Courtly couture
When I first met Hardy Amies, I was ushered into his office (which was more like an accountant’s than a couturier’s) and began, as no one ever should, to apologise about my outfit, even if it was a polished-cotton, seal-grey casual Yves Saint Laurent blouson. No tie.
I had been told previously by Paco Rabanne that ties are a symbol of the hangman’s noose and so, consequently, he never made or wore ties. That, of course, is his view. I simply didn’t wear one.
Sir Hardy peeked over his spectacles at me and said, ‘Dear boy,’ with an intonation that suggested a delicious mixture of disdain and interest, ‘you can do anything – if you have style.’ I suppose that meant he liked me. And our acquaintance grew from then.
I met him again and described the carpet of his salon on one occasion, emblazoned with his initials, HA HA, as running through the house like an insistent, knowing laugh. But he could be frosty. Arctic. To many, he was known as ‘Hardly Amiable’. But if he liked you, he liked you.
Norman Hartnell, who had the honour of designing the Queen’s wedding dress and her coronation robe, displays two of his wasp-waisted gowns: Vogue, 1953
At his Savile Row salon, I met beautiful, haughty yet anxious ladies whose coiffeur no gale dare disturb, their patient yet evidently bored husbands in Savile Row suits. Wonderful peachy-young models, not high-born (in fact decidedly not), but girls who knew how to pose in couture. Mincers and persuasive vendeuses who sold the glittering gowns to the glimmering select. Madame Raymonde… Madame Diana… And then, there was Hardy Amies’s long-time acquaintance, Bunny (Neil) Roger.
There he sat in the salon resplendent in black frock coat, an ice-blue cravat mounting, Eliot style, to his chin, surmounted by a huge diamond. And talking of diamonds, here is a little story. Apparently, one day when in a taxi and redoing his make-up in the back, on exiting, the driver (thinking he had a modicum of wit) said, ‘Dropped your diamonds, love?’. Quick as a diamond flash, Mr Roger parried… ‘Diamonds, with tweed? NEVER.’ The past is indeed the past.
Sadly, I never met Norman Hartnell (1901-1979). I was a shade too young (even in his latter years) to be dandying about salons on reporting missions.
Above left: A relaxed Hardy Amies in his showroom in the mid-1960s, with models in evening gowns Above right: Wenda Parkinson and Barbara Goalen in Hardy Amies, Trafalgar Square, 1949, by Parkinson
These two stalwarts of British couture are currently being celebrated in a dazzling exhibition at the Textile Museum in London. Amies is further celebrated in a new book, and Hartnell in a monograph, both by the exhibition’s guest curator, Michael Pick. The talents of these two giants of couture are legendary. And not only for the women’s market – Hardy Amies in tailoring to the majority of male consumers via the high-street store, Hepworths. For sporting fans, his crowning moment was designing the suits worn by the 1966 World Cup-winning English football team, with the legendary Bobby Moore its captain.
Although very different in design approach, both became knights chevaliers and then knights actuellement, honoured by the Queen personally in recognition of their individual services. Hartnell designed her wedding dress in 1947 and her coronation gown in 1953, while from 1951, for the next five decades, the Queen had her outfits commissioned from Amies.
They changed the visual culture, quite literally. The Queen’s personal image not only impacted here in the United Kingdom but all over the globe. Her outfits became vital, visual, international ambassadors in themselves – instantly memorable.
The 1950s was an especially important time for British (nay… may we say, English, couture?). The exhibition, with a backdrop accompaniment of music from the same era, reminds the visitor that while couture was, of course, beyond the reach of most, one could acquire the couture ‘style’ in certain department stores, and also from the once ubiquitous neighbourhood seamstress. Also, many more than now could knit and sew, crochet and embroider, and patterns based on couture ‘models’ could be made up by the skilled, if financially challenged.
Glamour and display were key. Display – but not the vulgarity of display seen today. What went wrong? The angel, not the devil, was in the detail of stitch, embroidery, cut, material and flair (and flare); and decoration in terms of crystals, silk threads and tactile trims designed to add… les pointes finales. As Hartnell himself said, ‘I despise simplicity. It is the negation of all that is beautiful.’
But this is in part quite an ironic pronouncement, as the first thing one might notice about Hartnell or Amies is the elegant simplicity and explosive purity of what the French call la ligne… the line, or silhouette. The wearer’s form is clearly discerned, emphasised by shoulders, draped or bare, a winning waist and a flirty or challengingly restrictive hem. But she wears all of this, her feminine armoury, as a bird of paradise and, as such a creature, one who would not question the precious iridescence of her plumage.
Above left: Classic Hardy Amies, Wenda Parkinson models his striking ‘Romantic Look’ dress in 1947 Above right: Amies’s form-hugging jacket and pencil skirt shot at Hyde Park Corner: Vogue 1951
Hardy Amies’s line was the same, but different. But both shared the identity and ideology of elegance – haughty, as at times it had to be. There was no intrinsic fuss but the exaggeration of scale and shape which is the point – of balanced proportion, a knack for emphasising the figure’s best features and as far as the onlooker goes, providing scoop backs, sack backs, floating drapes, diverting embroidery, especially under candlelight, and the conspiratorial conversations of myriad patterns to delight in the night.
One of the exhibition’s points is to highlight the difference between daywear and evening adornment. In one section, the mannequins seem as if a brood of mud-brown house sparrows (perfectly sliced into shape) had congregated on a patch of alien ground. The models, draped in velvet and rainbow shining pastes (one of Hartnell’s is the jewel-encrusted coat) herald the night. With such glamorous intent, they border on the cruelly chic – there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. The two knights of style who dressed not only the Queen, but every woman who was fortunate enough to look – and feel – like one, at Scott’s, the Ritz, the Waldorf, would have to have concurred. When you are dressed for the night, the night applauds. And then from both fashion houses, because such glamour for most is a dream, came the scarves, the perfumes, the stockings and in Sir Hardy’s case, also diary after diary… printed on the cover with, according to the production year, Hardy, Dear Hardy, Dearest Hardy – without one jot of self-aggrandisement, of course
The Hartnell To Amies: Couture By Royal Appointment exhibition, celebrating the timeless elegance of London couture, is at the Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1, until 23 February: 020-7407 8664, www.ftmlondon.org
Hardy Amies, by Michael Pick, is published by ACC Editions, priced £45. Be Dazzled! Norman Hartnell: Sixty Years Of Glamour And Fashion, by Michael Pick, published by Pointed Leaf Press, priced £35, is available in the exhibition shop.
I had been told previously by Paco Rabanne that ties are a symbol of the hangman’s noose and so, consequently, he never made or wore ties. That, of course, is his view. I simply didn’t wear one.
Sir Hardy peeked over his spectacles at me and said, ‘Dear boy,’ with an intonation that suggested a delicious mixture of disdain and interest, ‘you can do anything – if you have style.’ I suppose that meant he liked me. And our acquaintance grew from then.
I met him again and described the carpet of his salon on one occasion, emblazoned with his initials, HA HA, as running through the house like an insistent, knowing laugh. But he could be frosty. Arctic. To many, he was known as ‘Hardly Amiable’. But if he liked you, he liked you.
Norman Hartnell, who had the honour of designing the Queen’s wedding dress and her coronation robe, displays two of his wasp-waisted gowns: Vogue, 1953At his Savile Row salon, I met beautiful, haughty yet anxious ladies whose coiffeur no gale dare disturb, their patient yet evidently bored husbands in Savile Row suits. Wonderful peachy-young models, not high-born (in fact decidedly not), but girls who knew how to pose in couture. Mincers and persuasive vendeuses who sold the glittering gowns to the glimmering select. Madame Raymonde… Madame Diana… And then, there was Hardy Amies’s long-time acquaintance, Bunny (Neil) Roger.
There he sat in the salon resplendent in black frock coat, an ice-blue cravat mounting, Eliot style, to his chin, surmounted by a huge diamond. And talking of diamonds, here is a little story. Apparently, one day when in a taxi and redoing his make-up in the back, on exiting, the driver (thinking he had a modicum of wit) said, ‘Dropped your diamonds, love?’. Quick as a diamond flash, Mr Roger parried… ‘Diamonds, with tweed? NEVER.’ The past is indeed the past.
Sadly, I never met Norman Hartnell (1901-1979). I was a shade too young (even in his latter years) to be dandying about salons on reporting missions.
Above left: A relaxed Hardy Amies in his showroom in the mid-1960s, with models in evening gowns Above right: Wenda Parkinson and Barbara Goalen in Hardy Amies, Trafalgar Square, 1949, by ParkinsonThese two stalwarts of British couture are currently being celebrated in a dazzling exhibition at the Textile Museum in London. Amies is further celebrated in a new book, and Hartnell in a monograph, both by the exhibition’s guest curator, Michael Pick. The talents of these two giants of couture are legendary. And not only for the women’s market – Hardy Amies in tailoring to the majority of male consumers via the high-street store, Hepworths. For sporting fans, his crowning moment was designing the suits worn by the 1966 World Cup-winning English football team, with the legendary Bobby Moore its captain.
Although very different in design approach, both became knights chevaliers and then knights actuellement, honoured by the Queen personally in recognition of their individual services. Hartnell designed her wedding dress in 1947 and her coronation gown in 1953, while from 1951, for the next five decades, the Queen had her outfits commissioned from Amies.
They changed the visual culture, quite literally. The Queen’s personal image not only impacted here in the United Kingdom but all over the globe. Her outfits became vital, visual, international ambassadors in themselves – instantly memorable.
The 1950s was an especially important time for British (nay… may we say, English, couture?). The exhibition, with a backdrop accompaniment of music from the same era, reminds the visitor that while couture was, of course, beyond the reach of most, one could acquire the couture ‘style’ in certain department stores, and also from the once ubiquitous neighbourhood seamstress. Also, many more than now could knit and sew, crochet and embroider, and patterns based on couture ‘models’ could be made up by the skilled, if financially challenged.
Glamour and display were key. Display – but not the vulgarity of display seen today. What went wrong? The angel, not the devil, was in the detail of stitch, embroidery, cut, material and flair (and flare); and decoration in terms of crystals, silk threads and tactile trims designed to add… les pointes finales. As Hartnell himself said, ‘I despise simplicity. It is the negation of all that is beautiful.’
But this is in part quite an ironic pronouncement, as the first thing one might notice about Hartnell or Amies is the elegant simplicity and explosive purity of what the French call la ligne… the line, or silhouette. The wearer’s form is clearly discerned, emphasised by shoulders, draped or bare, a winning waist and a flirty or challengingly restrictive hem. But she wears all of this, her feminine armoury, as a bird of paradise and, as such a creature, one who would not question the precious iridescence of her plumage.
Above left: Classic Hardy Amies, Wenda Parkinson models his striking ‘Romantic Look’ dress in 1947 Above right: Amies’s form-hugging jacket and pencil skirt shot at Hyde Park Corner: Vogue 1951Hardy Amies’s line was the same, but different. But both shared the identity and ideology of elegance – haughty, as at times it had to be. There was no intrinsic fuss but the exaggeration of scale and shape which is the point – of balanced proportion, a knack for emphasising the figure’s best features and as far as the onlooker goes, providing scoop backs, sack backs, floating drapes, diverting embroidery, especially under candlelight, and the conspiratorial conversations of myriad patterns to delight in the night.
One of the exhibition’s points is to highlight the difference between daywear and evening adornment. In one section, the mannequins seem as if a brood of mud-brown house sparrows (perfectly sliced into shape) had congregated on a patch of alien ground. The models, draped in velvet and rainbow shining pastes (one of Hartnell’s is the jewel-encrusted coat) herald the night. With such glamorous intent, they border on the cruelly chic – there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. The two knights of style who dressed not only the Queen, but every woman who was fortunate enough to look – and feel – like one, at Scott’s, the Ritz, the Waldorf, would have to have concurred. When you are dressed for the night, the night applauds. And then from both fashion houses, because such glamour for most is a dream, came the scarves, the perfumes, the stockings and in Sir Hardy’s case, also diary after diary… printed on the cover with, according to the production year, Hardy, Dear Hardy, Dearest Hardy – without one jot of self-aggrandisement, of course
The Hartnell To Amies: Couture By Royal Appointment exhibition, celebrating the timeless elegance of London couture, is at the Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1, until 23 February: 020-7407 8664, www.ftmlondon.org
Hardy Amies, by Michael Pick, is published by ACC Editions, priced £45. Be Dazzled! Norman Hartnell: Sixty Years Of Glamour And Fashion, by Michael Pick, published by Pointed Leaf Press, priced £35, is available in the exhibition shop.