Barbie’s colourful cinematic world and powerfully pink wardrobe rekindle memories of my playdates with the original 1968 talking version of the doll.
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19th Century Mourning dress: clothing customs to commemorate the dead
Formal rituals of bereavement became a yardstick of behaviour. The study of mourning dress provides an insight into the social position of women, in particular. Women bore the heaviest burden of the mourning ritual, becoming social outcasts for their first year of widowhood.
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Craft, Colour and Phenomenal Style: Zandra Rhodes Retrospective at Fashion and Textile Museum
By way of dreamlike inspiration, intoxicating colour combinations and towering displays of spectacular gowns appear on this journey through the realms of a legendary creative force.
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Playing Grown-Ups: Mary Quant Comes of Age
The collision of girly innocence with the overt sexuality of a newly liberated age that radiated through Quant’s products and their promotion was simultaneously borne out in my generation’s experience of growing up.
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Marvel, Magic and Mastery: Christian Dior at the V&A
There is a sense of timeless elegance - even Galliano’s boldly coloured kneepads and Chiuri’s sci-fi-style ‘mystic masks’ sit happily alongside Bohan’s delicate costume jewellery and the more classic millinery of early collections.
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Phantom Thread unpicked
In this era of slow fashion, couture clothing was quotidian for the upper and upper middle classes. The world at large does not intrude upon this perfectly ordered microcosm of fashion, style and predetermined taste.
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