Book on Laura Ashley

I'm just full of info today!!!

New book about Laura Ashley and her fashions. I'm a fan, this book sounds great. Review is from the Telegraph in the UK, visit link by clicking on title. No info on a North American publication date. Will have to watch for it.

Archive adverts and designs from 1970 to the early 1980s

Archive adverts and designs from 1970 to the early 1980s

It’s probably not right to speak ill of the dead, nor to harbour long and festering grievances towards a woman whose only real crime was to imagine that knickerbockers made from brown jumbo cord could ever be flattering, but, nevertheless, Laura Ashley has a lot to answer for. Before I even start on my floral-sprig-related issues, there is the fact that I blame her for my failure to pass my needlework O-level back in 1975.

When, at school, it came to deciding what kind of garment we would make in our timed practical exam, all the sensible girls chose undemanding shift dresses and simple shirts with minimal detail. Not me. I had developed a huge and irrational fashion-crush on Ashley’s Victorian- and Edwardian-inspired blouses, across whose dazzling white fronts cavorted every bit of fancy sewing trickery imaginable, from pin-tucks to pie-crustfrills, from cascading ruffles to buttons so tiny they were barely visible to the naked eye. A less sadistic teacher might have tried to dissuade me, but Mrs Brown was a dysfunctional sociopath who flossed her teeth with pinking-shears. And, anyway, I was bullish about my capabilities. How hard could it be?

Virtually impossible, as I discovered three hours later. When the teacher spat out a mouthful of pins and witheringly called time, all I had to offer was a half-finished cuff, with no sleeve and the main body of the blouse still in pieces. I was, like the reel of grubby white cotton thread criss-crossing the classroom floor, totally unravelled. It wasn’t so much the certainty of exam failure that upset me, as the fact that I wouldn’t have a lovely blouse to wear, like the models in the romance-drenched Laura Ashley advertisements with the flossy back-lit hair, the parasols and the wistfully dangled trugs heavy with cornflowers and wild poppies. For a girl from the wrong side of Birmingham, where the mention of leg-of-mutton sleeves in public would almost certainly earn you a slap, this was an intoxicatingly different, feminine look, and I wanted some of it.

Undeterred by my F-grade shame, by 1976 I had set my sights on an empire-line maxidress, replete with lace trim, abundant ruffles and ribbon ties. There was no way I could afford Laura Ashley prices (£2 for a dress? No way!), so I had to put in serious face time with

my cranky old Singer, a modified Simplicity nightie pattern and several metres of striped and sprigged cotton bought from a discount warehouse round the back of the Bullring. But it came as a harsh blow when it was made patently clear to me at the youth club disco that this wasn’t the style to go for, aged 16, if you wanted to pull boys. In retrospect, I can hardly blame them. One minute girls were wearing sexy, thigh-skimming Mary Quant miniskirts and tight jumpers, the next they’re dressing like Mrs Bridges. Even Pan’s People, gyrating on Top of the Pops in the early 1970s wearing Ashley’s high-necked green maxidresses, were hard-pressed to muster much sex appeal out of all that chaste, frilly yardage.

But this is where Laura Ashley identified her strength as a label; filling a gap in the high-street market that wasn’t catered for by the funkily streetwise Barbara Hulanicki or Mary Quant, with their racy hemlines and youthful hot pants. Her clothes were for ordinary women, but they carried in their abundant floral folds the promise of some bucolic idyll far removed from the urban cool of Biba. And Ashley was a shrewd commercial operator. It was no mistake that the launch of her romantic Victorian- and Edwardian-inspired ranges coincided with the huge popularity of such television series as The Forsyte Saga and Upstairs, Downstairs, followed by Brideshead Revisited in 1981, and this appetite for nostalgia and a dream of country living was massively profitable. 'We find anything with a nostalgia about it sells; it’s always a winner,’ she said in the mid-1970s. 'They’re not particularly clothes for making a splash in a dramatic place; they’re simple garments to wear at home, and when you get home perhaps you need the security of nostalgia.’ She neatly summed it up by often reminding her staff, 'Now, remember, we’re in the camouflage business.’ (Ironic, then, that one of the most famous photographs of the 1980s showed Lady Diana Spencer, then a nursery assistant, wearing a transparent Laura Ashley skirt. Not much camouflage going on there.)

Laura Ashley’s outlook wasn’t always so prim. In the early days, when she and her husband, Bernard, first started producing prints from their kitchen table in Pimlico, they came up with boldly geometric designs that would bear little relation to the chintzy conservatism for which they became famous.

With no formal training or design experience, they produced block-colour screen-printed table-mats depicting vintage cars, cinema posters transposed on to tea towels, and uncompromisingly modern furnishing fabrics for hotels, universities and cruise ships. One such fabric (for P&O) was a fabulously directional black and white design showing a detail of Humphrey Lyttelton’s jazz band – a keyboard, drums, double bass and trumpet valves. Not a meandering rose frond in sight.

And so it might have remained had Bernard – spurred on by an impressive £2,000 turnover in their first year and the opening of their first shop, in South Kensington – not acquired the kind of sophisticated equipment needed to print the intricate feminine florals with which the couple made their name. As a young woman Laura had worked as a secretary in the handicrafts department of the WI, loving the idea of patchwork, but bemoaning the dearth of small florals and tiny stripes. Here was her chance to produce her own range. She described many of her designs as coming from 'my own special world of fruitful flowers, mythical animals and small geo-figurations’. Victorian end-papers provided a rich source of ideas, and often random finds – a detail from a Minton floor tile, or a fragment of broken china – inspired a print.

Right up to her untimely death in 1985 Ashley was a private woman, unshowy and homely, with a lifelong love for Wales, where she was born and spent a great deal of time with Bernard and their four children. She was a charitable and maternal employer, and would often serve up apple crumble and custard to her staff at design meetings. Despite this homespun image, she was driven and commercially astute: when she died the business had a turnover well in excess of £100 million and more than 200 shops around the world, and employed more than 4,000 people. With the successful launch of a Home Furnishings Room Planner and catalogue in the late 1970s, Ashley revolutionised interior design for the ordinary shopper. She replaced the limp parsimony of the preceding years with swaggy, billowing decadence.

Who knew curtains could require so much extra kit? Swags, tiebacks, pencil pleats, pelmets with fringing and matchy-matchy trim. Distressed gold finials, anyone? Ashley introduced curtain porn to the high street and, boy, were we grateful. After several decades of embracing the chintz-slip-cover and bolster-cushion excess endorsed by Ashley, I now like to think I have moved on to things more minimal and pared-down. And yet I seem unable fully to banish Ashley’s presence from my life. We bought our current house off a woman who had worked for an interiors magazine in the 1960s and 1970s and had been an enthusiastic champion of Ashley’s work. So it was hardly surprising to find, at our first viewing, that virtually every wall was covered in prints ranging from mildly noisy to downright deafening. We recoiled, mimed violent trajectory vomiting and resolved to redecorate immediately. Ten years on, just one room – my study – remains in its original state. Far from finding the mad riot of pink climbing roses disturbing and inconducive to normal neural functioning, I have come to regard it as strangely calm and comforting. If wombs were subject to interior design makeovers, this is surely what they’d wear on their walls.

I thought I was over Ashley, but she is all over my room, so clearly I’m not as sprig-purged as I thought I was.

'Laura Ashley’ (Frances Lincoln, £35), by Martin Wood, published on 10 September, is available from Telegraph Books (0844 871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk) at £31 plus £1.25 p&p

Ohio State University's Costume and Textile Collection

Did you know that Ohio State University has a Costume and Textile Collection, and regularly exhibits parts of it? I did not. Via books from Martha Pullen, I knew that Kent State had such a collection, but not OSU, which is much closer to me.

They just had (ended in June!) an exhibit I am just kicking myself that I did not know about. (description and photo from website):

The Sewer's Art: Quality, Fashion, and Economy February 26 - June 27, 2009

The Sewer's Art: Quality, Fashion and Economy features 49 beautifully constructed garments that reflect the creative and artistic talents of four fashion and style-conscious women from the beginning to the end of the 20th century who sewed for economical reasons and/or for self expression, to create high quality fashionable clothing.

Introduction

Home sewn clothing is rarely, if ever, exhibited in a museum. It is not considered 'art' in the academic sense. Art museums primarily showcase the work of 'professional' artists, and the clothing most often exhibited in art museums is of the 'fashion designer' variety.

Museums mostly ignore clothing that was sewn at home. It does not have the value given to 'high' art (painting and sculpture) that some designer fashions also have. In fact it is mostly anonymous, created by women who are or were, predominantly homemakers, who created their or their children's clothing mostly out of economic necessity, but often also out of a desire to express themselves creatively.

"Home-sewn" and "home-made" have become pejorative terms, generally associated with crafts of low quality. This does a great disservice, to those with high levels of skill and creative ability who produce beautiful clothing at home that rivals that produced professionally by fashion designers. The garments produced by the home sewers featured in this exhibition combine the same elements implemented by the fashion designer: fashionable style with quality materials plus creative inspiration. In spite of a frequent need to economize, home sewers often do more than merely copy a picture on a pattern. They exercise their creativity by choosing fabrics and trims and by combining or altering paper patterns to achieve the desired look. This creativity is The Sewer's Art.

Inspiration for the exhibit

The inspiration for this exhibition began with a visit from Susan Beall in 1997-98. At that time, she informed us that she had sewn most of her clothing throughout her lifetime, beginning before her graduation from OSU's School of Home Economics in 1949. Susan also informed us that she had kept a record of her sewing projects, including her inspirations, which patterns she used, swatches of the fabric she used and how much it cost, and subsequent alterations to the clothing. When she told us this, we immediately thought of Barbara Johnson's Album of Styles and Fabrics.

Barbara Johnson was an 18th century lady who kept a record of fabrics used to make her clothing and how much the fabric cost, as well as contemporary illustrations of fashionable dress. Barbara Johnson's album spans the years 1746-1823 and is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but is too fragile for handling. A facsimile of the album was published in 1987, retailing for $100. We mentioned Barbara's album to Susan Beall, and remarked that her records were a 20th century version of the Barbara Johnson book, with one difference. Susan made her own wardrobe, whereas Barbara depended on dressmakers for hers.

Susan took that comment to heart, and proceeded to further organize and document her materials. She presented an installment collection of her exquisitely sewn wardrobe with her own album and swatches in 1999, followed by more garments in 2003. From our first encounter we thought, here is an exhibition idea. Both the Barbara Johnson book and Susan Beall's album are featured in the exhibition, Susan's album as a Powerpoint presentation.

Since 1999, the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection received additional donations of garments that were sewn by their wearers, but none that rival the quality of workmanship and style paired with an interesting life story such as the selections chosen for this exhibition. In addition to Susan Beall's impressive collection are garments made and worn by Dr. Ruth Ella Moore, Mary Heck, and Dr. Joyce Smith.

Ruth Moore received her BS in Chemistry from OSU in 1925, and followed that up with an MS in bacteriology in 1927. After three years teaching at Tennessee State College, she returned to OSU and pursued her Ph.D. in Bacteriology which she received in 1933 -- the first African American woman to do so. She had an illustrious career in higher education, teaching and serving as Chair of the Department of Bacteriology at Howard University from 1948-58. Given all that responsibility, she somehow found the time to make many of her own clothes -- from quality fabrics, with quality construction, and without any formal training.

Sewing garments in the home has a long history -- one based in the necessity to clothe the members of the family and provide the household linens. Before the industrial revolution, the invention of the sewing machine, and mass produced clothing, women were responsible for making their own clothes, including underclothing and night clothing, as well as all of the children's clothing, and shirts, underwear, and nightwear for the men of the household. The task of providing clothing for the family, as well as making the necessary household textiles such as towels, pillowcases and sheets, was a never-ending task. Even with the arrival of the sewing machine, the work did not necessarily decrease; the sewing machine saved time and money but not labor.

Many women worked as seamstresses or dressmakers in the 19th century, either at a place of employment, or as was often the case, piecework was done in the home to provide extra income. Columbus even had a dressmaking school located downtown on High Street in the 1890s. Women who married brought these skills into their households. Mary Heck, another featured artist in our exhibition, was such a person. She worked in a tailor's shop before marriage, but afterwards, made her and her daughter Grace's clothing. Two of Mary's dresses and two dresses she made for Grace dating from 1895-1911 are featured in the exhibition, along with Mary's treadle sewing machine. One of Mary's dresses is referred to as an 'artistic' dress.

Sewing was very much a part of a woman's education during the 19th century, and land-grant colleges created toward the end of that century continued this tradition by offering courses (for women) in the "domestic sciences," including sewing. In 1914, the Smith Lever Act established the Cooperative Extension Service to spread knowledge from the land grant colleges to the citizens of the states via educational programs developed by extension agents. Sewing education is represented in the exhibition via 'how-to' manuals, including several written by Mary Brooks Picken for the Women's Institute of Domestic Arts & Sciences series, a child's toy Singer sewing machine, and two 4H projects created by Christine Kibler Dambach in 1926 and 1932.

Also featured in the exhibition is the wardrobe of Dr. Joyce Smith, professor emeritus in the College of Education and Human Ecology. As a State Extension Specialist for Clothing, Joyce authored a number of training manuals and teaching aids, and traveled to County Extension Offices, 4-H clubs, high schools, colleges, and universities educating girls and women in clothing selection and construction and introducing them to personal style and couture fashion. She constructed her own wardrobe specifically to demonstrate techniques of clothing, design, fit, and construction.

This is the description of the collection from their website:

The Historic Costume & Textiles Collection is a scholarly and artistic resource of apparel and textile material culture, jointly administered by the College of Education and Human Ecology and the OSU Libraries. The 11,500+ holdings encompass a range of three dimensional objects such as textiles and articles of clothing and accessories for men, women, and children, including national dress costume, from the mid-18th century to contemporary 21st century designers. The Collection also houses a number of period fashion magazines, fashion plates, swatch books and commercial patterns. Our mission is to collect, preserve, and interpret textile and apparel material culture and make these artifacts available to researchers.

Particular strengths of the Collection are objects pertaining to central Ohio and the U.S. fashion industry.

Blue crepe jersey draped dress, one shoulder, Halston, 1970-1979. Gift of Mrs. John Anderson

II.

One of the many buttons in the Ann Rudolph Button Collection.

Paisley shawl, red center, 1850-1860, gift of Mrs. Frank Mykrantz. Paisley shawl, black center, 1860-1875, anonymous donor. Kashmir shawl, 1850-1875, gift of Mrs. Frank Mykrantz.

1860s gown with evening and day bodice of aqua silk satin trimmed with green velvet, ivory satin, and white beads.

1930s Japanese wedding kimono. Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Frank Fletcher.

20th Century Designer Collection

The Collection's main strength is its selection of women's garments by American fashion designers. Showcasing a history of twentieth century fashion, the majority of artifacts date from the mid to late century.

Several designers are well-represented with over fifty individual examples of their work; some with close to a hundred. American designers James Galanos, Arnold Scaasi, Pauline Trigere, and Calvin Klein have all donated garments from their collection archives to the Collection. In addition to these designers, photos, sketches, and other documentation accompany the collections of Irene and Bonnie Cashin garments.

Ann Rudolph Button Collection

The Ann Rudolph Button Collection, with over 25,000 artifacts, is one of the most complete holdings of buttons and button-related materials in the United States. It includes representative examples of almost every type of button, many of which are unique, rare and seldom available to scholars and collectors.

Housed within the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection, the buttons are organized, identified, and catalogued according to standards of the National Button Society. Button die stamps, button cleaning boards, button hooks, and other button-related artifacts add to the depth of this unique collection.

Extensive research sources including books, catalogs, and journals related to button history, button manufacture, button collecting, and the role of buttons in fashion and dress exist within the OSU Library system and can be accessed via the library catalog, OSCAR. A further enhancement, OSU Libraries is the designated repository for the archives of the National Button Society.

Textile Collection

Textiles in the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection are from both Western and non-Western traditions.

The earliest textiles date from the fifteenth century. Pre-Columbian South American textile artifacts woven on a backstrap loom and silk velvet European liturgical textiles span the technology of textile manufacturing at this time.

The approximately 1,000 textile examples offer a historical chronology of Western textile design and manufacturing techniques for both dress as well as furnishing fabrics including quilts, coverlets, paisley shawls and Spanish shawls.

The Collection also offers many examples of design and manufacturing techniques from cultures around the globe. Especially significant is a collection of over 60 Indonesian ikat textiles from the collection of Fred Richman.

Traphagen Collection

In 1995, the Historic Costume and Textiles Collection purchased five 19th century garments from the estate of Ethel Traphagen, and received 69 others as a donation from her heirs. Ethel Traphagen, a fashion designer who is credited with introducing shorts and slacks into American women's fashion, founded the Traphagen School of Fashion in New York City in the 1920s. The school was known for its technical orientation of fashion design, with courses in pattern making and draping. The school closed its doors in the early 1990s. (The only records from the school that remain are held by the New York State Department of Education. These are the academic records (transcripts) of the students who attended Traphagen. If students need that information they would need to write directly to the NY State Department of Education providing the pertinent details including the years that they attended Traphagen.)

Some of the better known names in the fashion industry attended the Traphagen School of Fashion. Alumni members include: Geoffrey Beene, James Galanos, Mary McFadden, John Kloss, Christos Yiannakou, and African-American designer Franklin Rowe.

The Traphagen collection at the Historic Costume and Textiles Collection consists of 74 garments and 33 assorted hats. The costumes range in date from the 1830s to the 1910s, with particular strength in the 1890s. The hats date from the 1820s up to the early 1950s. The Traphagen collection includes garments exemplifying the silhouettes of the 19th century, others are remarkable for their fabrics and opulence, and a few have French labels.

Ethnographic Dress

The collection of ethnographic dress in the Historic Costume & Textiles Collection includes folk costume, and traditional dress worn outside the Western fashion tradition. Complete ensembles from various time periods and geographic cultures are represented, displaying a vast array of embellishment techniques.

Examples include:

• Complete pre-WWII Japanese wedding kimono in three layers of obi, obi aga, tabi, and geta
• Children's kimono for the Japanese ceremony Shichi-go-san
• Complete Macedonian wedding ensemble

Gallery Hours

Weds and Thurs 11-6
Fri and Sat 12-4
Also open by appointment
Closed on all University Holidays
Open by appointment only during break weeks

Location

The Historic Costume and Textiles Collection is located on The Ohio State University campus in the northwest corner of Campbell Hall, 1787 Neil Avenue. Access to the Snowden Galleries in the Geraldine Schottenstein Wing is easiest through the arched entrance from the north side of the building.

OSU map of the area around Campbell Hall

Campbell Hall on Google Maps

Parking

Visitor parking is available at the Neil Avenue parking garage (after 4pm on weekdays and any time on weekends), the OSU Hospital parking garage, and other area garages (including the Ohio Union parking garage and the Tuttle Park parking garage).

More OSU parking garage information.

Limited Time Free Access - Explor the Commercial Pattern Archive

Here is something to while away the hours on a rainy night. The Commercial Pattern Archive at the University of Rhode Island is allowing free access to its VAST collection of pattern images, for this week only. You can log in as: GUEST with the password of: PATTERN. The patterns include those from magazines as well as the commercial lines.

The jacket is from fall 1914, Weldon's Ladies Journal. The second from Simplicity, and the final two from Vogue in the 40's. I think I like the designer Pacquin, but what about that red hat?

Wooo Hooo Camera is Back!

See I did sew earlier this summer! I've been telling you I did. I am not going to write a review, as it has been a while and I don't remember everything. But I've had mixed reactions to this sewing.

First up, the "Mermaid Dress" - I started it last year, but was about 1/2 yard sort to make the sleeves. So got the fabric, but by then it was nearly September. I finished it this year in late June. It is a Simplicity Project Runway design, and I quite like it. I've worn it several times. I just made another this afternoon for my d-i-law who is 7 months pregnant - just added to the front and side panels to make it a bit bigger. Just a hem to do.

Second, the bright pink linen dress was an attempt to update a bit a early 1990's See & Sew pattern. I really like the dress, but have fiddled with the pleats at the waist three times - just doesn't feel right as yet. Maybe I should have put ties at the side.

Third, the "Hawaiian" print shift dress. This is a Connie Crawford pattern - the shift with the tied blouse, can't remember the number. First, I had to shorten the pattern by a good 7 inches. I do like the dress and have worn it a couple of times, but again, I had difficulty with the pleats at the waist. Don't know why I've had this theme this year. The neckline, sleeves and hem are all bound. It is a comfortable dress to wear.

Finally, two more Connie Crawford patterns. The blouse was made from a quilting cotton from Joannes - it is OK, but seems very plain to me for some reason. Oh, I did read on Pattern Review that this particular blouse had very narrow arms - and thank goodness, because I made the largest sleeves in the pattern and they fit fine.

The skirt is hiding because it is not happy with itself. Made of a linen/rayon blend, it has an elasticized waist. There are eight gores in this skirt. And it should be fine, but . . . the back side panels on both sides seem weird and sort of droop beyond the rest. I have looked at the pattern again and don't know why that is occuring. I don't think I "turned them around" when I put together, but it would be difficult to tell if you had. I like the skirt in theory, but that dropping hem is "odd". Haven't worn it and very disappointed.

Next up, I'll show you all the crocheting I've been doing this summer.

Graphics Fairy

Just love Graphics Fairy's daily download image. Here is today's - click on title to check it out.