.... opened his first couture house at 10 Bruton Street, Mayfair in 1923. In 1940 he received a Royal Warrant as dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth, subsequently Royal Warrant as dressmaker to HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. A Royal Warrant as dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth II was issued in 1957. The stamp shows an outfit created by Hartnell in the 1950s.

.... was a boutique opened in February 1965 at 488 Kings Road in London’s Chelsea, by Nigel Waymouth, his girlfriend Sheila Cohen and John Pearse. The shop, which was acquired by Freddie Hornik in 1969,
remained open until the mid-70s and has been called the ‘first psychedelic boutique in Groovy London of the 1960s’. The jacket shown on the stamp was designed by John Pearse using a Morris & Co. furniture fabric print called Golden Lily (1899).

Raymond ‘Ossie Clark’ was a major figure in the Swinging Sixties scene in London and the fashion industry in that era. Clark is now renowned for his vintage designs by present-day designers and compared to the 1960s fashion greats Mary Quant and Biba. He has influenced many other designers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Sui and Tom Ford. The outfit shown on the stamp dates from the late 1960s and features a print by Celia Birtwell.

.... recreated the Savile Row suit in the 1960s. In 1969, he joined up with Edward Sexton, to open Nutters of Savile Row. Nutter combined traditional tailoring skills with innovative design. His clients included Mick Jagger and Elton John. Nutter was most proud of the fact that he dressed three out of the four Beatles on the cover of the LP Abbey Road. The suit featured on the stamp was originally designed for
Ringo Starr and has been recreated especially for the photo shoot.

..worked briefly in a solicitor’s office before taking a stockroom job at Liberty & Co in 1950. Despite her lack of formal art college training, she was given the opportunity to sketch in Liberty’s ready-to-wear department, which led to her gaining a job as designer for Jaeger in 1956. Her own label Jean and Jane was launched in 1962 followed by Jean Muir Ltd in 1966. Famous clients include former Muir model
Joanna Lumley, Charlotte Rampling and Maggie Smith. The outfit featured here dates to the late 70s / early 80s.

.... was one of the new wave of British designers who put London at the forefront of the international fashion scene in the 1970s. Her designs are considered clear, creative statements, dramatic but graceful, bold but feminine.  Rhodes’s inspiration has been from organic material and nature. Her approach to the construction of garments can be seen in her use of reversed exposed seams and in her use of jewelled safety pins and tears during the punk era.

With her bright green hair (later pink and sometimes red or other colours), theatrical makeup and art jewellery, she stamped her own clear identity on the international world of fashion. Rhodes designed for Diana, Princess of Wales, and continues to design for royalty and celebrities. She notably designed several outfits for Freddie Mercury. The early 80s gold ‘Royal’ dress shown here comes from Zandra Rhodes’s personal collection.

.... is largely responsible for bringing punk fashion into the mainstream. In the mid-1970s with Malcolm McLaren, Westwood created clothes drawing inspiration from bikers, fetishists and prostitutes, which McLaren sold from his Kings Road boutique. When McLaren became manager of the Sex Pistols, the band wore Westwood and McLaren’s designs. The ‘punk style’ included bondage gear, safety pins, razor
blades, bicycle or lavatory chains on clothing and spiked dog collars for jewellery. Westwood’s work includes the adoption of traditional elements of Scottish design, such as tartan fabric, and the reinterpretation of 17th and 18th century cloth cutting principles.

Her first catwalk show was presented in 1981, featuring the collaboration of Westwood and McLaren. The first major retrospective of her work was shown in 2004–05 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The 1993 Harlequin dress shown here was famously modeled by Naomi Campbell

1st Class – Alexander McQueen