Photograph by Karl Ferris. Modelled by Charlotte Martin. Petticoat Magazine, March 1969.
Clothes by Sylvia Ayton and Zandra Rhodes at The Fulham Road Clothes Shop.
There’s a lot more to wearing a see-through dress than at first meets the eye. What a girl intends to show through the see-through for instance.
Ever since the see-through craze started in London, Carnaby Street artist Audrey Watson has been rushed off her feet – designing instant paint-on bras.
It’s a pretty ticklish business as 24-year-old Audrey paints her bras straight onto the customers skin. And, since she started débutantes and office girls have been flocking to the Lady Jane Boutique where she works, to bare their bosoms for a multicolour, exclusive, painted-on picture.
Audrey, who quotes her prices as: “10s. 6d. a half; from 3 to 10 guineas for a whole body,” will paint on anything from just patterns to faces, street signs or mock tattoos.
“I’ve even done a whole street scene right across, complete with red London buses,” she said.
Where do the girls wear them? “I often ask that,” says Audrey. “Most of them are going to parties although several people have been on their way to the airport. They said they were flying out that night to New York or elsewhere, and wanted to arrive in their paint-on.”
Any men? “Yes, lots,” says Audrey. “They come in for patterns to wear with see-through shirts.”
Audrey, who has tried painting with everything from greasepaint to ink, says it takes skill as most things crack on skin. She is now experimenting with Tempera, powder mixed with egg white like the Renaissance painters used, but she mainly works with Leichner and coloured inks gently powdered over. “It isn’t dangerous as not enough of the body is covered up, and it comes off with cold cream,” she says.
“It’s always a bit strange when I start on a new bust,” says Audrey, modest and quiet with long blonde hair, “but I like doing it for aesthetic reasons, though I know that basically it is just a fashion thing.”
Does Audrey herself wear a see-through?
“Certainly not,” she said. “Business apart – I’ll be pleased when the cover-up look comes back!”
Petticoat Magazine, November 1968.
The Lady Jane boutique maintained something of a reputation for shock value; see-through clothing, body paint and scantily clad models in the windows were staple gimmicks throughout the late Sixties and early Seventies. Some things never change, do they?
Grace Coddington and some girl called Twiggy
As a wise man said to me very recently, it should have been mandatory for publications to identify their models back in the Sixties and Seventies. Luckily, some of you are very good at this anyway. (I am not). Also luckily, such features as this exist. From Honey, July 1967, we have a handy feature on some up-and-coming models of the time.
Twiggy, obviously, needs no introduction. The glorious Grace Coddington, Paulene Stone, Shirley Anne Hayes and the ethereally lovely Charlotte Martin feature amongst some lesser-[to me]-known beauties. If any of them ever do an ego-search on Google and find this blog, please do email me and let me know what you’re up to now!
Paulene Stone and Maren Greve
Lorraine Hawkins and Janni Goss
Shirley Anne Hayes and Jenny Fussell
Charlotte Martin and Sue Lynn
Kellie and Melissa Congdon
In the late ’60s, the rock hall replaced the discotheque as as the prime area for innovative fashion display. “In fashion terms a Fillmore East opening night deserves as much coverage as the Philharmonic Galanosed Galas,” claimed the Village Voice shortly after the rock auditorium opened in March 1968. “It’s a scene-making pageant whether they’re seeing Lenny at Lincoln Center or Jimi at the Fillmore.” In 1968, Bill Graham…tied together the pageantry in the audience with the fireworks on stage when he organized a mini fashion happening during an interval in the evening’s mixed bill. Unheralded, Barbara Mott, wife of designer Michael Mott, zoomed up the center aisle of the rock palace on an enormous Harley Davidson. Dressed in Mott’s black leather bra top and miniskirt pegged with hobnail studs, she tore up a ramp to the stage and parked her vehicle to the accompaniment of a cannonade of cheers from the Fillmore’s audience.
Image and text from Radical Rags by Joel Lobenthal
Dubonnet 1968
More discoveries on my seemingly endless travels through old magazines… The fact that nobody bothers to create such works of art as these [for the mere purpose of advertising] anymore is everything that is wrong with the modern world. In my opinion. The Woolworths Babydoll make-up advert is a DOUBLE page spread. It’s so exciting to see and, if I could, I would most certainly go and buy up armfuls of it right now. And surely that’s the point of advertising?
Woolworths Babydoll make-up 1967
Wrangler 1970
1970
1970
1970
1969
1972
Safari jacket, 80 gn with jodphurs, 75 gn with skirt. Hat (without veil) 22 gn. Sam Browne belt, 20 gn.
It’s a funny old world. One of the main reasons the regular Biba relaunches have failed so dismally, each time since 1975, has been the price issue. Barbara Hulanicki, whether you agree with her or not, has always had a firm belief in affordable, fast fashion. £200 for a middling quality dress, as seen in the most recent attempts to reignite the brand, is simply not acceptable in an age of fast, cheap fashion and quirky high-end designers with real personality and bite. To whom are they appealing? I’m afraid I judge people who buy House of Fraser Biba. I just can’t help myself. So there can be little or no cachet to buying that gear, from either Biba geeks or fashion freaks. And the quality isn’t good enough to be seen alongside the likes of Jaegar and Hobbs for the ‘medium’ level appeal.
Trousers and cardigan, 60 gn. Blouse 25 gn. Hat, 25 gn.
Biba was cheap, cheerful, young and undeniably cool. Nothing has come close. Primark has the prices, Topshop supposedly has the cool and youth, but none of them have the quality or uniqueness of their oft-copied ancestor. Yes, I said quality. Biba might have had a reputation for badly-made clothes but it simply wasn’t true. It was an assumption, based on the price. And fair enough, it wasn’t couture-quality, but it was no worse than anything being produced by Saint Laurent for his Rive Gauche, Ossie Clark and other British Boutique designers of the era. Certainly a cut above anything being made by many big name designers, these days.
My vintage Bibas are beautifully well-made. They couldn’t have survived forty-odd years otherwise. A seam might have deteriorated here, a small moth-hole appeared there, and perhaps a zip has busted after a particularly raucous night out. But I’ve seen Paris couture from a mere ten years earlier in a far sorrier state than that.
Dress, 100gn. Hat, 10gn.
So if shop-floor Bibas are still doing the trick after four decades, can you imagine what a couture Biba must have been like? And if Barbara was baulking at a higher-than-usual price tag for a voluminous jersey dress (which I own) and feared it wouldn’t sell (it sold out), then what on earth was she thinking about offering a coat for 120 guineas?
Coat, 120 gn. Helmet (without veil), 14 gn.
I had heard vague things about Biba couture over the years, but I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever seen anything like this article before. I do so wish I could see some Biba couture pieces now. The original owners must have remembered they were such, so I would hope that the provenance would be forever attached to the piece as it passed from careful owner to careful owner.
Dress, 110 gn.
Dreamy. And certainly not hindered by some incredible photos by the legendary Helmut Newton and footwear by The Chelsea Cobbler.
Observer Magazine, 19th January 1969.
Shame on me, I clean forgot about Mensday. But I’m going to make amends (ahaha) for this today. Yes, yes, I know it’s Friday. But it’s also my boyfriend’s birthday and so Mensday is rescheduled in his honour.
I’m also geeking out because look up there ^ – it’s the Annacat blouse I’ve just listed for sale over at Vintage-a-Peel. I only just noticed!
1968
It’s been a while since the last one so…
1974
1974
1974
1972
1972
Liz Eggleston 