it had to be horrockses

i recently had a lovely afternoon looking at old photos with my granny. granny brown had so many beautiful printed dresses, of those she hadn't made herself a few special pieces were horrockses. horrockses fashions was established in 1946 as a ready-to-wear women's wear brand and encompassed day, evening and beach wear. horrockses were particularly clever with marketing, regularly advertising in vogue (at the time filled with couture) and being worn by well known models and many in the royal family. dresses were covered in distinctive prints, designed by contemporary artist such as eduardo paolozzi and graham sutherland.

i visited the horrockses exhibition at the fashion and textiles museum (which if you miss look out for the book written by the exhibitions curator christine boydell) filled with great examples from the archives. i particularly liked the bikini and play suits and of course the beautiful prints, my favorites including a green and yellow banana print and crazy 50's atomic styles.

an illustrated fashion advertisement, vogue june 1949

hand painting in the design studio

princess margaret in her horrockses dress 1956. fabric designed by louise le brocquy

very sanderson indeed

i have been enjoying lots of printing in the studio for the past few weeks but last thursday i was lucky to have a day off and visit the fashion and textiles museum to see very sanderson: 150 years of english decoration. the exhibition was packed full of printed and woven textile and paper designs from across the years of sanderson. iconic designs and real technical innovation are great to see up close and in brilliant colour. my personal highlights included the heavily embossed wallpapers from the 1860's, a stunning hand painted early wall frieze with peacocks, william morris flocked wallpaper designed for queen victoria and flocked with merino wool, the slightly creepy disney collaborations of the 20's and 30's and headache inducing 80's chintz (i am sure we all experienced that trend). i just wish i had photos of it all:

(from t: embossed leather paper 1860's, block printed paper 1875, original 'chintz' machine printed paper 1905 and a current design 'dandelion clocks' by fiona howard 2009)