seventies fashion

Duffy (finally)

1960s, amanda lear, book reviews, brian duffy, jean shrimpton, michael sarne, mild sauce, pierre la roche, seventies fashion, the sweet

Queen magazine, 1963

Although you’ll all have long since forgotten that I promised to review the fantastic Duffy book (published by ACC. RRP £45 but currently £31.98 on Amazon.co.uk), I certainly haven’t and it’s been rather weighing on my mind. In fact, I’m troubled by the fact that I rarely seem to have the energy to type long, rambling blog posts at all these days.

So, as I often do, I will largely leave the photographs to do the communicating. Which is rather the point of the book itself. It is not a weighty tome about the life of the man, rather it is a weighty tome about the talent of the man. The talent which made him world-famous, but eventually left him feeling so trapped he had to [pretty much literally] destroy it in order to escape it. Page after page of gorgeous women, swinging dudes of the highest and lowest order and generally Interesting People. But it also covers the later period, the advertising and the selling-out, or ‘prostitution’ as he honestly described it.

I have to admit, I’m always on the look out for new Duffy shoots in my magazines because I’m almost rather bored of seeing the same ones shown again and again. And to be fair, of course, in Duffy’s case there is the genuine problem with the complete lack of original source material. His son Chris has spent years reassembling the archive, and I have to respect the labour of love that this project has become. Thankfully, the book is more varied than the exhibition I attended earlier this year would lead you to believe. I have scanned a few of my personal favourites, which I hope will communicate the beauty of his work.

A pet hate must be noted at this point, which is that these books rarely identify the designer of the clothes worn in the pictures. I know it doesn’t seem like much to a non-clothes obsessive, but I want to know if that dress really was by so-and-so and I find it infuriating for such information to be left out when surely it must be known?

Obviously, luxuriously printed and sized books such as this require the highest calibre of image quality for reproduction purposes, but it would be nice, in a few years time, to see a book which features more obscurities, more magazine tear-sheets and clippings; covering the lesser-known styles and techniques he used. For there are many. I mean, David Bailey has had enough books about him to last a lifetime; Brian Duffy certainly deserves another one.

Definitely one for the Christmas list. And watch out, because I’m going to be reviewing more books to put on your Christmas list over the next few weeks. Yes indeed.

Amanda Lear, 1971

Sweet, 1970

Unidentified, 1960s

Jean Shrimpton, Vogue 1962

Average White Band album cover, 1979

Michael Sarne, 1962

Pirelli, 1965

Pierre La Roche, Aladdin Sane make-up artist, 1973

Alphasud Car, Henley on Thames, 1974

Mike Henry and Nancy Kovack, 1964

Mensday: Shagpad

haute naffness, interior design, Mensday, seventies fashion, Vintage Adverts

Mmmm. Sensuous carpet. I suspect it was this immensely sensuous carpet which lured the silver platform-wearing lady in the last Bremworth advert I scanned in…

Barbara Hulanicki: Art Deco W14

art deco, art nouveau, barbara hulanicki, biba, interior design, James Mortimer, seventies fashion, Vogue
A section of the studio. Beneath the gallery one discovers a sink, kettle. cooker below a thirties’ Grecian frieze. Art Deco chairs in peach moquette. Screen, with beaded shawl. purple plastic  grapes behind a delicate nasturtium-leaf lamp hung with beaded fringe
Barbara Hulanicki at home in one cavernous studio which she found three years ago and filled with Art Deco from floor to ceiling. Walls, ceiling, stairs, all painted a rich matt brown, merge into the shadowy interior; angles and lines are softened and blurred. Colours, not walls, mark out living areas, a different shade for each section of space. Light is filtered through the brown-tinted glass of the high, patterned perpendicular window and a long fanlight in the roof. A brown spiral staircase, leafy with plastic twisting plants, leads to a long gallery which forms the dressing-rooms. Everywhere, an endlessly intricate arrangement of colour, pattern, space; a deep, dark brown jungle of the ornamental, the exotic, the glittering.

Photos by James Mortimer. Vogue, October 1975.
The dressing-room. Shades of peach and deepest brown, Creamy lighting from bulbs set behind opaque glass. Peach mirrors hung with beads, the dressing table, a darker shade of smoked peach, made up of tiny individual drawers. Stool topped with smoked peach glass.
The bath, a riot of peach and plastic flowers. Ornate brass taps, Art Deco screen. Brilliant blue glass, candlesticks and pearly plastic grapes.
Barbara Hulanicki in the sitting-room, the window open to reveal a jungle of climbing plants outside. In the background, a collection of Art Deco glass below the enormous mirror, at least six feet in diameter. Everywhere lamps, small, fringed or mushroom-topped on long, slender stems: everywhere figures, ferns, flowers. In foreground, a set of black/silver/turquoise vases and modelled head on decorated brass tray and glass-sided table: replica of a twenties’ cigarette girl, now bearing a tray of jewellery.
Looking down from the gallery into the studio, arranged into its separate “rooms”
The bed, above, hung with shawls, scattered with sequinned brocaded cushions. Barbara Hulanicki reflected in the bedside mirror on the writing desk and in the centre of the mirrored bed-head. On the right, a peach mirror flex set of shelves, with photographs, figures, eight Art Deco plastic handbags.

Inspirational Images: Pre-Raphaelite hair

barbara daly, barry lategan, hair, leonard, Make-up, seventies fashion, Vogue
 
Photographed by Barry Lategan. Hair by John at Leonard. Make-up by Barbara Daly.
Vogue, February 1975

Inspirational Images: Making up to Autumn

19 magazine, Harri Peccinotti, Inspirational Images, Make-up, seventies fashion

Illustrating an article titled 'We're Making up to Autumn'.

From 19 Magazine, September 1974. Photo by Peccinotti

Mild Sauce: Bowling Ball Bum

haute naffness, interesting record sleeves, mild sauce, seventies fashion

I actually couldn’t resist the brilliant awfulness of this cover. I’m not convinced it’s going to become a staple part of my vinyl collection, so if anyone would like it to adorn their retro pad, then let me know and I’ll probably just send it to you!

p.s Ohhh I bet it was ‘Daddy’s’ property alright…

Shrimpton Supernova

celia birtwell, Foale and Tuffin, jean muir, jean shrimpton, nova magazine, ossie clark, seventies fashion, thea porter

Dress by Thea Porter

Absolutely breathtaking spread from Nova, December 1970, featuring Jean Shrimpton in some mouth-watering pieces by Ossie Clark, Jean Muir, Foale and Tuffin and Thea Porter.

Photos by Hans Feurer.

Dress by Ossie Clark with print by Celia Birtwell

Blouse by Laura Jamieson at The Sweetshop

Blouse by Jean Muir, gaucho pants by Foale and Tuffin.

Pop Pop Pop

1960s, fulham road clothes shop, jean varon, john bates, lloyd johnson, mr freedom, pop art, seventies fashion, sylvia ayton, zandra rhodes

John Bates for Jean Varon crepe panelled dress

I have finally found a moment to blog about the Pop Art exhibition at The Lightbox in Woking, which is only open for a short while longer. The Lightbox is a tremendous space; airy and light, quiet and tranquil, and it has been transformed (briefly) into a repository of incredible Pop Art paintings, sculptures and….things. The ‘things’ are what I’m most interested in; as the exhibition draws you into the central space in the gallery, you are shown the influence of Pop Art on everything from clothes, to homewares, right down to the groceries you could buy from Sainsbury’s in the Sixties.

The fabulous Katherine Higgins has co-curated Pop Art, and very kindly got in touch with me about loaning some pieces. Well now, I can’t resist an exhibition and I can’t resist a good rummage in my personal collection and so I delivered four pieces (and a bonus extra which I just happened to have on me at the time). The fourth and final has only just been put on display this very day, and so I do hope you are able to go along to The Lightbox and have a look. It really is an incredible collection of works by some undeniably iconic British Pop artists; including Pauline Boty, Allen Jones, Peter Blake and, now rather poignantly, Richard Hamilton.

Mr Freedom halter neck skater outfit with hidden surprise...

Saucy! (I'm allowed to do this because it's mine, but you might get told off!)

Fulham Road Clothes Shop trousers with Zandra Rhodes lipstick print (please note the perfect pattern placement on the crotch)

Foale and Tuffin 'Chrysler' mini dress c.1966

Last minute addition: Original plastic lip sunglasses

There are some covetable clothes (as well as mine, of course), including the legendary Mr Freedom baseball suit, several Ritva sweaters, a superb Lloyd Johnson jacket and the most adorable novelty print Mr Freedom dungarees loaned by Jan De Villeneuve. Who, I’m afraid, has now been scuppered in her alphabetical superiority because of my earlier omission. Sorry Jan!

 

Pauline Boty

Richard Hamilton: 'Swingeing London'

Sweaters by Ritva

Jacket by Lloyd Johnson

Allen Jones

Grocery packaging

I come to lay flower dresses on the grave of Biba

biba, british boutique movement, kensington high street, london, seventies fashion

The wondrous Affendaddy, over at Flickr, has uploaded lots and lots of amazing street photos from his visit to London in 1976. Inadvertently, he has also captured the immediate aftermath of the death of Big Biba on Kensington High Street. These photos make me want to weep a little…

Gotta Lotta Totty

legs and co, seventies fashion, Vintage Adverts

As a great lover of milk, peanut butter, cream and raisins (and as a complete sucker for being sold something through the medium of vintage glamour and sex) I feel I must try this drink soon. I wonder if I can insert some rum somewhere along the way as well?

Advert from 1979.

It’s one of those slightly lost concepts, which must seem bizarre to modern eyes. The government protecting and promoting a basic product like milk or eggs, without it being for a particular brand? Madness! My godfather even worked for the Milk Marketing Board, which is now sadly defunct (although The Dairy Council still exists). I still covet a replacement set of ‘Gotta Lotta Bottle’ glasses, which were a staple part of my childhood. Needless to say, all the heavy advertising must have worked well on my impressionable young mind, because I still drink far too much of the stuff.

Hunting around for an example advert, I discovered that the gorgeous Legs and Co were in one and, of course, I simply have to post it here.