely dressing people up, Mr. Bashford wrapped himself in the social fabric of the city.

He staged glitzy fashion shows in the 1970s and ’80s, and also engaged in philanthropic work for Partners Ending Domestic Abuse and PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support), among other causes. He was an ardent fan of dachshunds, which he kept as pets. His latest, Duchie, was a constant companion at work, sitting in his office every day.

“He was part of the heart of the city,” said Brown, reached by phone in Los Angeles on Saturday. “Every day there was something Wilkes would talk about or insist that we do for the city.”

Mr. Bashford was a presence at fundraising functions all over the city, as well as an almost daily presence for lunch at Le Central restaurant, where he ate and gossiped with friends and customers at a table near the window. Every Friday for decades, his lunch crew in the front window included the late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, man- about-town Harry de Wildt and Brown. The group also at times included the late Matthew Kelly and architect Sandy Walker.

After the downturn in the economy in 2008, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2009. His company was acquired by the Mitchells/Richards/Marshs group, a family-owned luxury clothier in Westport, Conn., which invested millions in a remodel of the seven-story store. This allowed Mr. Bashford to continue working, and until recently, he was still there six days a week, waiting on customers.

“How you look and how you feel when you go to present yourself affects your energy, your psyche, your outlook, your happiness, every day of your life,” he told The Chronicle in October. “Once people realize how their image is changed and how people react to them, it brings them a happiness. It’s a positive thing.”

Mr. Bashford was a native of Manhattan, and after studying in Cincinnati, moved to San Francisco, he said, to “be near the ocean.”

He was engaged once, but never married. His philanthropic work allowed him to create a family of sorts that tied him to the community. In recent years, he devoted efforts to the War Memorial Complex in San Francisco to create a veterans monument, a 30-foot-long granite octagon between the War Memorial Opera House and Veterans Building. He co-chaired the monument committee with J. Michael Myatt, a retired Marine Corps major general.

The monument, built with $2.5 million in privately raised funds, is known as “Passage of Remembrance,” and the driveway that circles Memorial Court was named the Charlotte and George Shultz Horseshoe Drive.

At the time of his death, Mr. Bashford was listed as the president of the War Memorial & Performing Arts Center Board of Trustees. Of all his philanthropic work, “I think he was most proud,” Brown said, “of his presidency of the board, which had the stalwarts of the cultural philanthropy of the city. I appointed Wilkes to that body and he became the president of that body and in the process, did incredible things.”

But his store was his life, and he treated his products with the same care — requiring that sweaters be pristinely folded and suits and dresses be displayed on hangers to their best advantage. In social situations, he sported a smile, kept any negative thoughts to himself, and was old school when it came to manners, opening doors for others and always picking up the check at lunch.

Boaz Mazor, a longtime Oscar de la Renta executive who worked closely with Mr. Bashford on local fashion shows over the years, said the city has suffered a significant loss.

“He was a real gentleman — an icon of elegance, and his name and his store gave San Francisco the authority of style,” Mazor said. “He was an impeccable person and an impeccable professional. I was honored to work with him and be his friend. He is irreplaceable.”

Carolyne Zinko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: czinko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynezinko