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Showing posts with label fashion history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fashion history. Show all posts

Roman Baths and the Fashion Museum

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Yesterday, I treated my oldest daughter to a trip to the Romans Baths. What a stroke of luck, they offered a combined ticket to the Fashion Museum for just £5 more, so we went there as well. I was extra pleased to discover they had 3 great exhibitions on, so a fun, history and culture filled day for us both. It's funny, I spend so much time at looking at other places to go (London in particular), I often miss the stuff on my own doorstep.
The Roman Baths took on a strange mystical like appearance in the crisp, cold air and bright sunshine. Easy to understand why they believed to be something to do with the gods.
roman baths I was really glad that I invested in a new coat (Tom Wolfe) in the pre Christmas sales, perfect for days like this when I am out and about.


roman baths

I was hoping the spa water might help alleviate the symptoms of over indulgence over Christmas and horrendous cold, but I am not really convinced.
We had no time to stop for lunch, just a Thai Chicken Pasty (I know the New Year diet starts tomorrow) before rushing on to the Fashion Museum.

The Dress of the year collection - each year since 1963 a fashion expert has chosen the best fashions in the world for the museum collection. Interesting choices, do you recognise any of these?








Foale and Tuffin Exhibition - a display, to coincide with the publication of Foale and Tuffin. The Sixties. A Decade in Fashion by Iain R Webb, aims to illustrate how, like many fashion designers, the duo reworked certain themes and fabrics throughout their career. Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin's designs and boutique off Carnaby Street embodied the spirit of the swinging sixties.

The Bill Gibb Exhibition - this display coincides with the launch of the book Bill Gibb 'Fashion and Fantasy' by Iain R Webb. Whilst Bill Gibb was not that recognised as a designer, I love his seventies, hippy style pieces in rich colours and patterns. The cuttings and drawings also very interesting.







fashion museum bath

John Bates Photographs

museum of costume bath
And the best bit of all. The chance to get dressed up in a corset and skirt. I love the shape and will never again complain about the impracticality of modern fashion.



Really interesting to see the different styles of the different periods and how fashion has evolved. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone visiting Bath, along with a tour of the city's vintage shops and boutiques. I wonder what will appear in the Fashion Museum for the noughties in years to come. Skinny jeans and ugg boots perhaps?

Coco Before Chanel - the suit, the little black dress and the quilted bag

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Coco Chanel


Coco Chanel Pictures

At the end of the month Coco before Chanel, a film about the fashion designers life starring Audrey Tatou will be showing at the cinema. I will most definitely be planning a trip to see it with the girls.
Coco Chanel, whose real name was actually Gabrielle, was such an amazing designer and definitely one of a kind. She started her first shop in 1913 and over the years earnt herself the status of a style icon for her simple, practical and mens wear inspired clothes that were ground breaking in their day. Her designs allowed women to abandon their corsets giving them greater comfort and freedom of movement. She was also the first designer to use jersey for clothing, an unusual choice at the time, but look how many of our clothes are made of jersey now.

What is so amazing about Coco Chanels clothes is that they are still so relevant to women of today. I so often see clothes in the shops that have a Chanel like qualities about them. Whilst Chanel's clothes differed from other clothes of the time (particularly Dior) in being inspired by menswear, they still had very feminine and elegant qualities.
Some of the key characteristics of Chanels clothes that still live on today are the little black dress, a staple in almost every womans wardrobe, simple, flattering and suitable for a multitude of occasions, suits often in tweed with boxy lines, collarless jackets, trimmed with braid and shortened narrow skirts, clothes in black, white and beige, romantic and slimline evening dresses and of course quilted bags (inspired by clothes worn at the horse racing she loved to attend).

Collarless boxy style jacket - Marks and Spencers

Little Black Dress - Marks and Spencers


Quilted Handbag - New Look