Alma Shon, a mid-twentieth century American design professional of Korean descent, created bespoke gift wraps as Director of Design at Neiman Marcus, a Dallas, Texas luxury department store. Newspapers and memoirs celebrated her work, noted as “copied all over the nation” and “too pretty to open.” Yet, Shon remains unknown to contemporary design professionals. 

Archives that conserve Neiman Marcus packages either list the gift wrap designer as “unknown” or omit this credit altogether. By comparing the visual language of credited Shon designs to uncredited packages, I identified Neiman Marcus gift wraps created by Shon or under her direction.  Through the analysis of these packages, archived correspondences, and familial memory, this research weaves together a record of Shon’s design career and personal history and questions how value is assigned to the cultural productions of female designers. This research, which challenges design history’s existing conditions for inclusion, culminated in the first monograph discussing Shon’s life and work.