Charles Nolan | Fashion designer, 53

Charles Nolan, 53, a fashion designer who wore his politics on his sleeve, died Sunday at his home on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The cause was cancer of the head and neck, said Andrew Tobias, the financial writer, who was Mr. Nolan's partner of 16 years.

Early in his career, Mr. Nolan was a major force behind the expansion of mainstream American sportswear labels such as Bill Blass, Ellen Tracy, and Anne Klein. But he was perhaps better known publicly for work he did dressing prominent women on the political scene.

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, for example, Tipper Gore was wearing a periwinkle Charles Nolan coat-and-dress ensemble when she was kissed so passionately by her husband, Vice President Al Gore, that the resulting image was widely described as humanizing Gore's robotic reputation during his run for president.

After establishing his own label in 2004, Mr. Nolan recruited a number of his famous friends and clients to appear as models at his runway shows. Peggy Kerry, a sister of Sen. John Kerry, walked in a show in 2007, and Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, appeared on his runway in 2006.

But his most surprising political statement, at least in the eyes of his colleagues on Seventh Avenue, came in 2003, when he abruptly quit as the head designer of Anne Klein, where he had led a successful turnaround of the brand's image, to volunteer for the presidential campaign of Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

Mr. Nolan said he was disillusioned by the hesitancy of major designers to get involved in politics.

After Dean's campaign fizzled, he returned to fashion with his own collection.

- N.Y. Times News Service