Playing dress-up

The child in us likes to play dress-up now and then, so to give my inner child this opportunity I invented Jacket January. It consists of everyday wearing one of the many "little jackets" that accumulated in my cupboard during The Working Years. 

One of those jackets is not so "little". It's made of Collier Campbell (furnishing) fabric - probably a remnant found in Liberty's in the 1980s, that era of shoulder pads and power dressing. I was all set to wear it today, to brighten up a gloomy day, but either the fabric is overwhelming or the day isn't quite gloomy enough -

 So I went for this ensemble instead -

Note the jaunty cuffs! This jacket too is from the 1980s (I think) - it was found in a charity shop early this century, unfashionable because of its huge shoulder pads. But the fabric is superb, and the label says Jaeger - and I love the cuffs - so I took the trouble to remove the shoulder pads and restyle the shoulders. (Inside was some proper tailoring, a delight to behold.)

The ceramic pin that rests on its lapel came from a craft show at Somerset House in 2009, and I don't remember the name of the maker. It's been printed with various layers of coloured slip, and the design, or the method, cries out to be turned into a woodblock print -

 Back to that Collier Campbell fabric -

The name of the designers hovered near the tip of my tongue for an agonising length of time - how to find it if all you know is that sounds like duh-duh and duh-duh and one of the names starts with C? Finally I remembered seeing an exhibition at the Fashion and Textile museum and could scroll through their archive of shows, what a relief!

Many of their fabrics are shown online, but I haven't been able to find "mine" - I'd love to know what they called the pattern ... "leftover paint", maybe?

Perhaps the best known is Kasak -

(via)

Or maybe Bauhaus?

(via)

 Or Cote d'Azur?

(via)

 In 2013 The Collier Campbell Archive was published; its blurb says:

For the five decades of their partnership, the sisters were at the forefront of textile design, with their vibrant hand-painted patterns.  

They were renowned for their handling of colour with a painter's aesthetic and their signature ability to cheat the repeat in printing: qualities that infuse their work with a sense of fluidity, freshness and exuberance.  

Launching their careers in London during the Swinging Sixties, they made their names with stunning collections for Liberty of London Prints, and their renowned patterns, with a painterly aesthetic, marked a significant turning point in textile design. 

Together, Susan and Sarah painted textile patterns for international clients including Yves Saint Laurent, Liberty, Habitat, Cacharel, Jaeger, Fischbacher, Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser and many others in the UK.  

In the USA, Collier Campbell became a sought-after brand for designer bedding with Martex, Westpoint Stevens, Springs Wamsutta, and Homestead; their decorative fabric was taken up by P. Kaufmann and Fabricut, and their wallcoverings by Manuscreens and Imperial Wallcoverings. 

In 2011, The National Theatre, London, celebrated fifty years of their exuberant designs to great acclaim. Important examples of their work are held in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York. 

Susan sadly died in May 2011; Sarah is now working independently under her own name, undertaking one-off special commissions from hand-painted fabric pieces, scarves and stationery, to patterns and textiles for the high street with collaborative lines in both Marks & Spencer and West Elm.

This scarf, which also emerged from years of dormancy in my cupboard, is not a Collier Campbell design, but rather in that spirit -