Fashion Designing Course At College Of Art

Press, Volume C, Issue 29444, 21 February 1961, Page 2

Fashion Designing Course At College Of Art

The oldest art college in England, the Royal College of Art, has a relatively new section to cater for one of the 20th century’s big businesses. It is the school of fashion designing, which was begun about 12 years ago by Mrs Madge Garland, one of the few women to reach the top in fashion designing. A former editor of “Vogue,” and author of a book called “Fashion Through The Ages,” Mrs Garland was also the only woman professor of fashion designing in the worla. She retired from this position about five years ago.

A New Zealand woman. Miss Dianne More, studied under Mrs Garland when she was a pupil at the Royal College of Arts’ School of Fashion Designing. “She was brilliant, amusing and admired by everyone,” Miss More said in Christchurch yesterday. Mrs Garland's book illustrated features and figure types in relation to fashion through the ages, with particular reference to famous beauties. In private life, she is Lady Ashton, wife of the curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Sir Hugh Ashton).

The world of fashion designing was one of the most difficult to break Into, Miss More said yesterday. About 80 applied for the school of fashion designing attached to the Royal College of Art in the same year as did Miss More. Ten were chosen, five graduated, and two of those would be designing today. Needs For Job “You need a great appreciation of art and design, and tremendous endurance, as well as a practical background of dressmaking,” Miss More said. Training took years of experience in practical as well as theoretical work. A student never finished learning, as trends constantly changed, and with each new change, a fresh set of rules had to be applied, she said.

For New Zealanders It was made more difficult because there was no Government scholarship for overseas study in the subject

Part of Miss More’s training entailed going to all the major fashion shows, and afterwards doing sketches from memory of what she had seen. At the school, instruction was received from designers in industry. Pupils made sketches in their own time, submitted them to their professor who chose the best, and in turn, submitted these to the designer in each class. The sketches would then be criticised before pupils cut the pattern, selected and cut the fabric, and made the garment, all under supervision. At the end of the year, all garments were paraded In a dress show by top British models and often under Royal patronage.

Extreme Hat Miss More described an incident involving one of the hats designed by a pupil and shown at the annual parade.

“It was huge and extreme, so no-one would buy It One of the pupils, however, who came from a tiny village, bought It for 6d just so that she could wear it home and 'stagger them all’,” she said. This was the “one that got away,” as the school of designing was usually very practical, she said.

Other lectures given were in English, psychology, and architecture. At the end of the four-year course, pupils who graduated received a Diploma of Designing, Royal College of Art In her second year at the College, Miss More won a scholarship to study in Italy with three other pupils, and Mrs Garland went with them. The outstanding event was the P4tti Palace fashion show, when many large fashion houses collaborated to hold a major showing for buyers from throughout the world.

"It was held in an enormous room in the Pitti Palace, with seating for several hundred,” Miss More said. Thirteen huge chandeliers down the middle of the room lit up the elevated ramp on which the models paraded, and the atmosphere was exciting, she said. While in Italy, the students had to make sketches from memory of the fashion shows, “do” the art galleries, sketch mosaic floors and other works of art. Each evening they had a quiz round the dinner table, conducted by Mrs Garland. Study In U.S. After this Miss More studied in America, also on scholarship. She did this at Parson's School of Design, New York, near the United Nations building. “I used to go to the U.N. in my lunch hour to listen to debates,” she said. At this school all the instructors were haute couture designers who made garments which might cost a client £350. One of these designers was Count Saiamai, an Italian who, after studying law for some years, entered fashion designing. He worked for the House of Elizabeth Arden, which for most women means a cosmetic firm. The firm, however, has fashion houses in London and New York, catering for a very highincome bracket Elizabeth Arden clothes were elegant and lush, and although they were extremely expensive, the business appeared to be thriving. Miss More said.

If a buyer happened to like a garment in a shop at the top end of Fifth avenue, but it was

too costly, she could wait for a week or two and “follow it down the avenue.” As St came into the less expensive stores down Fifth avenue, the price would come down, until St reached Union square, at the other end of the Avenue, when a customer could buy the same garment for a fraction of the original price. “I chased a knitted coat this way,” Miss More said. When she first saw the coat at the top end of the Avenue, it was about 20 dollars, and she bought one exactly the same three weeks later in Union square for 10 dollars.

After her course of instruction in New York, Miss More designed children’s wear for a few months, before returning to New Zealand. She is finding much more variety here in a job as a fashion coordinator for a manufacturing firm.

There was a great tendency to specialise overseas, she said. For instance, a child’s wear designer would '•design children’s clothes for a certain age group, a certain price group within the age group, and only certain types of clothes. “It is limiting, but designers become expert in their particular field.” she said.

Miss More will probably remain in New Zealand, with short overseas trips for her firm.