In the 1960s, John Meyer of Norwich was the clothing designer in southeastern Connecticut and enjoyed an avid fan base around the country.

Meyer, who died in 1974, was a Norwich Free Academy graduate who developed a women’s clothing line that was the very definition of preppy and classic — blazers paired with A-line skirts, blouses bearing Peter Pan collars, shirtwaist dresses, and Fair Isle sweaters.

A wide selection of the Meyer garments that were created in the Rose City are showcased in “John Meyer of Norwich: An American Original,” which is on view through Jan. 15 at the Slater Museum in Norwich.

Slater Museum director and exhibit curator Vivan Zoe has heard plenty of fond recollections from museum-goers who loved the Meyer label back in the day. Visitors tend to reminisce about how they had this outfit or their mother owned that one. A woman who grew up in Ohio remembered saving her money to buy John Meyer of Norwich pieces.

The clothing featured at the Slater comes from a variety of sources, led by John Meyer’s daughter, Elise, and they reflect what the exhibit describes as the line’s “attention to quality and detail.”

Among the array of garments on view are, for instance, madras pieces; the use of “Real India Madras” became a company signature in the early 1960s. There are classic “Boy” jackets, which were a spin-off of Meyers’ short jacket with a Peter Pan collar; the Slater shows just how wide a range of colors and fabrics the “Boy” jackets were designed in. Accessories abound, too, with stylish handbags and hats.

As significant a fashion presence as the Meyer line was, though, it also reflected a great deal about what was going on in the world at the time.

The exhibition text notes that this story is “about the influence of substantive cultural change on post-World War II American industry. Through the lens of fashion we can map the rise of the suburbs, the increasingly influential role of women, the birth of aspirational marketing, the growth of a consumer economy, and the social convulsions of the late 1960s.”

One gallery wall boasts a timeline, explaining what was happening in America and in Norwich during a given year — and then what clothing Meyer was selling at the time. The idea, Zoe says, is to place things in the context of what everyday life was like in those times. For instance, 1969 is noted as being the year that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, while, in Norwich, Route 2 became a highway and water was first fluoridated. One of the John Meyer outfits for that year is a pantsuit made of a fuchsia paisley fabric, which looks as though Meyer was trying something other than its classic style by experimenting with the mod style that was in vogue that year.

It was earlier in the 1960s, though, that John Meyer of Norwich and its traditional designs were at their apex.

“As proper, demure and understated, John Meyer of Norwich clothing reflected the relative safety, conformity and social mobility that characterized life for some in the late ’50s and early ’60s,” the Slater wall text states. “A booming economy that provided jobs led families to the suburbs where they enjoyed leisure time and an outdoor, sporty lifestyle of golf, tennis, country clubs and vacation travel.”

In fact, John Meyer himself said, “This was the time when all college girls and young suburbanites found that our styles expressed their way of life and it was easy with our knowledge of country living to exploit our specific grade of quality of the ‘all-American Girl’ look.”

The exhibit delves into John Meyer’s life, too. He was a 1941 NFA graduate who served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in World War II. After the war, he studied the textile trade at the University of Connecticut, the Sorbonne and the Lowell Textile School.

He joined his father’s clothing manufacturing company, G&M, which father Isaac founded with tailor Philip Gottesfeld.

John moved the organization toward creating garments for an upscale, university customer — the so-called “Ivy League” style. The company flourished with this fresh direction. John became president after his father died in 1957.

In 1968, John Meyer became the first tenant of the 117-acre Yantic Industrial Park, which is now the Stanley Israelite Business Park. He built a $1 million, 144,000-square-foot factory, where the company — which had previously been housed in seven different buildings — could be consolidated into one.

When the company was in its heyday, it boasted about 300 employees (a video in the Slater exhibit, by documentary filmmaker and NFA alum Robert Kanter, features interviews with former employees). John Meyer of Norwich also worked with more than 40 outside manufacturers. The result? Upwards of 65,000 garments produced each week.

With this raging success, Meyer brought back the garment and textile manufacturing industry to Norwich, where it had been such a strong presence in the 1800s. After World War II, though, that type of manufacturing dropped precipitously in Norwich. The physical infrastructure and skilled labor, though, remained, and Meyer recognized that.

Zoe says, “Although John Meyer obviously was brilliant and talented, in my opinion, his greatest skill was having the vision to see that there was a tremendous amount of un- or under-utilized resources here in Norwich ... All of these things were literally in one place and ready to be deployed.”

The exhibit notes that “John Meyer’s passion for engineering led him to personally develop ground-breaking innovations like mechanized cutting and computer applications.”

Another “bold innovation,” according to the show, was an element that Meyer-clothing devotees remember well: factory sales featuring “not-quite-perfect” pieces and extra inventory.

Meyer had a vital partner in his wife, Arlene, who was the company’s secretary and chief designer. In a 1969 New York Times article, the Connecticut College grad was credited with recognizing that one of the biggest influences on women’s fashion was actually men’s wear. She and John brought to Isaac the notion of creating “walking shorts” for women, which became an extremely popular product.

Eventually, John Meyer of Norwich faced the difficulties that so many other American clothing manufacturers did when prices rose for things like cotton, wool and petrochemicals. Another issue was changing styles; young Americans in the late 1960s tended to be anti-establishment and didn’t want to wear the fashions their parents or an older demographic did. Jeans became the new trend.

In 1969, Meyer sold the business to W.R. Grace, a chemical manufacturing conglomerate. Meyer continued to run the company until his death of cancer in 1974 at age 50.

Even with the John Meyer of Norwich brand long gone, the clothing from those glory years remain — and remain in excellent condition. The pieces were, Zoe notes, simply beautifully constructed.

“That’s one of the reasons they’re still here — because they were so well made and the fabrics were such high quality,” she says.

IF YOU GO

What: Exhibit, “John Meyer of Norwich: An American Original”

Where: Slater Memorial Museum, 305 Broadway, Norwich

When: Through Jan. 15; 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, except 9 a.m.-noon this Wed., Nov. 25, closed Thurs. for Thanksgiving, and 1-4 p.m. Fri., Nov. 27

Admission: $3 adults, $2 seniors and students, free kids under age 12

Contact: (860) 887-2506; slatermuseum.org