GM Archive reveals 400 Winn Morton costume designs for industrial musicals

General Motors has unveiled a newly discovered collection of approximately 400 costume drawings by theatrical designer John 'Winn' Winniford Morton (1928-2022), created for the company's industrial musicals in the 1960s and 1970s. Morton, a Texas-born designer whose career spanned eight decades, worked on Broadway (Oklahoma!), circuses (Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey), television, and the 1964 New York World's Fair 'Ice-Travaganza' overseen by Dick Button. His GM designs depict idealized buyers for brands like Cadillac and Chevrolet, with costumes matching car paintwork. These high-production, Broadway-scale shows were performed for dealers and employees, not the public, and rarely filmed. Composers like Kander and Ebb, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, and Michael Reno contributed. GM archivist Natalie Morath notes the sketches are the only fashion items in the archive, housed in the original GM Design Center in Warren, Michigan. No scripts survive, leaving the narratives to imagination.