Thea Porter's Scrapbook

Description

Starting in 1966, Thea Porter designed clothes for the rich and famous for nearly two decades. Her creations were made from sumptuous fabrics that drew inspiration from the Middle East, combining richly patterned silks with antique fabrics. Her clothes were a must for music and film stars such as Pink Floyd, Crystal Gayle, Elizabeth Taylor, and Barbra Streisand. Porter soon became a key member of an innovative group of British designers that included Ossie Clark, Zandra Rhodes, and Jean Muir, and her place in the history of British fashion was ensured when she was named Designer of the Year in 1972. Thea Porter's scrapbook is her story in her own words, an unpublished autobiography she put together before her death in 2000. Edited by her daughter Venetia, and with an essay by fashion historian Amy de la Haye, it reveals Porter's further talents as a keenly observant and descriptive writer. This book which includes working drawings, sketches, snapshots, and manuscript notes, serves as a memoir of her early life and career, charting many memorable episodes, including the dramatic surge of American interest in her clothes, and the opening of her shop in Paris as she pursued her ambition to create dresses "beyond trend and tat, that thirty years from today will still be beautiful."

Venetia Porter is a curator at the British Museum and works on the collections of Islamic and Middle East art. She is Thea Porter's daughter and co-author with Laura McLaws Helms of Thea Porter: Bohemian Chic (2015). Amy de la Haye is Professor of Dress History and Curatorship at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. She has published extensively and curated exhibitions on British fashion. She was formerly Curator of Twentieth-century Dress at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

"The whole book is a great slice of fashion history." --Alexandra Shulman, former editor-in-chief, British Vogue; "A captivating book...Porter's writing resembles her designs - it is often...a sensual patchwork...Like a wardrobe overflowing with wondrous clothes, the book is stuffed with photographs and paintings" Kate Kellaway, The Observer