Horrockses Fashions Off-the-Peg Style in the '40s and '50s

This lavisly illustrated book tells the history of Horrockses Fashions, one the most famous postwar British ready-to-wear labels. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Horrockses' created designs with a fresh, distinctive look, and were celebrated for their lively floral prints and full-skirted summer dresses, which were popular with women of every background, including the royal family. In addition, they collaborated with contemporary artists such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Alastair Morton, and Graham Sutherland to design textiles. The book includes interviews with many of the people who made, wore, and designed these dresses and reproduces magazine spreads and illustrations from the period. Horrockses maintained an air of exclusivity for the brand with an emphasis on good quality fabrics, especially the finest cotton, with custom-designed patterns and an emphasis on couture styling. Their fashions are highly collectable today. Horrockses Fashionstells the story of this iconic label and its role in the history of British fashion while also exploring the connections between couture and ready-to-wear fashions in the post-WWII decades.

Christine Boydell is principal lecturer in Design History at De Montfort University in Leicester, England. In 2001 she curated the Our Best Dresses: The Story of Horrockses Fashions for the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. She is also curator of Horrockses Fashions , which opens at the Fashion & Textile Museum in London in summer 2010.