This was the moment for the female form to regain freedom and movement, for individuality to be celebrated with pride
The Design Museum - Fifty Dresses that Changed the World
A FEW WEEKS ago we went to see a small exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery called Unpicking Couture. It was a chance to see some beautiful dresses designed by some clever people, and as we wandered into the exhibition space and started exploring, my husband grabbed my arm and pointed at one of the exhibits. Standing behind an easel on which an open book was resting, was this:
Do you recognise it? I’ll give you a clue: it features in a famous painting of a married couple and a cat.
If you’re interested in art you might recognise it as the dress Celia Birtwell wore in the painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, which was completed by David Hockney in 1971. He thought the name Percy sounded better than Blanche, the cat’s actual name, so he changed it.
I’ve tidied up that photo so that you can see the dress clearly, but here’s one of the original images.
There she is, the beautiful and talented textile designer Celia Birtwell, wearing the very same black and scarlet moss-crepe dress designed by her then-husband, the designer Ossie Clark, in 1970. There he is, sitting barefoot next to her in their London flat. This wedding portrait was painted by their best man, and is now displayed at Tate Britain in London. It captures a moment when these two designers were being celebrated by the British fashion world, but their story was complex, and was to become a great deal more complex yet. This depiction of an apparently tranquil domestic scene is now a very well-known image of the era.
Raymond Clark was born in Liverpool in 1942. His family lived in the Lancashire town of Oswaldtwistle during the Second World War, hence the nickname “Ossie”. He showed an early interest in designing clothes and tailoring, and when he studied art and architecture at Beamont Secondary Technical School in Warrington his art teacher encouraged his talent for clothing design. At age sixteen he enrolled at the Regional College of Art in Manchester, graduating in 1958.
Arriving in London in 1961 Clark attended the Royal College of Art and studied under the tutelage of the college’s head of fashion design, Professor Janey Ironside, as did contemporaries such as Zandra Rhodes and Bill Gibb. Birtwell, a young designer and alumna of the Royal Technical Institute in Salford, already knew Clark from his Manchester days, and although Clark was openly gay they started a relationship when she moved to London, living together in a flat in Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill. The attraction was more than just physical; they shared an interest in fashion and design, and in time they were working together, Birtwell’s beautiful textile designs becoming a feature of Clark’s creations.
In 1963 whilst living with Birtwell, Clark began an affair with David Hockney. The following year the two embarked on an epic road trip in the US, during which they saw the Beatles perform at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, courtesy of their manager Brian Epstein, whom Clark had met in a gay bar in New York. Meeting up in Chicago, Clark and Hockney travelled to New Orleans for a short stay then drove to New York for Hockney’s first American show at the Alan Gallery. In his book Hockney, A Rake’s Progress, Christopher Simon Sykes gives a flavour of the circles in which the two Englishmen of humble origins were now moving:
Clark, on a permanent high, was thrilled to meet Paul Newman, Diana Vreeland, then editor of American Vogue, and Andy Warhol at the opening.1
By the time the travellers returned to the UK they were no longer an item, and Clark resumed his relationship with Birtwell, moving into her rented flat in St. Quintin Avenue.
Even before he had completed his studies Clark made a special collection for the Woollands 21 Shop in Knightsbridge, a boutique aimed at the emerging youth market. Its buyer was Vanessa Denza, who worked with the Royal College of Art to discover and promote new talent for the shop, helping to launch the careers of new designers.2 In 1965 Clark graduated with first class honours, putting on a fashion show at the RCA that attracted widespread press attention. The same year Alice Pollock, owner of Quorum on the King’s Road, signed him up exclusively, and his first collection there sold outright to Henri Bendell of New York. By 1967 the company was struggling financially, and Pollock sold the brand to Radley, who financed Clark to start his own line.
It was a free-spirited existence and relationships were fluid. Hockney has asserted in interviews that he is a true bohemian, and there is ample evidence for this in the two-volume biography by Sykes. Clark was an extrovert; charismatic, attractive and very receptive to the hedonistic world in which he found himself. Rock stars and actors wore his designs. His garments often had a romantic, floaty, feminine feel, and they captured a mood that is very evident in the Jack Hazan movie A Bigger Splash (1974), which provides a vivid snapshot of Hockney and his milieu in the 1970s. It is indispensable to art historians and Hockney fans alike.
Named after one of Hockney’s most famous paintings, A Bigger Splash is a surreal and often eerie semi-documentary of Hockney’s life at time it was made. Central to the plot, which loosely follows actual events, is the artist’s breakup with his lover and muse Peter Schlesinger. The Clarks both appear in the film, but Celia, who had by then become a close confidant of Hockney through her friendship with Schlesinger, figures the most. It is a strange, episodic film, and a valuable record of an interesting group of people, including the art curator Henry Geldzahler and the English artist Patrick Procktor. In one scene Hockney, Birtwell and Schlesinger are in the front row at a Quorum fashion show at the Royal Court Theatre watching the catwalk display. At the end Ossie, wearing a chic white suit, cavorts onstage with the models.
Mo McDermott, a young textiles student from Salford and friend of the Clarks had also made his way to London. He became an assistant to Hockney and narrated part of the film. Referring to the artist’s melancholy state after the breakup with Schlesinger, he observes wearily:
Ossie’s not been round and he’s hurt. The thing is, Ossie can’t bear sickness or depression. He fucks off; goes to Tangier or works. That’s all very well, but it does put it all on me and Celia.
Here’s Mo visiting Ossie in his workshop, where the designer is finishing off a collection.
There are scenes of Celia working at home, drawing her textile designs, Celia chatting with Mo as she cuts his hair, Celia on the phone to Ossie telling him to come home, Celia in the role of confidant. She is often referred to as Hockney’s muse - another one - and they became very close. When both their relationships had broken down he considered having a relationship with her, but apparently their intimate friendship remained platonic.
In one of several surreal sequences in the film Ossie goes to the Tate Gallery, barefoot, and holding a cat like the one - possibly the one - in the painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. Dressed exactly as in the painting he stands before it, contemplating it silently. It’s a moment that poses all sorts of interesting philosophical questions about the nature of selfhood, the relationship of the artist with the subject and the subject with the work.
Inevitably, the Clarks’ marriage broke down due to Ossie’s promiscuity, drug-taking and general hedonism. As Celia herself observed:
We had some really nice times very early on…but then as he became more famous he lost the plot. I think he felt he could get away with having his own life, and having me in the background, planted there as a homebody, keeping it all together.3
Birtwell and Hockney cried on each other’s shoulders, and Clark was often violent towards his wife. On one disgraceful occasion he beat and kicked her and made her nose bleed. The police were called and he was ordered to leave the marital home. Hockney took Celia’s side and ensured that people in their circle knew about Clark’s terrible behaviour, but this did not prevent him from trying to help Clark years later. In 1983, long after the Clarks had divorced, Ossie was about to file for bankruptcy. At Hockney’s suggestion he designed the costumes for Varii Capricci, a Frederick Ashton ballet staged at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
It’s not only Hockney who is capable of such generosity. Here’s the luminous Mrs Clark talking about her ex-husband’s talent with an admirable ability to separate the professional from the personal. She also gives some insight into the creative process of making their exquisite garments.
Clark’s work was at its best from 1965 to 1975. He created stage outfits for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and a host of celebrities wore his designs, but he struggled with addiction and a poor head for business, and his later career was patchy. There were multiple failures of various lines and financial backers. At the height of his fame his clothes were famous in London, Paris and New York, but his constant desire to party, his affairs and his massive intake of drugs placed an enormous strain on his marriage. After the divorce from Celia he struggled to maintain momentum in his career, although he was briefly re-employed by Radley in 1984, and by the London fashion label Ghost during the 1990s.
Clark’s eventful life came to a shocking end when on 6th August 1996 he was murdered in his flat in a horrific stabbing attack by a twenty-eight-year-old drifter he had picked up in Holland Park the previous year. It is not surprising that such a turbulent life should end in this violent way. What is remarkable is that art of such beauty and delicacy survived him. His work was highly accomplished and rightly lauded, and at least his former wife, the mother of his children, has achieved the respect and recognition she deserves: in 2011 Celia Birtwell was awarded a CBE for services to the fashion industry.
Sources:
theswinging60s.com website; Hockney, A Rake’s Progress by Christopher Simon Sykes; A Bigger Splash (1974) directed by Jack Hazan; robertwhitakerphotography.com website; In Vogue, 75 Years of Style by Georgina Powell.
Recommended reading:
Ossie Clark 1965-1974 by Judith Watt.
Hockney, A Rake’s Progress and Hockney, A Pilgrim’s Progress by Christopher Simon Sykes.
Hockney, A Rake’s Progress by Christopher Simon Sykes p. 156
Vanessa Denza Obituary - Linda Watson, The Guardian 28/4/22.
Hockney, A Rake’s Progress by Christopher Simon Sykes p. 278.
Your piece on Ossie Clark offers a fascinating exploration of his complex life and immense talent. Your details about his creative partnerships and personal struggles are enlightening and well-researched. You’ve skilfully captured the brilliance and turbulence of his world.
Thanks for this, Jules. Love the clip from the interview with Celia Birtwell. It gives so many insights into her relationship Ossie Clark - creative partnerships are so interesting. Tragic that Ossie never vanquished his demons though.