Prato, at the Textile Museum the fashion of Swinging London by Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell

Stylized geometries, floral bouquets and art-inspired patterns (from medieval tapestries to Ballet Russes to all the Cubist avant-garde, pointillisme), the language of Ossie Clark and his wife Celia Birtwell defined Swinging London with their long, colorful, flowing gowns. The Prato Textile Museum is dedicating an exhibition to them, from Sept. 17 to Jan. 8, entitled Mr & Mrs Clark | Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell | Fashion and Prints 1965 - 74.

With an unmistakable style - flower power - anticipating trends, Ossie was called the “King of Kings Road” for his dresses that were inspired by the 1930s and 1940s, with a slender cut, revealing the décolleté amid sensual movements and plays of transparencies. It was a short but very intense career that left its mark on London in the period between Mary Quant ’s miniskirts and the subversive punk movement of Malcolm MacLaren and Vivienne Westwood, from 1965 to 1974. Clark and Birtwell(Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, from David Hockney ’s famous painting at Tate Britain, 1970- 71), came to define West London’s bohemian neighborhood, home to the new generation of bright, revolutionary young people.

Celia designed the prints on lightweight crepes, silks, and chiffons, and Ossie turned them into dresses that quickly conquered the international jet-set and pop scene. From Brigitte Bardot to Liz Taylor or Verushka, everyone was fascinated by their fashion. Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg. Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Bianca Jagger, and Marisa Berenson are just some of the characters Ossie Clark has dressed. When Hockney painted Ossie and Celia in their Notting Hill home, he portrayed a snapshot of modern life, with a perfect representation of the world of Clark and Birtwell whose designs embodied a brave new way of life. Ossie was also the first designer to rethink the idea of “occasion”: for him, evening gowns could be worn during the day and vice versa, while he invented the nude look with his transparent chiffons.

Starting with an initial important nucleus of dresses from the Massimo Cantini Parrini archive, enriched by additional loans from the Los Angeles-based Lauren Lepire collection (which has more than 200 of Ossie’s original dresses) and from the London archives of the Clark family and Celia Birtwell herself, the Museo del Tessuto di Prato and the Fondazione Sozzani are dedicating an extensive retrospective starting in September 2022 that can tell the story of the incredible creativity of these two figures often overlooked in the history of fashion.

Under the patronage of the National Chamber for Italian Fashion, the exhibition starts in September at the Prato Textile Museum and will arrive in January in Milan at the Sozzani Foundation. The itinerary presents not only a series of dresses with Ossie and Celia’s iconic prints, but aims to tell the story of the designer’s context and evolution, from the Quorum boutique in Chelsea, frequented by the youth of the London scene to performances, through a series of videos, period photos and editorials, memorabilia, sketches and reproductions of the designs, to an exclusive video interview with Celia Birtwell herself.

Even in the way he presented his fashion Clark was the first designer to extend the concept of performance to fashion shows, offering them in the most diverse venues, as happened at the Royal Court Theatre in 1971, with musical input from David Gilmour, one of the founders of Pink Floyd. His muses included Jane Birkin and Amanda Lear, who for years participated in his fashion shows, to Celia herself, from whom he parted in 1973, to the last F/W 1974presented collection at the King’s Road Theatre, which marked the end of their “golden age” and the change of an era.

“I am excited about this project that is meant to be a celebration of her life,” says Celia Birtwell. “It is important to keep Ossie’s flame burning so that her work is not forgotten. Professionals and students can learn a lot from her modeling and style. She is still an inspiration to so many people today and her clothes remain relevant today, a vision of a woman who is sexy and feminine but never vulgar.”

“For the first time, together with the project partners,” says curator Federico Paoletti, “we decided to dedicate an exhibition to this fashion duo, giving them equal importance, because Ossie’s shapes and cuts would not have had the same impact without Celia’s prints. This archival research was made possible thanks to the invaluable collaboration of Massimo Cantini Parrini, Lauren Lepire (Timeless Vixen in Los Angeles), the Clark family and Celia Birtwell herself, who generously made available unpublished, rare materials of great historical and artistic value.”

“We are very attached to this new exhibition project, which I consider to be highly innovative, both in terms of its content and its operational and organizational methods,” stresses Francesco Nicola Marini, president of the Prato Textile Museum Foundation. The garments and documentation on display are extraordinary and perfectly document the artistic relationship of these two great protagonists of twentieth-century fashion. We are very happy to start the collaboration with the Sozzani Foundation in a cultural project that connects Prato and Milan, as well as to renew the friendship and collaboration with the great costume designer and collector Massimo Cantini Parrini."

“In art and fashion,” says Carla Sozzani, president of the Sozzani Foundation, “one often encounters the role of the muse: Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark are part of the famous couples where one can never tell where one’s creativity ended and the other’s began. The Botticellian gowns of one and the dreamlike prints of the other, together they experienced a creative complicity that gave rise to a revolution in dress and a magic that defined an era of fashion.”

“This exhibition,” points out costume designer and collector Massimo Cantini Parrini, “chronicles the journey and creative partnership of two artists who in a single decade revolutionized and changed fashion forever, inspiring through their way of reinterpreting the art of printmaking and line design many generations of future couturiers. It is my honor to have discovered, studied and collected their clothes.”

The exhibition and catalog - Mr & Mrs Clark | Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell - pay tribute to two figures rich in inspiration for new generations, and with a bridge between Prato and Milan, represent a concrete sign of collaboration between institutions working to promote fashion culture through exhibition projects and publications.

The volume will be presented at the opening in September at the Museo del Tessuto in Prato with contributions from journalists and experts including Suzy Menkes, Antonio Mancinelli, Renata Molho, with Cristina Giorgetti, Giorgia Cantarinini, Antonio Moscogiuri, and Beatrice Man.

For all information, you can visit the official website of the Textile Museum.

Prato, at the Textile Museum the fashion of Swinging London by Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell

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