I have known the Arts & Crafts connoisseur, collector and dealer Paul Reeves since the early Noughties when I approached him for the second edition of my fashion x music book The Look; Paul’s previous career as a designer took in such important 60s and 70s labels and boutiques as Sam Pig In Love, Alkasura and The Universal Witness.
From the off we got on like a house on fire and became firm friends; he was a major contributor to my Tommy Roberts book and the ever-generous Paul has often hosted Caz and I at his wonderful Wiltshire farmhouse.
//Left: ‘Waitress dress’ designed by Diana Crawshaw for Mr Freedom 1971. Right: Karen Elson models Moschino dress in the Italian luxury brand’s campaign for its SS22 resort collection//
Even by the cynical standards of today’s fashion industry, the lifting – down to the closest detail – of a particular early 1970s design for British pop art store Mr Freedom by Italian luxury brand Moschino is breathtaking.
‘UNBELIEVABLE’ was the take of a leading fashion journalist while an internationally renowned fashion designer told me they thought it was ‘Outrageous!’
‘I’m sickened,’ says Diana Crawshaw, who came up with the original of this and many other designs for Mr Freedom’s owners Trevor Myles and Tommy Roberts between 1970 and 1972. ‘It’s terrible that they’ve simply been able to take things I spent a lot of time and effort on realising.’
The new version of Crawshaw’s waitress dress is the centrepiece of the Moschino collection, which is the brainchild of creative director Jeremy Scott. As well as direct quotes of these individual pieces, Moschino’s campaign appears as a tribute to a particular phase of Mr Freedom’s brief life, when its second set of premises at 20 Kensington Church Street included the cartoonish restaurant Mr Feed’Em.
//Mr Feed’Em waitress in hamburger repeat print dress in the restaurant 1971. Photography: Tim Street Porter/Elizabeth Whiting & Associates//
//Left: Mr Freedom designer Jim O’Connor. Photography: Tim Street Porter/Elizabeth Whiting & Associates//
//Mr Feed’Em interior. Photography: Tim Street Porter/Elizabeth Whiting & Associates//
And so the new Moschino campaign is replete with repeat prints and references to fried eggs, dripping hamburgers, hot dogs and ice-cream, all Mr Freedom and Mr Feed’Em motifs, as you can see in the film Scott has released to coincide with the collection drop:
And Crawshaw isn’t alone. The use of colour contrasts in the Moschino garments and on accessories such as bags imitates those used by another Mr Freedom designer, Jim O’Connor, as you can see here from this jumpsuit design in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s collection:
//Jim O’Connor for Mr Freedom jumpsuit collar and lapel detail. Photo: Paul Gorman Collection//
//Biker jacket handbag Moschino SS22//
That there is a paucity of new ideas in mainstream fashion is not news though I can’t help wondering about the role of those operators of vintage collections who are regularly raided by fashion designers in return for payments and thus encourage this behaviour.
Diana Crawshaw started her career at the King’s Road branch of I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet before moving on to make important contributions not just to Mr Freedom but also the legendary outlet Paradise Garage at 430 King’s Road.
//Frederiques Cifuentes photographs Diana Crawshaw outside 430 King’s Road for the King’s Road Fashion & Music Trail, 2012.//
A charming and constantly creative person, Diana was a Royal College a graduate and is now in her 70s. I interviewed her for the King’s Road music and fashion trail I created for Kensington & Chelsea Council in 2012 and when last I bumped into her (inevitably in Worlds End Books) she snapped a photograph of me and sent a flattering portrait she drew from it.
Diana continues as an inveterate Chelsea-ite as a palmist for the enduring outlet Wilde Ones (though at the moment is giving phone consultations). You can book a reading with her through the Wilde Ones website.
//Above Taron Egerton as Elton John and Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin meet “Tommy Roberts” in Rocketman. Stills from Kii Arens promo video for Egerton and John’s new single (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again//
//The pair of Mr Freedom winged boots acquired by Cecil Beaton for the V&A 1971 exhibition: Fashion: An Anthology//
During the production of Elton John biopic Rocketman there were plans for a scene set in London’s groundbreaking pop-art boutique Mr Freedom in the early 70s.
This was to set up the central character’s visual transformation during visits to the store under the influence of its charismatic founder and frontman, the late, lamented Tommy Roberts.
“Anyone who has wondered how the Britain of utility furniture and wartime rationing managed to evolve into Cool Britannia will find this a remarkable book.”
Elizabeth Guffey, State University of New York at Purchase
My case study Tommy Roberts: From Kleptomania To Two Columbia Road forms a chapter in new book British Design: Tradition And Modernity After 1948, which is published by Bloomsbury Academic tomorrow (October 22).
The spirit of great British boutique culture is summoned by a couple of lots in next week’s Pop Culture sale at Christie’s.
One is a previously unpublished June 1967 photograph of Jim Hendrix not in Carnaby Street as captioned, but outside the tobacconist Finlay’s, which was in Foubert’s Place. It’s evident from the carrier bag in his famous left hand that the guitarist had just visited I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, which was next door to Finlay’s and the place where he bought the Hussar’s jacket worn in this photograph and at Monterey Pop that same month.
//Harold Harris with 10ft tall display item designed by Rod Stokes, Mr Freedom, 1971. Photo courtesy Andrew Greaves.//
Something of a legend in 70s British boutique circles, here is Harold The Ted in all his glory accompanying one of the extravagant display items at Mr Freedom in Kensington Church Street: a 10 foot tall cut-out representation of a glowering boy scout made by Electric Colour Company’s Rod Stokes.
On October 17 I’m hosting the opening session of the Pop! Design Study Day at London’s Fashion & Textile Museum.
The event is part of the FTM’s Pop! Design Culture Fashion exhibition and I’ll be kicking off proceedings in conversation with John Dove & Molly White, Antony Price and Tommy Roberts.
On October 17 I’m hosting the opening session of the Pop! Design Study Day at London’s Fashion & Textile Museum.
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