One of my favorite Fashion Designers, and Textile Designers in particular, is Dame Zandra Rhodes. She was one of the pioneers of the Swinging Sixties fashion scene in London, which also included Barbara Hulanicki of Biba, Mary Quant, Bill Gibb, Ossie Clark, and textile designer Celia Birtwell.     First, a bit of history: Rhodes was born in Chatham, Kent, England to a lorry driver father and a fashion designer mother in 1940. Her mother taught Fashion at Medway College of Art and ran a made-to-order dressmaking business called Beatrice Modes. Rhodes had a passion for art from an early...

Today's post is dedicated to one of my all-time favorite textile designers, Celia Birtwell.   I still paint prints in gouache by hand before I put them on the computer and wriggle them around. If I didn’t paint them first, they would have no soul. — Celia Birtwell Celia Birtwell is a renowned British textile designer. She was born on May 22, 1941, in Prestwich, Lancashire, England. In 1961 she moved to Notting Hill and became an integral part of the emerging swinging London fashion scene. She gained prominence during the 1960s and 1970s for her distinctive and imaginative textile...