Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style @ Museum of London, Docklands
One of the best and clearest exhibitions I’ve been to in terms of layout, information and sheer atmosphere. Creatively using objects, photographs and ephemera, we dived into the lives of the workers of the garment trade in London. From shop-keepers, tailors and seamstresses to the high street (Marks and Spencer and Moss Bros), boutiques (Chelsea Girl) and couturiers and fashion designers. Thus it was that a coat worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, June Brown’s long-lasting ‘Doc Cotton’ coat from Eastenders, an ornate black beaded bag which either belonged to Queen Victoria or her fashionable daughter Princess Louise, and lots of gorgeously groovy Mr Fish ‘smoking dresses for men’ could co-exist in the same space!
Using signage, pricing posters and leaflets and other retail ephemera, we travelled back in time to an umbrella shop proudly owned by a Polish Jewish husband and wife, then just his widow, and probably sold as the trade sadly declined. One of the delicate parasols from their stockroom could be seen.
We went into a workshop, lined with enlarged photos of the workers and with worktables displaying the tools of the trade. Although stereotyped as depraved ‘Fagin-like’ sweat shop owners, this wasn’t the case for many Jewish factory/business owners. Though the workers were squeezed together for the photo opportunity, they actually had clean, airy, well-lit work spaces with modern machinery — and electric lighting. An employee book kept by a manager detailed working rules and regulations — health and safety and employee rights. Although not every employer or business owner was this enlightened — we could also admire posters encouraging workers to unionise and strike together for better conditions. (Such as in the combined dockers and tailors strike of 1889, and the support offered by the unions to striking workers losing their wages).
The group of workers wasn’t the only photography which pulled me in. I loved the photograph of the East End, with a man and a young boy staring directly into the lens. As it’s a street scene, we’ll never know who they were — but the vibrancy of life is recorded here (and street fashion). Not to mention a feast of headwear — the caps! Then ofcourse, on point, you could proceed into a mock wedding photography salon, and strike a pose as a 1930's bride with veil and bouquet, or top-hatted groom.
Maps were used brilliantly too — showing the location of Jewish cultural facilities and supportive agencies, and Jewish owned shops, moving out from the East End to the affluence of the West End. Alongside were Pathe news-style films from the time, showing the latest fashion. I particularly loved one of milliners getting to a choose a hat of their very own from the stock. Should it be covered in flowers or big brimmed? Let it be on of Otto Lucas’s fabulous European-influenced creations — which were on display.
Though the objects which gripped me most (literally by the heart) were a simple small suitcase, an impressive wardrobe-like trunk with shelved spaces, and a very well maintained handbag. These were a celebration of life, and memories of other lives lived. All were carried by Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution and terror. The owner of the handbag literally had her identification documents secured in it. The small suitcase represented how much it’s owner was allowed to take away with them as a child escaping Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the Kindertransport. The wardrobe-like trunk was the evidence of a family trying to start their lives afresh — and again.
Though remembering suffering and struggle, this was very much a celebration of life — and lives lived — with the splendid collection of dapper shoes from an elegant shoe shop owned by David Rose; the beautiful graceful private-designed 1970’s wedding dress and all the wonders of Mr Fish — gorgeously embroidered capes, kipper ties, gold Lamé and popping colours mixed with a global sense of style a la David Bowie. Elsewhere was a very splendid dinner suit — fashion was very much for men too! A dinner jacket was a reminder that you could be British in your style, and clothes maketh the man. That you belonged.
Delightfully, the East End garments trade set the wider scene — with introductions to a talented tailor from the Caribbean Islands, and a home-based (equally talented) tailoress from Bangladesh, pictured with her much-cherished sewing machine creating something wonderful. (Anwara Begum’s sewing machine).
Above all the curation of this exhibition was so good — in the way that information and objects were presented, in the creativity in using photographs and maps to give a sense of place, and in the moving historical video at the beginning, shaping the sense of how Jewish people had been treated (and mis-treated) in the UK and beyond. Beautifully styled under a canopy, we left celebrating life — leaving with a sight of the wedding dress (and some super stylish men’s suits in the background, including one worn by Mick Jagger). I cannot get enough of this exquisite wedding dress! (Accompanying it was a charming interview with the owner and about the designer Netty Spiegel.
@ Images are used to illustrate the exhibition and are not the author’s own, taken from Fashion City @ Museum of London, Docklands, August 2024.
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