Tuesday 26 October 2010

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

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Lovely post Liz! I'm going to this tomorrow, i'm so excited! My Gran loves telling me about the time my Grandad accidently threw away a bin bag full of her Horrockses dresses! As you can imagine it's not exactly one of my favourite stories to hear. :) x