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Exciting news: Elizabeth Hamey, who signs her work ‘Refna’, has granted me access to her amazing archive of work at the cross-hatches of art, design and fashion in the 1960s and 70s.
Ian Harris is one of those London characters who turns up at various stages in the capital’s post-war pop culture narrative.
“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 […]
My recent post about the Mr Freedom designs in the V&A collection sparked some memories from graphic artist Ian Harris, who sends this 1972 photograph of himself in a Mr Freedom hamburger print shirt: In the 1972 photo, the shirt’s hamburger appliqué is obscured; Harris had worked for Mr Freedom partner Tommy Roberts at his […]
I’m involved in a couple of events which open in London this week: artist Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered project Carnaby Echoes in the West End and photographer Nick Knight’s exhibition Punk at his Showstudio space in SW1.
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boutique culture is summoned by a couple of lots in next week’s Pop Culture sale at Christie’s. One is a previously unpublished June 1967 photograph of Jim Hendrix not in Carnaby Street as captioned, but outside the tobacconist Finlay’s, which was in Foubert’s Place.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 […]
Ahead of Tommy Roberts’ appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Midweek and London Live 94.9’s Robert Elms Show tomorrow, there has been a flurry of media mentions of the mould-breaking boutiques with which he was involved.
This is the front of the jacket of my new book Mr Freedom – Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero.
Tommy Roberts reminisces about the look of 1967: By 1967 Haight Ashbury hippie culture had taken off in London. At Kleptomania – my boutique around the corner from Carnaby Street at 10 Kingly Street – it was embraced with gusto. Out went red guardsman’s tunics, Union Jack kipper ties, Victorian-style lacy mini dresses, soul music […]