Inside the Regal Wardrobe – A Review of Royal Women at the Fashion Museum Bath

Over the weekend I got the chance to visit Royal Women, the latest temporary exhibition held at the Fashion Museum. For international readers, or for those who have never had the chance to visit the museum before, the Fashion Museum can be found in Bath, a British UNESCO city known for its famous Roman Baths and …

Sculpting Fashion: Madame Grès – A Biography

Germaine Émilie Krebs was born in 1903. As a young French woman, who aspired to become a sculptor, Krebs was unaware that her career was destined to be within the world of fashion, later becoming the master couturier Madame Grès. An extreme hard-worker, who kept her private life secret and away from the cameras, Grès …

Big, Small, Short and Long: A Brief History of Fashionable Silhouettes

'Fashion consists only in extremes [...] frivolity and death.' 'Does fashion die [...] because it can no longer keep up the tempo?' Walter Benjamin - The Arcades Project The fashion system relies on a never-ending cycle of newness, spectacle, emulation and death. This is how fashion works - without the invention of new, or the recycling …

Charles James: The Art of Fashion

I have asked the question many times before, particularly in regards to the work of Japanese designers. I also think of designers that have placed the structure and composition of garments in the forefront of their design visions, Madeleine Vionnet, Madame Grès ect. But the one designer who stands out, a man who was experimental and innovative, determined to …

Fashion and Film: A Biography of MGM Designer Gilbert Adrian

Films provide escapism for those who watch them. Viewers are transported to a world of glamour, stardom, excitement and fantasy. During the ‘Golden Era’ of film, a time commonly associated with the 1930’s, cinema became an enormous industry in America. With the arrival of the talkies (sound films) during the late 1920’s, by 1930, 80 …

Princesses, Parties and Debutantes: Sir Norman Hartnell – British Couturier

'I despise simplicity. It is the negation of all that is beautiful,' - Norman Hartnell (Source V&A Museum, Norman Hartnell biography). A presentation at court to the royal family was a rite of passage for most upper-class girls during the 1920-30’s. A long lasting tradition of the British establishment, the trip to Buckingham Palace was …