The Boy Friend: Outfit Illustrations

It’s only recently that I’ve realised I’ve got a bit of a thing for fashion illustrations, perhaps I always have, but after sharing those from the Biba Story and then buying those Vogue pattern catalogue pages which I intend to frame, well that’s confirmed it for me.

It won’t be a surprise then that I’ve some more to share, this time from the mini exhibition of The Boy Friend which was on at the Fashion and Textile Museum when we visited last summer.

These illustrations look to have more of a collage approach to them - the skimpy outfit above with treble clef motifs on the triangular-bikini like top, show this - though the headdress looks to be larger than the skirt, but maybe that’s a perspective thing, not just me showing my age!

The red outfit on the left below looks to have the text ‘The Boyfriend - Hortense - Barbara Windsor’ in the top right corner, which is intriguing. Hortense was the maid, and it’s only now that I’ve googled it, the part was played by Barbara Windsor, who would have been 34 in 1971.

The sophisticated white trouser suit top right in the photo above, was one of Twiggy’s outfits as the main character Polly Broome. They take wide legged trousers, and flares to a whole new level don’t they?!

Shirley Russell had a fondness for the 1920s, so The Boy Friend must have been the ideal project for her. Twiggy shared Shirley’s love of the era and often joined the Russells for film shows to watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers pictures. She also accompanied Shirley on trips to source original costumes, learning more about the costume history of the period, and started collecting clothes from the period too. I wonder if she still has them?

These last two illustrations are the pixie outfits for Twiggy as Polly Browne and Christopher Gable as Tony (the two main characters), though I’m not sure where these featured, as I’m sure in the finale fancy dress ball they were dressed as Pierrot and Pierrette, I need to find out more clearly!

But these illustrations reminded me of my part in the chorus, for the fancy dress ball I was the jester - thankfully there are no photos I’m willing to share, but my outfit, complete with jester hat with bells on, made in what I remember as itchy brown and mustard material, which also thankfully no longer exists!

Memories that may well have remained well and truly buried had they not been reawakened by these illustrations - I’ll let them off though, it was great to see these illustrations!

Quilts at The Workhouse

Over Easter we visited The Workhouse, a National Trust property in near to us Southwell. It was our first visit to our nearest National Trust property, and it turned out to be a hugely educational visit too. It was unlike other properties that we’d visited owned by the trust, and as you’d expect that was largely down to the original nature of the property.

I may share more about the property and its original use in a future post, and it’s a topic that deserves sharing, but for today I’m sharing some pictures and information about some of the quilts on display.

They too have a story, and are part of a community project highlighting the impact of domestic violence.

The information sheet alongside this first cushion quilt above says that ‘each square commemorates a women who was killed by a current or former partner’ and that there are two further quilts and cushion as part of this project.

That any quilt like this needs to exist is wrong, but it’s not the first commemorative quilt that I’ve seen either, sadly. Each square has been sewn with love and I’m sure fierce determination that these women won’t be forgotten, and the hope that no further quilts are needed.

I am questioning though if this would be more correctly categorised as gender based violence, which is also completely unacceptable. While I don’t know of each case represented in these quilts, I do have some knowledge of Sabina Nessa, who was murdered in Greenwich close to where we used to live. Sabina was killed by a man unknown to her, rather than a current or former partner, who is now serving a life sentence for her murder.

The Leighann Wightman quilt above is a tribute to her by her stepmother who wanted to use her time during lockdown to create a quilt as a tribute to women who lost their lives to domestic violence from 2016-2020.

The two cushions on display, made later, represent the women who lost their lives between 2020 and 2022.

The quilt below - The Women’s Quilt - pieces together five hundred and ninety-eight women each of whom were connected by a single thread. Every name is included, along with stars, birds, moons and hearts; their names are stitched in the colours of their eyes, the embroidered loops and waves in the hues of their hair. The poignancy in this detail was hard to miss.

All of the exhibits on show were humbling, and a sober reminder of the world we live in today, and as one of the exhibition boards said ‘the most beautiful project that shouldn’t exist’.

A Brace of Embraces

* I was invited to the press preview of Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to visit the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

The Urban Gardens were a new feature at the 2024 show. They were both designed by Cherry Carmen but the gardens were brought to life by two teams of landscapers both vying to win the competition hosted by World Skills UK. Each garden was designed to embrace issues related to climate change - one focussed on Shady & Wet, and yeap you’ve guessed it, the other on Sunny & Dry. But which would win out?

Determined to have its own say, the weather wreaked havoc with both of the garden signs - the wind managed to rip the board from the wood for the Shady & Wet sign - ironic much? And both signs ended up laying down alongside its garden - you couldn’t make it up could you?

Shady & Wet

This garden was landscaped by Anna Mcloughlin and Ceri Furber and showcases a waterlogged or boggy garden. It’s a north-facing garden so doesn’t get the sun to dry it out, and so the planting demonstrates how to work with your garden’s reality and how by using correct techniques and plant choices you can still achieve something quite special.

I liked the planting in the Shady & Wet garden and I think that each of us can do more to work with what our garden gives us - just because we like a plant, it doesn’t mean it will thrive in the space we have - and we have to learn and respect that. In our previous garden we rarely had any bedding plants, save for a few around the patio, as there just wasn’t the light they needed given the large shrubs and trees we had. It’s something we came to accept, and obviously saved a lot of work trying to force things to work where they really weren’t happy.

Sunny & Dry

The landscapers for this garden were Aimee Copland and Jacob Mercer, and as you’d expect from its name this garden is south-facing and so becomes very hot in summer. Once again the planting and design has been adapted to work with, rather than fight against, the garden’s conditions.

This garden has a lot going for it and the plants appealed to both MOH and I. In fact this was MOH’s favourite garden in the show, which kind of surprised me and kind of didn’t. He likes strong sculptural plants - and has his eye on a banana plant, which while I’d be happy to have in the garden, so far I’ve resisted as I don’t think we’re quite ready to care for it, or have the supporting plants and infrastructure around it which I think it will need (but that’s a whole other post!)

I do think that there is something to learn from the dry gardens that we’ve seen, both here in this garden and previously at the show and in other gardens, such as the RHS Hyde Hall - and I think that is definitely something we’ll be incorporating into our future garden. I think more and more of us will do that too especially as the climate continues to change.

Oh, and I almost forgot - the Sunny & Dry garden was awarded a gold medal, so I guess that garden won, and I’m not disappointed by that.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was just as good as I expected! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to the show - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.