DAZZLING FASHION

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33061, 31 October 1972, Page 6

DAZZLING FASHION

(From

MOIRA TAYLOR,

N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent)

LONDON, October 29. During the week-end the world’s press and buyers gathered in “Les Ambassadeurs Club,” Park Lane, to see what four of Britain’s top fashion designers could offer in answer to the French spring collections.

Jean Muir, Bill Gibb, John Bates, and Zandra Rhodes were showing their collections for the first time together and the total effect was dazzling enough to receive round after round of applause. A general europhoria infected the show as each garment was presented and confirmed each designer’s individual excellence. Of the four. Bill Gibb, the 29-year-old Scottish designer, made the most impact. This is only his second collection and he has the advantage of having just sprung into the fashion limelight His last collection, in April, projected a nature theme by using animal prints, textures, lynx and owl motifs, and bee buttons. This one continues the nature theme with prints of water, shells, embroidered shell motifs, and flower buttons. His clothes are exotic, each garment a lovingly produced work of art with minute attention to detail that confounds any copying. This, you feel, is what couture really means. STAR GARMENT One of his most applauded garments was a pale apricot dress and matching jacket in heavy delustered satin — a sleeveless halter-necked

bodice with a standing collar tapered, clinging to the waist and hips then dropped from the upper thigh into heavy box pleats. The bolerostyle jacket, in leather, was water-printed with big, medieval, puff sleeves shaped like gloves along the forearm. An eye-catching sequined fan motif covered the abdomen, accentuating the H-line of the hips. This outfit was worn with a black satin turban. Vogue elected Bill Gibb "Designer of the Year” in 1970 before he became a limited company with his own shop in Knightsbridge. In 1971 one of his creations was chosen as the centrepiece of an exhibition of British design in the Louvre, Paris. Another, designed for Twiggy, is now a permanent part of Cecil Beaton’s “Anthology of Fashion” in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

His designs are unforgettable. Not for nothing do his clients place orders over the telephone, without a fitting, from different parts of the world. They are confident the garment will be sensational. Jean Muir’s collection was classic. She is already an international star with her soft, matt jersey dresses that cling in ail the right places and swing in the rest

Her success is compounded of many things. She designs all-purpose dresses that can be worn effectively by many. Like Chanel did in the past, she designs clothes that are comfortable but still very very feminine.

COLOUR PREFERENCE In this collection she favoured bottle green, midnight blue and oyster pink. She teamed her dresses (in jersey, leather and suede) with little matching berets, and shoes and stockings in the same colour. This one-colour look

achieves its effect with line and cut. The only accessories permitted are single neck pendants in gold or gold belt buckles.

Miss Muir Is exporting to most countries with fashion industries. She sells in Australia, but not in New Zealand. Europe loves her dresses almost as much as Britain. For the last three seasons her collections have been manufactured in Europe by Mendes, the people who make up Yves St Laurent’s clothes.

John Bates, who is both designer and director for Jean Varon in London, is another international exporter, valued in Britain for creating beautiful clothes at a manageable price. He has been called “the poor girl’s couturier,” meaning that his dresses start at £l5 not £5O.

In this collection his suits and dresses were all worn with little pill-box hats and lots of netting covering the face. Hems were a little above the knee. Black and white are emphasised this season, and the bat-wing sleeve, the dolman and his very full bias-cut skirts are still in evidence.

Zandra Rhodes, who compares more with Bill Gibb than the other designers, presented a collection for the person with something to say. Her clothes are dramatic; they speak for themselves but they need the lift of a personality inside them. Her sensation of the evening was a pair of black crepe stove-pipe pants to just below the calf, worn with staggeringly high heels. A white, crepe top falling from the bust in long, knotty strips was put with long, white gloves, black stockings and, to complete the effect, a long, ebony cigarette holder.