Category Archives: Vintage

California cottons. Mystery solved.

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Let’s be honest who DOESN’T love cracking a vintage mystery??? I love it when I uncover lost information on brands (this seems to be what my dissertation is all about at the moment…or rather the messy divorces of various 40s and 50s fashion bosses, but that is another story!) So imagine my delight last wednesday when I managed to discover (completely accidentally I will add)  a key part of the history behind the collectible California cottons company.

Lovely advert for California Cottons in Vanity Fair May 1958

For a long time I had known that the company was definitely British due to their advertising campaigns, but there was some confusion as to the “California” associations, then I found this article in a copy of the Daily Mail. To the ball 9th oct 1958 Iris Ashley “ What a wonderful material cotton has become. The Cinderella fabric can now, indeed, go to the ball. I give full marks to the California cottons show at the Dorchester yesterday evening. Here is high fashion in the form of high waisted dresses, some sheath, some front fitting trapeze lines. The satin cotton in modern Italian style prints will make winter party dresses for about £5. The California dress company is in fact British. But the designing is all done in Los Angeles by a team of young people. The director, Louis Rawlings, is convinced that clothes intended mainly to be worn in sunshine must be dreamed up in sunlight. But the actual fabric and dresses are made here. They have hit on a new gimmick too. In co-operation with a famous Hollywood beauty firm, a colour chart for lipstick and make up will be attatched to every dress. This tells the wearer the ideal tone of lipstick to wear with the dress colour and also the make-up base and powder tones suitable for her particular type (blonde, brunette or redhead) when worn with such a colour. It’s a neat job. And if you’ve ever seen a blue-pink lipstick worn with an apricot or orange-yellow dress, you’ll agree its useful too.” So there you go, mystery solved. Designed in California, made in Britain. And the make up they mention? That was a special collaboration with Maxfactor. IMG_4307 my lovely friend Holly in one of her dresses by the brand Read my previous post about California cottons here

Marks and Spencer archive event.

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Anyone in Leeds at a loss for what to do this weekend?

If so I highly recommend taking yourself down the Marks and Spencer archive for this fabulous event:

M&S 1950s ground nylon floral dress

 

M&S 1950s ‘New Look’ Nylon Dress with floral print

Fabulous M&S dresses in the archive

Rock around the Frock

A step back in time to 1950s glamour

In celebration of this remarkable decade, M&S is calling on locals to step back in time and celebrate the sights, sounds, fashions and innovations of the 1950s at a special event at the M&S Company Archive in Leeds on Saturday 17th August. The free event will chart the retailer’s role in bringing high fashion to the High Street. Unseen 50s products will be on display and there will be screenings of period adverts complete with popcorn and picnic style refreshments. Guests can also take part in Rock’ n’ Roll dance classes with Swing Dance Leeds, and for those who come in their own 50s inspired fashions, they’ll have the chance to win a ‘best dressed’ prize and a £50 gift card. The Archive is open between 10am and 5pm on Saturdays and the 1950s event will run from 11am to 3pm. 

Also, you might be interested to have a look at their spangly new website which has tons of images of original dresses. I have spotted a few pieces in my personal collection on there! A great resource for researchers:

https://archive-catalogue.marksandspencer.ssl.co.uk/home

You can read more about the Marks and Spencer archive here.

Laura Ashley: Romantic heroine at Bath Fashion museum

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I’m down in Hampshire this weekend doing some research for my masters dissertation, but whilst i was down sarf’ I though it would be rude not to take a trip to Bath and view the Laura Ashley exhibition on there (particularly seeing as I am currently obsessed with the brand).

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The exhibition is a fabulous trip into the Laura Ashley brand, perfectly capturing a particularly period during the 1970s when Laura Ashley defined the zeitgeist for a return to floaty Victoriana.

What the exhibition gives you a great idea of is the re-use and readaption of prints. Changing garment shapes and applying the same print, changing colours and actually chaning the complete feel of the dress.

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Personal favouirtes for me were the dresses that featured Bloomsbury -esque prints in zingy lime and hot pink. (the lime dress here features the same print as the dress I wore to the LA press day)

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One of the strongest aspects of the exhibition for me was the labels. These dresses were expertly put into context with the stories of the original owners coming through and making you really examine the dresses. They also helped to give a real idea of the Laura Ashley store experience from a customers point of view.

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I adored this patchwork skirt that was made from scraps of Laura Ashley fabric in the 1970s.

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There were a couple of garments where you could see Laura may have missed the mark and gone too far in re-creating the Victorian look, but these were interesting nonetheless…

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There were even a few garments that showed the slightly sexier side of Laura Ashley (MASSIVE WANT towards the green dress seen here!)

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As you can see from my pictures you could get up nice and close to the dresses, and really have the chance to examine them closely. The space (as you rarely find with fashion exhibitions) was light and airy giving a chance for a real appreciation of the colour and texture of the dresses. A great job on keeping the public far enough away not to be able to touch, yet close enough to be able to see the detail.

Criticism? A few minor niggles really. I would have like to have seen more than just dresses in the exhibition, I feel that there was not enough about Laura’s design process (sketches and fabric swatch books as seen at the archive mini exhibition would have been great). One of my other favourites is the matching mother and daughter outfits, which there was not one of in the exhibition. The few children’s dresses were not matching to adult ones at all. Also, I fully understand that the scope of the exhibition was just to concentrate on a brief period of the Laura Ashley story, but unless you are a fashion history nut like me I’m not sure how interesting it would be to see 90+ very similar dresses. But overall these critiscims are only slight and I passed a delightful two hours looking around, I also had a great chat with the FOH. Top marks Bath Fashion museum for your friendly staff (even if I did have to pay despite having ICOM membership!)

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My advice? Get down to Bath before the exhibiton finishes on the 26th August, it will be moving on to the Bowes museum next.