Notwithstanding the skilled brush strokes of a master artist, some of the techniques of John Singer Sargent’s trade are similar to those employed by contemporary fashion stylists and online content creators.
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You've Come a Long Way, Barbie: The everlasting power of pink
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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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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War Against Fear: FOMO, FOLO, FODO and 21st Century Phobias
We live in precarious times, with the ever-present threat of revolution, a worldwide pandemic, or nuclear war. Every human being has an innate fear of death, yet today we also seem to struggle with a fear of life itself.
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Feminine Design Icon, or Symbol of Female Oppression?
Just as an online photograph today might show an attractive woman beaming behind a bowl of salad, an advertisement in the 1940s or ‘50s may have depicted a pretty, apron-clad woman smiling alongside a packet of soap powder.
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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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