Wendy, Janey, Joanne and Madge: Inspirational Professors of Fashion at the Royal College of Art 1948-2014

Description

Madge Garland, Janey Ironside, Joanne Brogden and Wendy Dagworthy, a quartet of remarkable educators and doyennes of style and skill, encouraged their students with rigorous determination to produce nothing but the best. Garland, previously Fashion Editor of Vogue magazine and a brave pioneer when the educational establishment regarded fashion as 'frippery', laid foundations on which Ironside, the sparkling innovator built. Then Brogden took the School into a more competitive commercial world with fashion becoming a major economic force. When Dagworthy took over in the final decade of the 20th century, she guided her students into a new era while still respecting the inheritance of her predecessors. Today's markets demand high-fashion-ready-to-wear, with the RCA School of Fashion's reputation second to none for innovation in design and manufacturing techniques, and its alumni now in positions of influence throughout the world. From retail and industrial connections forged in the 1950s, RCA designers such as Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes, established their reputations, and top world-wide brands including Kenzo, Givenchy, Gucci , Louis Vuitton and Calvin Klein, clamoured to employ star RCA students.

Henrietta Goodden has written three books for Unicorn Press: Camouflage and Art, The Lion and The Unicorn and Robin Darwin. Henrietta graduated from Kingston Polytechnic with First Class Honours in Fashion Design. As a fashion designer her clients have included M&S, Conran Design Group and Pentagram. She has been Senior Tutor in Womenswear at the Royal College of Art and a visiting lecturer there.

"A fascinating and entertaining exposure of the professional and (sometimes scandalous) private lives of these four brilliantly stylish and inspirational women. The turbulent and often unconventional history of the College in the second half of the twentieth century forms a fitting backdrop to these stories, but it's the strength, passion, charisma, and rigorous standards of these women that we must admire. Goodden tells their story compellingly and with insight." -- Betty Jackson, Royal Society of Arts "This remarkable book is about, for the first time in detail, four strong personalities-eccentric, stylish, talented, driven. Together, they defined fashion at the College from the Second World War right through to the twenty-first century." -- Sir Christopher Frayling, author of Once Upon a Time in the West: Shooting a Masterpiece