This picture is so very beautiful, it makes me catch my breath….the colours are like a dreamscape.
I love this shoot from Vogue, July 1972 by David Hamilton (not diddy DJ David Hamilton, I am assured) who seems to have specialised in these dreamy, misty, blurry photos which capture the spirit of a perfect, hazy English summer’s day…
I love pinafores and mock pinafores. Something harking back to my childhood, no doubt. I went through a very bizarre phase (I was rather prone to them, I must confess….) where I couldn’t bear to wear skirts or trousers. I was convinced they would fall down, they never felt secure or tight enough, even shoved up under my armpits. So I lived in dresses and, mainly for school, pinafores.
Empress of Eyeliner. Mistress of Mascara. Etc etc.
Generally utterly inspirational to a liquid-liner-crazy lady like myself.
A lady never wears fake jewels, coloured underwear, diamonds before breakfast
Amazing images, ludicrous etiquette I’m happy to be breaking on a regular basis, clothes I want desperately. Ahhhh……it has to be more from Vogue, June 1971.
It is in bad taste to dress extravagantly or showily with people who are all plainly dressed.
Blouse by YSL. From Vogue, June 1971. Photo by Peter Knapp
The most I will do in public, usually, is a bit of a powder buffing and perhaps lipstick. Anything else, I would feel far too self-conscious. I wouldn’t dream of leaving the house without the make-up I needed to be wearing, unless I knew I could nip into the ladies somewhere en route. And that brings me back to this woman. Because she kept glaring at me. As though I shouldn’t be looking at her piling the slap on. Seriously? If you’re going to apply your maquillage on a crowded train, then you can’t expect everyone to demurely look away to protect your modesty.
She managed it, though, and I came very close to giving her a round of applause. Except she was still glaring at me and she looked a bit like Catherine Tate, which scared me as well. Ah well. Well done, random train make-up lady. Hope you enjoyed your weekend in Dublin!
First of all, I would like to say ‘well done’ to Billie Piper for her gorgeous Ossie Clark on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. Not quite so well done on commenting on how musty and old it smells, but she looked so damn awesome I will forgive her. I will also forgive her for Doctor Who-related things. Perhaps….
I love how swamped she looks in it. It reminds me of when I’m wearing dresses like that and how I adore that feeling of being swamped in fabric, so many things are so very skimpily made nowadays that properly billowing sleeves are something of a novelty.
It got me thinking of alternative Ossies. Because she’s really only wearing a ‘Model T Ford’ one. Plain black, buttoned front, billowing sleeves, puppy-ear collar. It’s a divine frock, but it was vanilla essence in fabric form really. I love getting one in to sell, I even love them when they’ve been shortened because they’re so plain I really can’t criticise someone for wanting to make it ‘their own’. They are the perfect vintage wardrobe basic.
But sometimes I come across Ossies in old magazines which you would just never have credited to him in a million years. Not because of any design deficiency, quite the opposite. They’re just not the convention. No Celia print in sight. No billowing sleeves or puppy ear collar.
I’m not even talking about the early pieces. The panelled mod gear, or even the frilly satin minis. I’m seeing it throughout the Seventies, when anyone might think he was surgically attached to rolls of moss crepe and silk chiffon.
He was a master tailor, and very innovative. As were so many designers. But when you become known for ‘a look’, it’s rather difficult to move away from that – or at least, harder to sell. So here are a handful I can place right now, but I will certainly post some more if I ever find them. I’ve not even seen anything remotely like these turn up in reality. If they did, would anyone believe they were Ossies?
No, it’s not a new Spice Girls line-up. David Bailey and Vogue posed this quartet of female styles back in 1974 and I think it’s a wonderful photoshoot, if a little bit silly in premise terms. Bailey can be a very hit-and-miss photographer, for me at any rate, so I thought it would be nice to show you one of the better shoots I’ve found in my stash of magazines! And while it’s certainly all a bit of silly fluffy nonsense, we all need a bit of silly fluffy fantasy when the weather is a bit grim and the world is all stressing about money….
You only ever see her at night: she hardly exists before 10pm. Her small house is all black velvet and mirrorglass, with a private bar and a fishtank bath, a hothouse where she grows spotted green orchids. Stomo Yamashata plays at the touch of a button at home and in her Panther Ferrari. She wears all shades of black and the Diaghilev colours – fuschia pink and violet, emerald and kingfisher – and the night scent, Norell. She puts crimson carnations in a porphyry vase of black ink overday, wears them to bring her luck at the Clermont. On rainy nights friends come through the wet to watch old movies in her private cinema – Bogart, Cagney, and her new favourite, LinoVentura.
Showgirl
A natural actress, show-off and scene-stealer. She arrives hours late for almost everything and her entrances are timed to perfection. She spends money like there’s no tomorrow and she makes it too. A born gambler, she cashes in her diamond chips and plays the stock market with gilt-edged assurance. She’ll have nothing but the best, including men. Her music? Mahler and the sound of oil wells. Her habitat: Annabel’s, Ritz bar anywhere, Mark’s Club. Her holiday: Las Hadas, Mexico, El Cuarton, Spain, Bali, Brazil. Her luggage: Vuitton. Her clothes: as you see here. Her scent: the newest. She travels by Lear jet, Rolls Corniche convertible, horse and carriage. She reads the Financial Times and there’s nothing average about her Dow-Jones.
Romantic
Sportster
Buddy Holly, Bette Midler and David Bowie take turns on the tape. Her favourite clothes: shorts, Day-glo nylon scarves, metallised leather jackets, boots, things from Too Fast To Live Too Young to Die in the Kings Road, sports departments of Simpson and Lillywhites. Her scent, Helena Rubinstein’s Courant. Flies to the Black Raven at night, cruises around Europe on holiday, meeting up with a yacht in Italy.
Personally, I’m a romantic. I like the idea of being the vamp but it’s too much hard work. Showgirl requires money I simply cannot imagine ever having, and even if I did have it….aside from a Duran on one arm and a wardrobe full of Ossies and Vivienne Westwood frocks….I am not sure I wouldn’t feel awfully guilty every day for being such a glutton. Sportster? Couldn’t be further away from my personality, aside from the Bowie thing of course. Although I do like sports cars, I just can’t drive them!
…… What would you be?
I can’t find any information online about it, but a friend has told me that the wonderful Marit Allen has passed away. The name might be meaningless to most of you, but she was instrumental in the careers of people like John Bates and Ossie Clark.
She worked as the ‘Young Ideas’ editor at Vogue in the mid-Sixties and her youthful approach to the clothes, styling and photographs ensured that the designs popular out on the street became widely appreciated through exposure in Vogue. She championed the young Bates, thus enabling him to continue creating the designs he had been struggling to get noticed with. Young Ideas also featured Ossie Clark’s work in the same summer that he graduated from the RCA and started working for Quorum, so Marit was certainly a visionary and true talent-spotter!
She accumulated a vast archive of pieces from the British Boutique Movement, including her wedding suit which was a Bates design, and this collection filled many gaps in the V&A’s Sixties Exhibition last year. I was ridiculously proud that my handful of pieces were being exhibited alongside hers.
She later developed a career in costume design, being designer for films like Brokeback Mountain and Thunderbirds (amongst many others).
I also had the very, VERY great pleasure of meeting her in January at a study day linked with the Sixties exhibition at the V&A. In retrospect, she was possibly the person I was the most excited about hearing speak and then meeting. And bearing in mind that Barbara Hulanicki and Foale & Tuffin were also in attendance, well that’s saying something about my respect for Marit.
It was so lovely to hear her talk about her experiences and views on the era, with photographs and thoughts on the designers. I had begun to think that the day would pass by with no mention of John Bates’ contribution to British fashion but, as in the Boutique book by Marnie Fogg, Marit sought to emphasize his talent and defend his forgotten claim to have been the first designer to really ‘do’ the mini skirt. And with Mary Quant herself in attendance, it was a brave move. The talk was only too brief, most frustrating that it was curtailed to keep the timing of the day and give Mary Quant more time to witter on about her make-up range and how she ‘invented’ the duvet cover (I kid ye not). I wanted to listen to Marit forever, and to see all her photos and hear all her experiences.
Thankfully I summoned up the courage to speak with her afterwards. I somehow found myself turning around to face her, and realised this was my big chance. We chatted a little about Bates, I told her about my collection and how grateful I was that she had mentioned him (we agreed he was a very underrated talent) and about how unlikely it was that such a boom time in British fashion would ever happen again. Mainly due to the cost of clothing production and shop rental in London.
Now, even more than before, I’m so glad I had those brief few moments speaking with her. I am so in awe of her talent and vision and, in a week where we’ve also lost the wondrous TV producer Verity Lambert, the world is a much gloomier place without these pioneering women.
Above and Right: Two photos from Marit’s Young Ideas section of Vogue. John Bates designs from 1965 above and Twiggy in Foale and Tuffin from 1967 on the right.
A little visual fondant fancy to take away the bad taste left by news of the tacky Ossie Clark label relaunch, here are some originals and proof that the magic will never be recreated (not least because Celia’s prints are contracted to Topshop these days). Save your hard earned money and buy an original, who knows which fabulous Sixties beauty might have once worn it?
I was a misunderstood teenager. When I was fourteen my long dark hair, pale skin and propensity to don long jingly jangly skirts, boots and big jumpers was perceived as gothic. I actually resented being called a Goth, I knew I was really a hippy. I’ve been through plenty of styles since then but it usually comes back to the same thing, no matter how much the likes of Sienna Miller may kill the look through over-exposure.
I still burn incense, I still have long wavy (normally fairly unstyled) hair and I still favour chiffons and appliques and beads…oh my. But now I’m a grown up (!) I prefer the luxurious look, I take inspiration from the designs of Thea Porter, Janice Wainwright (in the Poland Street era) and of course from Ossie Clark.
I have worn my flares with pride throughout this whole skinny jean phenomenon (although I’m not averse to them either, I only wear them Jo Grant style – tucked into my Seventies boots) and my burgundy velour Louis Caring frock coat with the too-short sleeves has suddenly started to garner compliments from strangers. Despite the fact I’ve been wearing it to death these past four years.
Flicking through my Vogues once more for inspiration, both for my listings, my personal style and in an attempt to update this blog more regularly, I was entranced by two fashion spreads in a July 1969 Vogue. The first I will post now, the second I will post tomorrow I hope (too much eye candy rots your teeth!).
Photographed in Wales by Norman Parkinson, clothes by Gina Fratini, Thea Porter and Susan Small (who’da thunk it??) in the most astonishing surroundings. This is luxe hippy at its finest, like a dressing up box of styles, fabrics and moods…..
Liz Eggleston 