Bobby Hillson

Last updated

Bobby Hillson is a London-based fashion illustrator, former designer of children's clothing, and founder of the Saint Martin's School of Art MA Fashion course. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life

Hillson, who had studied at Saint Martin's School of Art, [3] started out as an illustrator for publications such as Vogue UK , The Sunday Times , and The Observer in the early 1950s. [1] In 1954 she attended Coco Chanel's relaunch show. [1] She is particularly renowned for her 1960s illustration work. [4] In 1969, she launched her childrenswear brand, and in 1972, a little girl's dress and pinafore was chosen as the Dress of the Year by Moira Keenan alongside a Biba outfit and a young boy's outfit by Burton. [5] As of 2018, no other children's clothes have been selected as Dress of the Year.

Teaching career

Hillson returned to Saint Martin's School of Art to teach on the fashion diploma course in 1956. [6] In the late 1970s she developed and wrote the MA fashion course, with the first cohort of graduates showing in 1980. [6]

While at Saint Martin's, Hillson was one of the first people to recognise the potential of Alexander McQueen, offering him a place on the course when he approached her about a cutter's job. [1] [2] When McQueen received an honorary doctorate from Saint Martins, he thanked Hillson first of all. [7] In addition to McQueen, Hillson's former students include John Galliano, Stephen Jones, Rifat Özbek and Sonja Nuttall. [7] She was succeeded as course director of the MA Fashion course by another former student, Louise Wilson in 1992. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Saint Martins</span> Public tertiary art school in London, England

Central Saint Martins is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. The college offers full-time courses at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and a variety of short and summer courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander McQueen</span> British fashion designer (1969–2010)

Lee Alexander McQueen was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards, as well as the Council of Fashion Designers of America International Designer of the Year award in 2003. McQueen died by suicide in 2010 at the age of 40, at his home in Mayfair, London, shortly after the death of his mother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Field</span> American costume designer, stylist and fashion designer

Patricia Field is an American costume designer, stylist, and fashion designer working in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Galliano</span> British fashion designer (born 1960)

John Charles Galliano,, is a British fashion designer. He was the creative director of his eponymous label John Galliano and French fashion houses Givenchy and Dior. Since 2014, Galliano has been the creative director of Paris-based fashion house Maison Margiela. Galliano has been named British Designer of the Year four times. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, he was named the fifth most influential person in British culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rifat Ozbek</span> British fashion designer

Rifat Ozbek is a Turkish-born fashion and interior designer, known for his exotic, ethnically-inspired outfits. He was named British Designer of the Year in 1988 and 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth Pugh</span> English fashion designer

Gareth Pugh is an English fashion designer based in London. He is known for his unconventional use of volume and form when designing outfits, and his work is described as performance art. He achieved prominence in the Kashpoint's Autumn 2005 Alternative Fashion Week group show, and he made his solo premiere in London's Fall 2006 fashion week. Due to his focus on experimental fashion, Pugh has had limited success selling wearable clothes. Instead, his projects are funded through patronage by Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy. His designs have been sported by notable performers, including Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Jones (milliner)</span> British milliner

Stephen Jones OBE is a British milliner based in London, who is considered one of the most radical and important milliners of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is also one of the most prolific, having created hats for the catwalk shows of many leading couturiers and fashion designers, such as John Galliano at Dior and Vivienne Westwood. His work is known for its inventiveness and high level of technical expertise. Jones co-curated the 2009 exhibition Hats: An Anthology for the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Sarah Jane Burton is an English fashion designer. She worked at the Alexander McQueen fashion house from 1997 through 2023, spending her last 13 years at the company as its creative director. She is currently the creative director of Givenchy.

Louise Janet Wilson was a British professor of fashion design. Louise Wilson was based at the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, where she was the course director of their MA in Fashion from 1992 until 2014. Her former students include Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders, Louise Goldin, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Peter Jensen, Richard Nicoll, Christopher Shannon, Yu Lun Eve Lin, Charles Jeffrey and Sophia Kokosalaki.

Julie Verhoeven is a British illustrator and designer who has collaborated with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Versace and Peter Jensen. While she is recognised primarily for her work in fashion, she has also contributed illustrations to books, magazines and album covers. Her work has been widely exhibited, including at London's Hayward Gallery. She is a design academic at both Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art.

Maison Margiela, formerly Maison Martin Margiela, is a French luxury fashion house founded by Belgian designer Martin Margiela and Jenny Meirens in 1988 and headquartered in Paris. The house produces both haute couture-inspired artisanal collections and ready-to-wear collections, with the former influencing the designs of the latter. Product lines include womenswear, menswear, jewellery, footwear, accessories, leather goods, perfumes and household goods. Known for deconstructive and avant-garde designs with unconventional materials, Maison Margiela has traditionally held live shows in unusual settings, for example empty metro stations and street corners. Models' faces are often obscured by fabric or long hair to direct attention to the clothes and design. Margiela resigned as creative designer in 2009 and John Galliano was appointed to the role in 2014.

Sheilagh Brown is a British fashion designer who began her career in the 1960s, as part of the Swinging London scene. She was among the designers for Stirling Cooper, working subsequently at Coopers and Quorum, before establishing the label Barnett and Brown with Sheridan Barnett.

Anne Sofie Madsen Eliasen is an avant-garde Danish fashion designer who grew up on the island of Funen. Initially interested in developing her talents as an illustrator and animator, she later turned to fashion, graduating from the Danish Design School. After training with John Galliano in Paris and Alexander McQueen in London, she established her own label in 2011 and presented her first collection at London Fashion Week the following year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Jeffrey (fashion designer)</span> Scottish fashion designer

Charles Jeffrey is a Scottish fashion designer known for his punk-inspired, gender-fluid designs influenced by his Scottish heritage and London's queer club scene. Jeffrey has been described as "speaking to young London the way Alexander McQueen spoke to his generation," and by Vogue as "the upholder of all that is human, creative and cheerful about British fashion." Jeffrey launched his label Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY in 2015, after graduating from Central St Martins. He has been nominated for and won numerous industry awards. Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY has been worn by figures as wide-ranging as Harry Styles, Tilda Swinton, Bimini Bon Boulash, and K-pop star J-Hope of BTS.

<i>The Widows of Culloden</i> Fashion collection by Alexander McQueen

The Widows of Culloden is the twenty-eighth collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Autumn/Winter 2006 season of his eponymous fashion house. It was inspired by his Scottish ancestry and is regarded as one of his most autobiographical collections. It is named for the women widowed by the Battle of Culloden (1746), often seen as a major conflict between Scotland and England. Widows makes extensive use of the McQueen family tartan and traditional gamekeeper's tweeds, as well as other elements taken from Highland dress. Historical elements reflected the fashion of the late Victorian era and the 1950s.

<i>Irere</i> (Alexander McQueen collection) 2003 fashion collection by Alexander McQueen

Irere was the twenty-first collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. Irere was inspired by imagery from the Age of Discovery and from the people and animals of the Amazon rainforest. Its title is claimed to mean 'transformation' in an unspecified Indigenous Amazonian language. The collection comprised three distinct concepts presented as a narrative sequence: shipwrecked pirates, menacing conquistadors, and tropical birds. McQueen described the collection as an effort to present a more mature point of view and surprise viewers with bold colours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oyster dress</span> 2003 dress by Alexander McQueen

The oyster dress is a high fashion gown created by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his Spring/Summer 2003 collection Irere. McQueen's design is a one-shouldered dress in bias-cut beige silk chiffon with a boned upper body and a full-length skirt consisting of hundreds of individual circles of organza sewn in dense layers to the base fabric, resembling the outside of an oyster shell. According to McQueen, the gown took a month's work for three people, who cut and assembled all the pieces individually. In addition to the original beige dress, a version with a red bodice and the ruffled skirt in rainbow colours was also created. The beige and red versions appeared in the Irere runway show, and were photographed for magazines to promote the collection.

<i>Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims</i> 1992 Alexander McQueen fashion collection

Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims is the first collection by British designer Alexander McQueen, produced as the thesis collection for his master's degree in fashion at Central Saint Martins (CSM) art school. The collection's narrative was inspired by the victims of 19th-century London serial killer Jack the Ripper, with aesthetic inspiration from the fashion, erotica, and prostitution practices of the Victorian era. The collection was presented on the runway at London Fashion Week on 16 March 1992, as the second-to-last of the CSM graduate collections. Editor Isabella Blow was fascinated by the runway show and insisted on purchasing the entire collection, later becoming McQueen's friend and muse.

<i>The Girl Who Lived in the Tree</i> Fashion collection by Alexander McQueen

The Girl Who Lived in the Tree is the thirty-second collection by British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, made for the Autumn/Winter 2008 season of his eponymous fashion house. The primary inspirations were British culture and national symbols, particularly the British monarchy, as well as the clothing of India during the British Raj. The collection was presented through the narrative of a fairy tale about a feral girl who lived in a tree before falling in love with a prince and descending to become a princess.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Cooper, Michelle (6 August 2010). "Who's Who: Bobby Hillson". Vogue.co.uk. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Frankel, Susannah (24 September 2011). "Louise Wilson: 'As much as I might decry the students, as much as they're a nightmare, it is a privilege to be among youth'". The Independent. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  3. ↑ Hillson, Bobby. "Bobby Hillson". Very Magazine. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  4. ↑ Fogg, Marnie (2008). 1960s fashion print : a sourcebook. London: Batsford. p. 102. ISBN   9780713490541.
  5. ↑ "Dress of the Year 1970-1979". Fashion Museum, Bath. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  6. 1 2 "Remembering St. Martin's with the Founder of MA Fashion Bobby Hillson – Central Saint Martins: News". blogs.arts.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-09-03. Retrieved 2018-09-02.
  7. 1 2 Sherwood, James (February 19, 2007). "I taught them a lesson ; As fashion's most formidable mistress, she mentored McQueen, oversaw Ozbek and goaded the great Galliano". The Independent. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.