found converts?

[pdh0224]

Dear teacher,

Mr. Beene was American fashion's most paradoxical designer: a technician who stood shoulder to shoulder with the great French couturiers; a modernist who consistently defied those technical conventions; a Southern gentleman who found converts among New York's high priestesses of art and society yet refused to kowtow to the industry's bible, Women's Wear Daily, with which he had a long feud.

Q : I think the meaning of the bold part is that he is popular with New York's high priestesses of art and society, isn't it?


All the best,

[EC]

Mr. Beene was American fashion's most paradoxical designer: a technician who stood shoulder to shoulder with the great French couturiers; a modernist who consistently defied those technical conventions; a Southern gentleman who found converts among New York's high priestesses of art and society yet refused to kowtow to the industry's bible, Women's Wear Daily, with which he had a long feud.

Q : I think the meaning of the bold part is that he is popular with New York's high priestesses of art and society, isn't it?

Yes, more or less. A convert is someone who has changed his/her adherence to some movement, usually religion. A convert to Christianity is someone who has become a Christian. NY's "high priestesses" of art and society were converted to Mr Beene's ideas.

--Josef