New 1960s display opening at the Fashion Museum this
Easter
February 2010
A new display Photographing Fashion:
British Style in the 1960s, opens
at Bath and North East Somerset
Council’s Fashion Museum on Saturday 27 March 2010. The display
shows how fashion in Britain in the 1960s ranged from demure
dresses and ensembles by now little remembered ready to wear firms
such as Reldan and Nettie Vogues, to dolly bird designs by the new
1960s fashion stars such as Mary Quant and Jean Muir.
These many different styles and looks are
recorded for posterity in the Fashion Museum’s Ernestine Carter
Collection, a collection of literally hundreds of black and white
photographic prints and original fashion drawings commissioned (and
received as press photographs) by Mrs Ernestine Carter, Women’s,
and later Associate, Editor of The Sunday Times from 1955
to 1968.
The new display at the Fashion Museum
showcases twenty of the most iconic photographs from the Ernestine
Carter Collection including images of top 1960s models Twiggy and
Jean Shrimpton.
‘This is a fantastic collection of fashion
photographs. It’s like you can see the 1960s unfolding in front of
your eyes,’ said Fashion Museum Manager Rosemary Harden. ‘From
former Bond girl Tania Mallet modelling an Empire line evening
dress by Sambo for Dollyrockers in 1963 through to Celia Hammond –
almost fresh off the Hippy Trail – in her Indian inspired evening
dress from only five years later in 1968, this display gives a
potted history of fashion in the 1960s in Britain’.
Mrs Carter was the ‘grande dame’ of the
British newspaper fashion editors in the 1960s, and worked with a
number of talented young fashion assistants, including Brigid
Keenan, Moira Keenan, Sandy Boler and Caroline Colthurst. The
importance of Mrs Carter’s fashion pages could not be
underestimated in the 1960s. As far as young designers were
concerned, a piece by Mrs Carter was a hallmark of approval.
Young British designer John Bates said: ‘I
used to think then that if Mrs Carter featured me in her pages, I
would really have arrived (along, I guess with every other designer
just starting up)’.
In a special twist, the Ernestine Carter
Collection photographs will be displayed alongside fashion garments
from the 1960s, which are also part of the Council- run museum
collection. For example the display will include a version of the
hessian effect pinafore style mini skirt by Mary Quant seen in a
photograph from 1965.
Men will not be forgotten either, and the
display will include 1960s menswear by names such as Mr Fish.
The display at the Fashion Museum will also
include fashions and accessories incorporating the use of new
materials and styles, such as oversized sunglasses and paper
dresses.
Photographing Fashion is a
must see for everyone who was there in the 1960s, and for the many
GCSE, A-level and fashion students who choose to study the 1960s as
part of their coursework. The display continues throughout
2010.
The display coincides with the publication of
a recent book Photographing Fashion, British Style in the
Sixites by Richard Lester, published by the Antique Collectors
Club. The book is available for sale in the Fashion Museum
shop.
The Fashion Museum at the Assembly Rooms in
Bennett Street, Bath, is open daily 10.30-17.00, exit 18.00. For
more information logon to http://www.fashionmuseum.co.uk/
ENDS
For more information contact: Rosemary Harden,
Fashion Museum Manager, on 01225 477282 or email: rosemary_harden@bathnes.gov.uk
For more images contact: Maggie Bone, Museums
Publicity Officer, Bath & North East Somerset Council, 01225
477736, or email maggie_bone@bathnes.gov.uk