V&A Fashion Perspectives

Derided by the traditional fashion establishment for declaring Mick Jagger 'stylish', Janey Ironside's career in the fashion industry was inseparable from her identity. As Professor of Fashion Design at the Royal College of Art from 1956 to 1968 she played a role in the sixties revolution that turned Britain's rag trade into a high-turnover mass-market industry targeting a new generation of cash-rich youth. Working behind the scenes, she trained a cohort of bright young designers including Ossie Clark, Bill Gibb, Zandra Rhodes, Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale. Ironside's autobiography begins with a vivid account of childhood in India, followed by working life in WWII Britain, the beginnings of a small couture business and her appointment as Professor of Fashion Design.

Aage Thaarup left his job in a Copenhagen department store in his teens to conquer the world. By the late 1930s, he had a shop in London and was milliner to the royal family. Revealed to the world by Cecil Beaton, his famous customers included Wallis Simpson, Margot Fonteyn and Marlene Dietrich – but the pinnacle of his career came with the creation of the tricorn hat worn by the Queen annually between 1953 and 1986 at the Trooping the Colour ceremony. Declared insolvent at least twice, Thaarup's obituary in The Times noted that 'He was not hardened by fame or fortune. He wore a cheerful disposition and a bow-tie always at a ten-to-four angle'.

Sir Norman Hartnell (1901–1979) dominated London couture during the inter-war years, gaining international fame as dressmaker to the British royal family. Silver and Gold, first published in 1955, tells how he formed his couture house, his appointment as dressmaker to the royal family in 1935, and the most momentous commissions of his career: Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown in 1947, and her magnificent Coronation dress six years later. Best known for romantic eveningwear, he also established a successful ready-to-wear line, dressing a loyal clientele of high society and film stars, cementing London's position as an innovative fashion center. Silver and Gold describes an extraordinary life, with elegance and panache.

Vogue was a newly formed weekly society magazine when Edna Woolman Chase arrived on its staff in 1895 at the young age of 18. Alongside its second owner, Condé Nast, she went on to remodel it into the institution we know today. Just a few days before he died, Condé wrote to Edna to express his deepest gratitude for her role in the creation of Vogue: "… without you I could never have built Vogue. We have built this great property together."

First published a year after World War II ended, this fictional text was written for a generation of women starved by war rationing of both clothing and makeup. Speculation on the true identity of the author takes in Norman Hartnell and Edward Molyneaux. Written in the format of a fashion show, the fantastical narrative describes a stream of mannequins as they step onto the catwalk, each bedecked in robes made from yards of silk, velvet and brocade, in a myriad of colors. The reader is invited to sit back on an apple-green taffeta settee, in a beautiful Salon with its roses and crystal pendants, and enjoy the show. The intention is pure pleasure, and the dresses are 'designed for the occasion.'

The working life of a women in retail in the 1930s was tough, but not beyond the no-nonsense Ethyle Campbell. Quite unlike any other book about the rag trade in the ʼ30s, this semi-autobiographical account of Campbell's time as a fashion buyer for a London department store rings with her slangy informative banter as she plies her trade, often hilariously, between the shop floor, the couture houses of Paris and factories of New York. The realities of the retail trade are interspersed with extraordinary vignettes, including a shoplifter with capacious bloomers stuffed with pilfered undies, and wealthy but unwashed society elite sporting filthy corsets and smelling so much that staff refused to serve them. Fed up with customers returning worn frocks as unsuitable and never forgetting that the customer is always the enemy, a determined Campbell splashes water over the dress of one notorious culprit in the wash room at the Savoy.

Icon of the sixties and one of the first supermodels, Jean Shrimpton rose to fame alongside photographer David Bailey. Together they revolutionized fashion photography with a new gritty street style. Perceptive, personal and disarming, The Truth About Modelling covers the early years of Shrimpton's life and career including her transformation at Lucie Clayton's modelling school from a naive country-loving teenager into a Vogue and Harper's Bazaar cover girl. She describes the frenetic life of a model in the 1960s and making a success of working with renowned photographers such as John French, Norman Parkinson, Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy and of course Bailey. Offering a fascinating insight into both sides of the camera, she includes her own interviews with the photographers and tips from many of her model contemporaries, including Celia Hammond and Tania Mallet. Timeless in its wisdom, this lively autobiographical guide to the art and business of modelling will inspire anyone setting out on the same path today.

Readers of The Sunday Times knew that the fashion journalist Ernestine Carter could spot a winner from a mile away, whether at a Paris couturier or a boutique on London's King's Road. Apocryphally, whatever she praised on Sunday was sold out by Monday lunchtime. In her entertaining and informative autobiography, Carter recalls her illustrious career as Fashion Editor at Harper's Bazaar during the 50s, describing her attendance at haute couture shows throughout Europe, including the exhilaration of seeing Dior's 'New Look' for the first time. Her insightful commentary on designers and fashion continued into the 60s as women's editor, and later associate editor at The Sunday Times, where she backed a rising generation of British designers including Mary Quant and Jean Muir.

Pierre Balmain ranks with the greatest couturiers of the mid-twentieth century. He created dresses for royalty, stage and screen stars with customers including Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Gertrude Stein and the Duchess of Windsor. More recently, his vintage gowns have been worn by Penelope Cruz and Angelina Jolie. During his early career Balmain worked alongside Christian Dior for the couturier Lucien Lelong. The two became great friends, planning to set up a business together, but eventually went their separate ways — and in 1945 Balmain opened his own salon. In his autobiography Balmain recalls his single-minded journey to success, from life as the son of a rural draper to renowned designer.