The POP! DESIGN CULTURE FASHION exhibition at The Fashion and Textile Museum finishes later this month. I took these photographs when I visited a while back and kept meaning to post them.
Dating from 1968, these paper dresses were designed by the American Graphic Designer Harry Gordon and sold at the time for about three dollars each.
The first is 'Hand', the second 'Mystic Eye' - a close up of Audrey Hepburn's eye, and the third 'Rose'.
Harry Gordon's idea was to produce a new dress with an image of a different pop star each week.
He was scuppered from the beginning. Apparently, Bob Dylan, his choice for the first dress, objected so strongly he had to withdraw the offending articles from sale.
There are a couple of dresses still in their original packaging for sale on etsy now - for just a bit more than three dollars.
I have a few bits of Biba, mostly ephemera, and a rather nice early waistcoat that's tucked away somewhere in one of my many bags of things to sort.
I know what Barbara Hulanicki did in the beginning and I know what she's doing now, but not that much about about what she did in between, after the demise of Biba. The designing in South America and Europe.
I'd like to find out more about this very sparkly number that I found long ago in a charity shop. The lurex thread running through it reveals a lovely floral design as you move. It's really very pretty.
Hopefully I'll discover more about it all when I get down to Brighton for the
Biba and Beyond exhibition that opened today ... and runs until 14 April 2013.
So... my sorting, recording, blogging and selling idea has not gone quite to plan. I'll get there. I just didn't realise there would be so much ironing involved.
I have lots of posts on draft, one I'm particularly excited about, but in the meantime here's a photograph taken at the Christian Dior Museum in Granville, Normandy, which I visited last month.
The 'Stars in Dior' temporary exhibition finishes on the 23rd September.
Here's a detail from another scarf. A 1970's silk square designed by the painter Balz Baechi. Born in Switzerland in 1937 he originally trained as a graphic designer and worked as a designer and illustrator in Europe and New York.
Since 2000 he and his wife Isabel have been involved in a foundation they set up to protect and restore ancient wallpaintings around the world.
A scarf is a wonderful thing. But i probably have too many.
They are just so easy to collect, and cost next to nothing. I've been making piles to go and piles to stay, and these few are definitely keepers.
They are all silk squares, with the exception of the third and fourth ones down which are rayon, and all unsigned except for the last which is by Jacques Fath.
It became apparent by the size of the piles that the painterly scarves were much preferred over the more graphic designs.
The Jacques Fath is very special but if I had to choose another favourite favourite, it would have to be either the Kitchen Sink School jug and cups, or the bottles.
Plenty more to come...
ahh, the memories... it's 1971 and i'm ten years old. My mum and dad have dropped me off at Tiffany's nightclub for the Saturday morning pre-teen disco and i'm wearing these, my favourite hot pants. The Delfonics 'Didn't I ( Blow Your Mind This Time )is playing and I'm standing under the ultra violet light in my luminous outfit desperately hoping someone, anyone, will ask me to dance.
Anyway... I've just read the most brilliant article 'Hot Pants: A Short, Happy and Musical Career' which includes a playlist, and a pretty great one at that. So of course I remembered and was prompted to dig these out of a suitcase. They are Made in England by Ian Peters and almost entirely synthetic.
I can still get them on ( with someone on standby in case I need resuscitating ).
I was completely mesmerised by this photograph displayed in a little local history museum I visited recently in the village of Steni in Cyprus.
One of a series taken by the photographer John Thomson in 1878 and originally published in a book called 'Through Cyprus with the Camera'.
Sadly, there appears to be very few examples of these lovely hand woven garments left in Cyprus now.
There is a bit of a resurgence of weaving in some villages but very much geared towards producing goods for tourists. Nothing anywhere near as beautiful as this.
