The craze for vintage is reaching new heights, clearly in response to the recession. Why buy new when we're trembling on the edge of global economic collapse?! It's no time for fast fashion either, it's non-sustainable and lets face it, badly made and about as likely to last through a weekend as a cheese sandwich. We've done sixties and eighties, now it seems we love the 1950s - that's the era to be channeling this season. Think Mad Men, domestic goddesses (it fits with the cupcake craze) and prints by Lucienne Day. For this reason I highly recommend going to see the new exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in London (www. www.ftmlondon.org/) on Horrockses Fashions.
Check out LFE's fab fifties frocks and we even have a little Horrockses number.
Horrockses Fashions Limited was the manufacturer of one of the most respected ready-to-wear labels of the 1940s and 1950s and is best known for its full-skirted dresses that were sought after by women everywhere and were even worn by Queen Elizabeth II.
This new exhibition at the FTM draws together fashion photography, archive material, personal stories and some beautiful dresses from private and public collections to tell the story of the company, its role in post-war British fashion and the link between couture and ready-to-wear clothes over these two decades.
The prints are spectacular – brilliant colours and perfect for summer – in fact Prada are showing exactly this look at the moment. Highlights include print dresses with fabrics designed by Pat Albeck, Graham Sutherland and Alistair Morton and the most glamorous housecoats in crisp cotton – I think the housecoat revival should start right here!
Christine Boydell, curator of the exhibition says: 'The success of Horrockses
Fashions was due to a significant marriage of traditional know-how and
fashionable innovation. The concept for the label demanded careful management of the balance between the practicalities of the ready-to-wear business and the creativity of the designers who would provide the up-market fashion upon which the brand was promoted. Something they pulled off with great success.'
Check out my review of the exhibition for Radio 3’s Night Waves www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00swqs0
And read a new book that’s just being launched by the wonderful Marnie Fogg on 1950s Fashion Prints
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