“Is it so shameless”, she murmered, “to be so sure of something so expensive?”
Detail from Audemar Piguet watch advert.
Photographed by Rolph Gobits (originally from the same shoot as one featured in the Big Biba newspaper in 1973. Thanks to Sweet Jane for confirming this).
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Harpers and Queen, December 1978
Chelsea Girl
Tsk tsk. Slap my wrist. I’m pretty slack about putting website listings here on the blog, and I can only apologise. Here are some edited highlights (but there are plenty more already listed and more to come before Christmas!). Personal favourites are the original 1970s Chelsea Girl platform shoes, the black lace 1930s evening dress and Erte-printed John Bates for Jean Varon dress…
Unsigned original 1930s
John Bates for Jean Varon
Roland Klein for Marcel Fenez
Forbidden Fruit
Unsigned original 1960s
Terry de Havilland
Young Innocent
Lee Bender for Bus Stop
Wallis Fashion Shops
Miss Impact
Louis Caring
Unsigned original 1970s
Photographed at Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk
Oh I do love this series of Sanderson adverts, including Diana Rigg and Britt Ekland, and this four poster bed with its most extraordinary Biba-esque Art Deco inspired fabric is just a dream. I am not ashamed to say, I love spending time in bed; lolling around and generally keeping the real world well and truly out. And this would be the most perfect haven of a boudoir…
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from The Daily Telegraph Magazine, 4th May 1973
Illustration by Clarissa Porter
Scanned by Miss Peelpants from Honey, December 1970
Victor Lownes
Come now Cosmo, why so coy? Surely we all know they’re actually known as ‘Shag Pads’? I love all of them, but I’m particularly fond of Mr Lownes’s Casa Pupo bedspread, walnut headboard, push-button ‘gadgets’ and array of, ahem, ‘etchings’… Now we can see exactly how he managed to snare Roxy cover girl Marilyn Cole.
Scanned from Cosmopolitan, January 1973.
Duggie Fields
Illustrator uncredited. Scanned by Miss Peelpants from LIFE magazine, May 1968
Scanned from The Sunday Times Magazine, February 21st 1971
It never ceases to amaze me just how widespread the influence of psychedelia was in the advertising world. Who would have thought that it would be used to sell tyres?
Mr Freedom interior. Photograph: JON WEALLEANS
The lovely Paul Gorman very kindly sent me some sneaky peeky previews of his much-awaited new book about Tommy Roberts (Kleptomania, Mr Freedom, City Lights etc). From what I’ve seen and read so far, this is going to be quite a ‘must have’ book for anyone interested in Sixties and Seventies fashion – and specifically, the British Boutique scene in London at the time.
Cheeky and freaky, Mr Freedom clothes are amongst my very favourites of their kind. The bright, brash shapes, colours and logos have long since moved beyond pop-art irony and into the realms of the iconic themselves. This is the first, and I’m sure will remain the only, definitive look at the life of Roberts and his various other boutiques and projects … and I actually cannot wait to have a hard copy in my hands! I will give it a full review eventually, but until then…
Rock on Tommy, rock on…
You can pre-order Mr Freedom direct from Adelita for a mere £20.
Mr Freedom hotpants, 1970. Photo: Stephen Markeson (The Sun/NI Syndication)
Derek Morton suit for City Lights, 1973. Photographed by David Parkinson
Scanned from Woman’s Own, October 22nd 1966
Ok, cats, I’m going to willingly lose cool points and confess that I had to look up what the hell ‘Ginchiest‘ means. (There’s even a song.) I can’t always immediately ‘get’ this kind of groovy talk. It was hard enough watching Beat Girl, daddy-o…
Photograph by Robert Cohen for AGIP
Another brilliant photograph from my strange, small archive of press photos. The description is in French, but I believe that artist Bernard Turin was so inspired by the winner of a beauty contest (Mademoiselle Prêt à Porter), Sin Wood, that he decided to create an ‘audacious and ingenious’ dress for her to wear. With a transparent circle showing her navel, a long fringed skirt and a transparent back.
She is shown modelling it on L’esplanade du Trocadero à Paris, 9th October 1970.
Scanned by Miss Peelpants.
Liz Eggleston 