Let’s Get Digital: Welcome to the Fashion and Textile Museum Blog!

Although our building is currently closed, it is extremely important to us that we continue to share the joys of fashion and textiles with you all during these uncertain times. Museums around the world have been working incredibly hard, developing online content to ensure as many people as possible can access arts and culture from their homes. The Fashion and Textile Museum is no exception. Our small but dedicated team has …

Tricia Guild: In My View

As one of the world’s foremost interior designers, Tricia Guild has a passionate belief that the way we choose to live has a significant impact on our well-being and happiness. The homes that we live in, the things that we surround ourselves with, and the everyday choices we make, can profoundly affect our outlook and …

Exhibition Archives: Kaffe Fassett – A Life in Colour

Introduction Kaffe Fassett’s career spans over 50 years in a life as rich and colourful as the textiles and artworks that he creates. His influence in knitting, quilting, needlepoint and mosaic is arguably the widest ranging in the world. From his childhood in California’s Big Sur to his life-changing relocation to London in the 1960s, …

Designers Guild: The Early Years

Designers Guild was conceived in 1970 when Tricia (b.1946) and Robin Guild (1938–2006) purchased David Bishop’s decorating company, based on the corner of Paultons Square and King’s Road in London, an area with a somewhat tarnished shopping ambience. Here they launched Proposals in March 1971, a showroom for contemporary Italian furniture by Saporiti. Meanwhile, struck …

Volunteer Voices: Sewing as a Form of Self-care

From embroidery and cross-stitching, to finishing a pile of forgotten clothing that needs mending, it appears that more people are turning to sewing as a form of self-care. With more free time, and the desire to switch off work-mode when working from home, it is unsurprising that home sewing is having a remarkable renaissance. Sewing …

Exhibition Archives: 1920s Jazz Age Fashion and Photographs

Dawn of a Decade The end of the First World War marked a new era. The borders of Europe were redrawn and the United States of America, along with Britain and France, entered a period of economic prosperity. Traditional values gave way to newer and more radical codes of conduct that were being established by …

Volunteer Voices: Textile Heroins – Anni Albers

Anni Albers (1899 – 1994) was a twentieth century modernist artist and designer who worked in the medium of textiles, and is particularly known for using the method of hand weaving. Throughout her career Albers produced many forms of textiles including functional and architectural works. Albers began her artistic training at the Bauhaus in 1922 …

Exhibition Archives: Designing Women: Post-war British Textiles

The art of textile design radically changed after World War II. Women artists working in England in the 1950s were pivotal in this artistic revolution. The drab days of the War were suddenly washed with the light of the fresh, progressive designs by Lucienne Day (1917-2010), Marian Mahler (1911-1983) and Jacqueline Groag (1903-1985). Original artist …

Exhibition Archives: Tommy Nutter – Rebel on the Row

Introduction By the 1960s, the world of bespoke tailoring had been left behind by the ‘youthquake’ generation. As a consequence Savile Row, for 100 years the pinnacle of discreet taste and gentlemen’s dressing, was seen as an outmoded and old fashioned approach to dressing in the milieu of Swinging London. Savile Row itself was established …

Exhibition Archives: Hartnell to Amies – Couture by Royal Appointment

Introduction This retrospective exhibition of ground-breaking London designers Norman Hartnell, and Hardy Amies celebrates the timeless elegance of fashionable London couture. The consummate design skills of these men were – publicised world-wide by the patronage of the Royal Family and helped to re-establish Britain’s reputation as an international fashion centre after the Second World War. …

Couture Inside Out: Zandra Rhodes

One of our most popular and long-running workshops is Couture Inside Out. This workshop is the rare opportunity to join the Museum’s exhibitions team to view the ins and outs of couture construction; to take an up-close and intimate look at selected garments from the Fashion and Textile Museum Collection. While we can’t bring this …