[2] During World War II Atkinson made a skirt for his first wife out of bandanas as a way of getting around government rationing, which led to requests for similar garments and in 1950, he started a firm called Glen of Michigan in collaboration with a contractor.
[1][3] He designed sportswear (an American term for separates and relaxed dressing, rather than activewear for sports) collections for the Milwaukee-based firm, as well as heading up its childrenswear and junior lines.
[4] He went on to collaborate with Sports Illustrated on a collection of golfing clothing for Spring 1958.
[5] He finally created a design consultancy in 1970 called Presentations,[1] and in 1974, in partnership with his second wife Jeanne Atkinson, a consultant in the fashion industry, created Bill Atkinson Inc.[2] The company specialized in sportswear which was offered at reasonable bridge price points (bridging the gap between expensive and budget lines), one of the first to do so before it became a common fashion manufacturing practice.
[2] In 1978, the Coty jury voted for him to receive that year's Coty Award for fashion design, and the following year, he won a Dallas Fashion Award.