Chapter 1
Liberty – the early history
‘Until individual opinion is admitted to be free, we can have no true, original art in England, in dress, nor anything else: for the secret of all true art is freedom to think for ourselves, and to do as we like.’ Mrs Haweis in the Art of Dress, 1879
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Chapter 1
Liberty – the early history
‘Until individual opinion is admitted to be free, we can have no true, original art in England, in dress, nor anything else: for the secret of all true art is freedom to think for ourselves, and to do as we like.’ Mrs Haweis in the Art of Dress, 1879
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Design in the Festival, products include ‘Flower Pot’ scarf. Design Archives, University of Brighton Opposite page ‘Flower Pot’, print impression, Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1948. Liberty plc
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Between 1946 and 1952 the Liberty’s board went through various changes. Harold Blackmore, Arthur Lasenby Liberty’s nephew, retired as chairman in 1950; he had been a director of the company for 45 years. Another nephew, Ivor Stewart Liberty took over as chairman, but died soon after in 1952. He was succeeded by his son Arthur Stewart Liberty, still in his thirties, with Harold’s son Hilary Blackmore and William Dorell as his co-directors. William Dorell was much more experienced than the other two, he had been with the firm since 1908, first as a buyer and then, from 1935, as a director. Through his position he had close connections with Liberty’s agencies abroad, such as the firm of Metz & Co. in Holland. Liberty’s first major agent, Metz & Co., was well known for selling European avant-garde design: Liberty products from the 1900s, Wiener Werkstätte pieces in the 1910s, Sonia Delauney’s from the 1920s, and by the 1930s Metz & Co. was selling furniture by le Corbusier, Aalvar Aalto and Marcel Breuer. In 1951 Metz & Co. advised William Dorell that someone from Liberty should visit the Triennale Exhibition in Milan. Metz & Co. was enthusiastic about the new Italian designers, at a time when most modern retailers were looking much more at Scandinavian design. It is possible that it was through their influence that Liberty quickly acquired the best that Italy could offer in glass, leather goods and furniture. Arthur Stewart Liberty did go to Milan for the Triennale in 1951, meeting with one of Metz’s suppliers in Florence during the same visit. Of course it wasn’t just Metz’s influence that propelled the changes, there was a general mood for change after the war. Liberty was listening to advice from other sources as well, not least the Council of Industrial Design (CoID), which provided training and maintained lists of designers to recommend to enquiring manufacturers. During the Festival of Britain in 1951 several of Liberty’s products were represented in the Stock List exhibited in the Design Review section at South Bank. In the CoID’s book Design in the Festival there is a photograph of Ashley Havinden’s packaging for a Liberty perfume, as well as one of a Liberty scarf with a flowerpot design by Victoria Norrington.
Petra Timmer, Metz & Co., De Creatieve Jaren, Uitgeverij 010, Rotterdam 1995, p.156.
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Design in the Festival, products include ‘Flower Pot’ scarf. Design Archives, University of Brighton Opposite page ‘Flower Pot’, print impression, Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1948. Liberty plc
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Between 1946 and 1952 the Liberty’s board went through various changes. Harold Blackmore, Arthur Lasenby Liberty’s nephew, retired as chairman in 1950; he had been a director of the company for 45 years. Another nephew, Ivor Stewart Liberty took over as chairman, but died soon after in 1952. He was succeeded by his son Arthur Stewart Liberty, still in his thirties, with Harold’s son Hilary Blackmore and William Dorell as his co-directors. William Dorell was much more experienced than the other two, he had been with the firm since 1908, first as a buyer and then, from 1935, as a director. Through his position he had close connections with Liberty’s agencies abroad, such as the firm of Metz & Co. in Holland. Liberty’s first major agent, Metz & Co., was well known for selling European avant-garde design: Liberty products from the 1900s, Wiener Werkstätte pieces in the 1910s, Sonia Delauney’s from the 1920s, and by the 1930s Metz & Co. was selling furniture by le Corbusier, Aalvar Aalto and Marcel Breuer. In 1951 Metz & Co. advised William Dorell that someone from Liberty should visit the Triennale Exhibition in Milan. Metz & Co. was enthusiastic about the new Italian designers, at a time when most modern retailers were looking much more at Scandinavian design. It is possible that it was through their influence that Liberty quickly acquired the best that Italy could offer in glass, leather goods and furniture. Arthur Stewart Liberty did go to Milan for the Triennale in 1951, meeting with one of Metz’s suppliers in Florence during the same visit. Of course it wasn’t just Metz’s influence that propelled the changes, there was a general mood for change after the war. Liberty was listening to advice from other sources as well, not least the Council of Industrial Design (CoID), which provided training and maintained lists of designers to recommend to enquiring manufacturers. During the Festival of Britain in 1951 several of Liberty’s products were represented in the Stock List exhibited in the Design Review section at South Bank. In the CoID’s book Design in the Festival there is a photograph of Ashley Havinden’s packaging for a Liberty perfume, as well as one of a Liberty scarf with a flowerpot design by Victoria Norrington.
Petra Timmer, Metz & Co., De Creatieve Jaren, Uitgeverij 010, Rotterdam 1995, p.156.
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‘Fritillary’, print impression, Lucienne Day for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1952. Liberty plc Opposite page ‘Coronation Rose’, print impression, Lucienne Day for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1953. Liberty plc
Textile designers The textile industry was fairly conservative in its outlook. Only a handful of companies were looking at contemporary design for their products. These same companies were involved with the CoID and their influential exhibitions. It was the designers that these companies used that were written about. Most of the textile manufacturers used the many anonymous textile designers who produced large amounts of both good and bad commercial designs, but which were not usually particularly ground-breaking. Of the designers that one did hear about, a number were painters, such as John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore; others had trained on the continent before the war, such as Hans Aufseeser, Jacqueline Groag and Marian Mahler. Young art school-trained designers were also coming to the fore: Lucienne Day, Robert Stewart and Terence Conran, among others. Influences for their work came from diverse sources: Matisse, Klee and Alexander Calder in art, as well as from the newly discovered atomic structures. A look at the latter by manufacturers was encouraged by the CoID for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Liberty commissioned some of the top designers of the period: the names of Jacqueline Groag, Lucienne Day, Robert Stewart appear in connection with them in magazine articles, as well as those of the painter Martin Bradley and the designers Hilda Durkin, Anthony Levett-Prinsep and John Wright. They were freelance designers who also provided other companies with their work. Many of the patterns they sold to Liberty were printed first for Young Liberty and then later incorporated into the main furnishing range. A number of these designs were also sold through other outlets such as Woollands, Heal’s and Primavera. In 1952 Lucienne Day was commissioned to produce a Tudor Rose design for dress fabrics, with the idea that during 1953 – The Coronation Year – this motif could be repeated on other products, such as pottery, glass, souvenirs or fashion jewellery; in practice, it appears to have been produced only as a textile. That same year she produced a design for a furnishing fabric, a stylized pattern of butterflies known as ‘Fritillary’. Although Lucienne Day was an independent designer, her name was associated most closely with Heal’s, whereas Robert Stewart’s designs were mainly for Liberty at this time. The two companies felt that this was potentially confusing for their customers, and so came to an agreement: Liberty’s would no longer commission Lucienne Day, while Heal’s would not work with Robert Stewart. There are several designs by Jacqueline Groag in the Liberty
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‘Fritillary’, print impression, Lucienne Day for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1952. Liberty plc Opposite page ‘Coronation Rose’, print impression, Lucienne Day for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1953. Liberty plc
Textile designers The textile industry was fairly conservative in its outlook. Only a handful of companies were looking at contemporary design for their products. These same companies were involved with the CoID and their influential exhibitions. It was the designers that these companies used that were written about. Most of the textile manufacturers used the many anonymous textile designers who produced large amounts of both good and bad commercial designs, but which were not usually particularly ground-breaking. Of the designers that one did hear about, a number were painters, such as John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore; others had trained on the continent before the war, such as Hans Aufseeser, Jacqueline Groag and Marian Mahler. Young art school-trained designers were also coming to the fore: Lucienne Day, Robert Stewart and Terence Conran, among others. Influences for their work came from diverse sources: Matisse, Klee and Alexander Calder in art, as well as from the newly discovered atomic structures. A look at the latter by manufacturers was encouraged by the CoID for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Liberty commissioned some of the top designers of the period: the names of Jacqueline Groag, Lucienne Day, Robert Stewart appear in connection with them in magazine articles, as well as those of the painter Martin Bradley and the designers Hilda Durkin, Anthony Levett-Prinsep and John Wright. They were freelance designers who also provided other companies with their work. Many of the patterns they sold to Liberty were printed first for Young Liberty and then later incorporated into the main furnishing range. A number of these designs were also sold through other outlets such as Woollands, Heal’s and Primavera. In 1952 Lucienne Day was commissioned to produce a Tudor Rose design for dress fabrics, with the idea that during 1953 – The Coronation Year – this motif could be repeated on other products, such as pottery, glass, souvenirs or fashion jewellery; in practice, it appears to have been produced only as a textile. That same year she produced a design for a furnishing fabric, a stylized pattern of butterflies known as ‘Fritillary’. Although Lucienne Day was an independent designer, her name was associated most closely with Heal’s, whereas Robert Stewart’s designs were mainly for Liberty at this time. The two companies felt that this was potentially confusing for their customers, and so came to an agreement: Liberty’s would no longer commission Lucienne Day, while Heal’s would not work with Robert Stewart. There are several designs by Jacqueline Groag in the Liberty
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‘Beefeaters’, placemats, Robert Stewart for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1951. Donated by Sheila Paine. Liberty plc
‘Beefeaters’, placemats, Robert Stewart for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1951. Donated by Sheila Paine. Liberty plc
Page in Colleen Farr scrap book, ‘Sheena’ textile by Colleen Farr for Liberty and Co. Ltd, photograph of Foale & Tuffin dress, 1961. Central Saint Martins Museum & Contemporary Collection Opposite page ‘Sheena’, print impression, Colleen Farr for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1961. Liberty plc
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Page in Colleen Farr scrap book, ‘Sheena’ textile by Colleen Farr for Liberty and Co. Ltd, photograph of Foale & Tuffin dress, 1961. Central Saint Martins Museum & Contemporary Collection Opposite page ‘Sheena’, print impression, Colleen Farr for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1961. Liberty plc
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‘Eustacia’, print impression, printed at Liberty and Co. Ltd Merton print works, 1960. Liberty plc Opposite page Cocktail dress by American designer Arnold Scaasi, using ‘Eustacia’, 1961. Fashion Museum, Bath
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‘Eustacia’, print impression, printed at Liberty and Co. Ltd Merton print works, 1960. Liberty plc Opposite page Cocktail dress by American designer Arnold Scaasi, using ‘Eustacia’, 1961. Fashion Museum, Bath
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Yves Saint Laurent purchased one of the earliest ethnic prints Nevill did for Liberty, ‘Macedonia’, for the first maxi skirt he showed on the catwalk. The couturier told Bernard Nevill that it was his ‘most successful print ever’, and with the help of a very stylish fashion shoot by the photographer Sarah Moon, the skirt achieved instant iconic status. Bernard Nevill left Liberty in 1971 to work as a freelance designer. His legacy is an impressive body of work which is still influencing Liberty design today. Not only Foale & Tuffin and Yves Saint Laurent took up his prints, but also Cacharel, Daniel Hechter, Bill Blass, Jean Muir, Biba, Kenzo and Chloe. Although Bernard Nevill had initially been engaged to work on the ‘Lotus’ and scarf ranges, he was eventually to have an influence on all the Liberty textiles. Liberty’s great bread and butter fabrics were not the exclusive silks, but printed tana lawn and a printed wool challis called ‘varuna’. One of the most important users of these fabrics was Cacharel, a French company that had been started in 1962 by Jean Bousquet. When Liberty’s French agent, Gilbert Saada, showed him Liberty’s tana lawn, Bousquet knew that he had found something that worked well with the romantic Bohemian direction he wanted Cacharel’s clothing to go in. His sister-in-law, Corinne Sarrut, was a young designer who worked for the company. Like many of her contemporaries, she dressed in an arty mixture of ready-made clothing with items found at flea markets; this is the look that she used for Cacharel fashion. Liberty fabrics became an integral part of this look. As this fashion became more and more successful, increasingly large orders came through to Liberty. These orders were not only for traditional tana lawn florals, but also for some of Nevill’s more outlandish prints that had been transferred from ‘Lotus’ to tana and varuna. Another fabric that one wouldn’t necessarily associate with Liberty is nylon. Nylon during the sixties was still a desirable fashion fabric and Liberty marketed a printed version called Banlon. A whole range of designs was printed at Merton in 1967/8. Even Jean Muir sampled this product. However, Colin Glascoe, another designer, got in a large order before she was able to mount a joint promotion of the product with Liberty of London Prints. Glascoe ordered 40,000 yards of Liberty-printed Banlon and there are several advertisements and editorials featuring the dresses he made from this fabric. Liberty’s directors were rather annoyed when they found that Glascoe had omitted to mention Liberty in his advertisements.
Page from scrap book – ‘Lotus Tango’ range for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1965. Collection of Bernard Nevill ‘Garden’, cotton, for ‘Lotus Tango’ range, Bernard Nevill for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1965. Liberty plc Opposite page ‘Prunella’, nylon, Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1965. Liberty plc ‘Cunard’, Bernard Nevill for Liberty and Co., on varuna, 1968 Liberty plc
14 Telephone conversation with Jean Bousquet, 17 October 2007. 15 Jéromine Savignon, Cacharel, Assouline, Paris, 2003.
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Yves Saint Laurent purchased one of the earliest ethnic prints Nevill did for Liberty, ‘Macedonia’, for the first maxi skirt he showed on the catwalk. The couturier told Bernard Nevill that it was his ‘most successful print ever’, and with the help of a very stylish fashion shoot by the photographer Sarah Moon, the skirt achieved instant iconic status. Bernard Nevill left Liberty in 1971 to work as a freelance designer. His legacy is an impressive body of work which is still influencing Liberty design today. Not only Foale & Tuffin and Yves Saint Laurent took up his prints, but also Cacharel, Daniel Hechter, Bill Blass, Jean Muir, Biba, Kenzo and Chloe. Although Bernard Nevill had initially been engaged to work on the ‘Lotus’ and scarf ranges, he was eventually to have an influence on all the Liberty textiles. Liberty’s great bread and butter fabrics were not the exclusive silks, but printed tana lawn and a printed wool challis called ‘varuna’. One of the most important users of these fabrics was Cacharel, a French company that had been started in 1962 by Jean Bousquet. When Liberty’s French agent, Gilbert Saada, showed him Liberty’s tana lawn, Bousquet knew that he had found something that worked well with the romantic Bohemian direction he wanted Cacharel’s clothing to go in. His sister-in-law, Corinne Sarrut, was a young designer who worked for the company. Like many of her contemporaries, she dressed in an arty mixture of ready-made clothing with items found at flea markets; this is the look that she used for Cacharel fashion. Liberty fabrics became an integral part of this look. As this fashion became more and more successful, increasingly large orders came through to Liberty. These orders were not only for traditional tana lawn florals, but also for some of Nevill’s more outlandish prints that had been transferred from ‘Lotus’ to tana and varuna. Another fabric that one wouldn’t necessarily associate with Liberty is nylon. Nylon during the sixties was still a desirable fashion fabric and Liberty marketed a printed version called Banlon. A whole range of designs was printed at Merton in 1967/8. Even Jean Muir sampled this product. However, Colin Glascoe, another designer, got in a large order before she was able to mount a joint promotion of the product with Liberty of London Prints. Glascoe ordered 40,000 yards of Liberty-printed Banlon and there are several advertisements and editorials featuring the dresses he made from this fabric. Liberty’s directors were rather annoyed when they found that Glascoe had omitted to mention Liberty in his advertisements.
Page from scrap book – ‘Lotus Tango’ range for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1965. Collection of Bernard Nevill ‘Garden’, cotton, for ‘Lotus Tango’ range, Bernard Nevill for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1965. Liberty plc Opposite page ‘Prunella’, nylon, Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1965. Liberty plc ‘Cunard’, Bernard Nevill for Liberty and Co., on varuna, 1968 Liberty plc
14 Telephone conversation with Jean Bousquet, 17 October 2007. 15 Jéromine Savignon, Cacharel, Assouline, Paris, 2003.
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Floral design for tana lawn, fent sheet, print special for Mary Quant, mid-1960s. Liberty plc
‘Norma’, archive design, on tana lawn, 1968. Liberty plc
‘Five Stones and One Bird’ – Mary Quant using Liberty and Co. Ltd tana lawn. Norman Parkinson Archive
‘Cirey’ floral design for tana lawn, E Tomalin for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1960. Liberty plc
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Floral design for tana lawn, fent sheet, print special for Mary Quant, mid-1960s. Liberty plc
‘Norma’, archive design, on tana lawn, 1968. Liberty plc
‘Five Stones and One Bird’ – Mary Quant using Liberty and Co. Ltd tana lawn. Norman Parkinson Archive
‘Cirey’ floral design for tana lawn, E Tomalin for Liberty and Co. Ltd, 1960. Liberty plc
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Liberty and Co. Ltd shopping bag, Ashley Havinden, 1948-mid-1960s. Liberty plc
Liberty paper shopping bag, 2008. Liberty plc
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Liberty and Co. Ltd shopping bag, Ashley Havinden, 1948-mid-1960s. Liberty plc
Liberty paper shopping bag, 2008. Liberty plc
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