Hardy Amies (fashion house): Difference between revisions
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===Early Life=== |
===Early Life=== |
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[[Image:hardy_amies_sofa_portrait.jpg|thumb|left|280px|Sir Edwin Hardy Amies, founder of Hardy Amies.]] |
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Hardy Amies was b Edwin Amies on July 17, 1909 in [[Maida Vale]], London. His father was an architect for the London County Council, his mother a saleswoman for [[Madame Gray at Machinka & May, London; and then Madame Durrant on Dover Street, London. Later, in his teens, he adopted his mother's maiden name, Hardy - and always cited her as the inspiration for his chosen professional path. |
Hardy Amies was b Edwin Amies on July 17, 1909 in [[Maida Vale]], London. His father was an architect for the London County Council, his mother a saleswoman for [[Madame Gray at Machinka & May, London; and then Madame Durrant on Dover Street, London. Later, in his teens, he adopted his mother's maiden name, Hardy - and always cited her as the inspiration for his chosen professional path. |
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Revision as of 18:25, 19 May 2011
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| Company type | Privately Held |
|---|---|
| Industry | Luxury goods |
| Founded | 1946 |
| Founder | Sir Edwin Hardy Amies |
| Headquarters | Savile Row, London, England |
Key people | Tony Yusuf (Managing Director), Claire Malcolm (Designer) |
| Website | Hardy Amies Official |
Hardy Amies, Ltd. is a British-based fashion house established in 1946, specializing in traditional men's bespoke tailoring.
History
Sir Edwin Hardy Amies
Sir Edwin Hardy Amies, KCVO (17 July 1909 - 5 March 2003), was a British fashion designer, best known for his official title as dressmaker for HM Queen Elizabeth II, from her accession to the throne until his retirement in 1989.
He established the monarch’s crisp, understated style of dress. “I don’t think she feels clothes which are too chic are exactly very friendly,” he told one fashion editor. “The Queen’s attitude is that she must always dress for the occasion”.
Early Life
Hardy Amies was b Edwin Amies on July 17, 1909 in Maida Vale, London. His father was an architect for the London County Council, his mother a saleswoman for [[Madame Gray at Machinka & May, London; and then Madame Durrant on Dover Street, London. Later, in his teens, he adopted his mother's maiden name, Hardy - and always cited her as the inspiration for his chosen professional path.
Amies was educated at Brentwood School, Essex, leaving in 1927.[1] Although his father wanted him to attend Cambridge University.It was his ambition to become a journalist. His father relented and arranged for a meeting between his son and R.D. Blumenfeld, the then editor of the Daily Express. Hardy was mortified when Blumenfeld suggested his son travel around Europe to gain some worldly experience.
After spending three years in France and Germany - learning the language and working for a customs agent and as an English tutor in Antibes and then Bendorf, Germany - he returned to England, where in 1930 he became a sales assistant in a ceramic wall-tile factory, after which he secured a trainee position as a weight machine salesman with W & T Avery Ltd. in Birmingham.
It was Amies' mother’s contacts in the fashion world and his flair for writing that secured him his first job in fashion. It was his vivid description of a dress, written in a letter to a retired French seamstress, which brought Hardy to the attention of the owner of the Mayfair couture house Lachasse on Farm Street, Berkeley Square.[1] He made an instant impression. The wearer of the dress was the owner's wife. He became Managing Director at the age of 25, in 1934.
In 1937, he scored his first success with a Linton tweed suit in sage green with a cerise overcheck called ‘Panic’. ‘Panic’ was to be his debut into the fashion bible Vogue and was photographed by Cecil Beaton. By the late Thirties, Hardy was designing the entire Lachasse collection. His second celebration creation was ‘Made in England’, a biscuit-coloured checked suit for the Hollywood ingénue Mildred Shay. He left Lachasse in 1939 and joined The House of Worth in 1941.
At the out break of World War II, with his language experience Amies was called up to serve in the Special Operations Executive. Amies suspected that SOE's commander Major General Colin Gubbins did not regard a dressmaker as suitable military material, but his training report stated:[1]
This officer is far tougher both physically and mentally than his rather precious appearance would suggest. He possesses a keen brain and an abundance of shrewd sense. His only handicap is his precious appearance and manner, and these are tending to decrease.
Posted to Belgium, Amies worked with the various Belgian resistance groups, he adapted names of fashion accessories for use as code words, while he organised sabotage assignments and arranged for some of the most notorious and ruthless agents to be parachuted behind enemy lines with radio equipment into the Ardennes. Amies rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel,[2] but outraged his superiors in 1944 by engaging famed photographer Lee Miller and setting up a Vogue photo shoot in Belgium post D-Day.[1] In 1946, he was knighted in Belgium, being a Named Named Officier de l'Ordre de la Couronne.
In 2000, Hardy Amies was named as one of the men who helped to plan the murder of dozens of Nazi collaborators in Europe towards the end of the Second World War. Hardy disclaimed all knowledge of the affair that came to light by a BBC 2 history series on secret agents.
Hardy Amies was undoubtedly quirky and yet uncontrollably conservative. He was the only man in the British Army to have his uniform tailored on Savile Row. Years later Hardy recalled Kim Philby was in his mess and on being asked what the renouned spy was like, Hardy quipped, ‘He was always trying to get information out of me – most significantly the name of my tailor’.
№14 Savile Row
On November 12, 1945 Virginia, The Countess of Jersey (erstwhile Hollywood film star and the first Mrs. Cary Grant), who had been a former client during Hardy’s days at Laschasse, financed Hardy Amies move to Savile Row. The following January, Amies established his very own couture fashion house business: Hardy Amies Ltd. Although Savile Row is the home of English bespoke tailoring, the Hardy Amies brand developed to become known for its classic and beautifully tailored clothes for both men and women. Hardy’s business quickly took off in the postwar years when customers, who had been deprived of couture for the preceding years, snapped up his elegant, traditional designs. Hardy was quoted at the times as saying, “A woman's day clothes "must look equally good at Salisbury Station as the Ritz bar”. Amies was vice-chairman of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers from 1954 to 56, and chairman from 1959 to 60.
Commercial Success
Amies was successful in business by being able to commercially extract value from his designs, while not replicating his brand to the point of exploitation. Amies was one of the first European designers to venture into the ready-to-wear market when he teamed up with Hepworths in 1959 to design a range of menswear. In 1961, Amies made fashion history by staging the first men's ready-to-wear catwalk shows, at the Savoy Hotel in London. The runway show was a first on many levels as it was both the first time music was played and for the designer to accompany models on the catwalk.
Amies also undertook design for in-house work wear, which developed from designing special clothes for the England 1966 World Cup team, the 1972 British Olympic squad;[3] and groups such as the Oxford University Boat Club and London Stock Exchange. During the mid-1970s, he began to develop and design wall coverings with Crown ® and various forays into interior designs. In 1974, Amies was entered into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.[4]
2001: A Space Odyssey
In 1967, Edwin Hardy Amies was commissioned by director Stanley Kubrick to design the costumes for his film 2001: A Space Odyssey.[5] The collection offered a spectacular glimpse into futuristic fashions, providing what some may describe as the ultimate artefact in Sixties archived fashion. In 2001, the standard attire was a business-as-usual approach to the corporate world of fashion. There were no ties for men's suits since they were not needed in zero gravity. The Russian women scientists wore dark conservative clothing, reflecting their own conservative values. Although Kubrick's 2001 wardrobe was practical, it still reflected the mid-sixties slender look, now outdated. But fashion comes and goes and the world of 2001 has not arrived. The military and spacecraft uniforms were as common in the sixties as they are now, with no dramatic changes in 30 years. American women of the year 2001 still retained roles they held in the 1960s as Hilton Hotel receptionists and Pan Am stewardesses. The women wore space-age traveling hats while carrying hand bags. According to Setting the Scene by Robert S. Sennett (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1994), many of the design elements of the middle narrative portion of the film now seem to be reflections of swinging London circa 1968, rather than the imagined near future. The stewardesses' uniforms, designed by British fashion house Hardy Amies, look like the uncomfortable unisex pant suits that were being foisted on the innocent public in the late sixties. An epic science fiction film, it demonstrated the immense range in Amies' design ability, and was unsurprisingly nominated for four Academy Awards - receiving one for visual effects. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Queen Elizabeth II
Amies is best known to the British public for his work for Queen Elizabeth II. The association began in 1950, when Amies made several outfits for the then Princess Elizabeth's royal tour to Canada. Although the couture side of the Hardy Amies business was traditionally less financially successful, the award of a Royal Warrant as official dressmaker in 1955 gave his house a degree of respectability and resultant publicity. One of his best known creations is the gown he designed in 1977 for Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee portrait which, he said, was "immortalized on a thousand biscuit tins." An estimated 500 million people watched the day of events as they played out on television. Street parties were held all over the country with a reported 4000 in London alone. Knighted in 1989, Amies held the Warrant until 1990, when he gave it up so that younger designers could create for the Queen, although the House of Hardy Amies was still designing for her under Design Director Jon Moore until 2002.
ABC of Men's Fashion
Having written a regular column for Esquire magazine on men's fashion, in 1964 he published the book ABC of Men's Fashion. Amies's strict male dress code – with commandments on everything from socks to the summer wardrobe – made compelling reading:[6] When in July 2009, the Hardy Amies designer archive was opened on Savile Row, the Victoria & Albert Museum reissued the book.[7][6]
A man should look as if he has bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care and then forgotten all about them.
Hardy Amies' Growth
In May 1973, Hardy Amies Ltd. was sold to Debenhams, which had already purchased Hepworths who distributed the Hardy Amies line. Amies purchased the business back in 1981. In May 2001, Amies sold his business to the Luxury Brands Group. He retired at the end of the year, when Moroccan-born designer Jacques Azagury became head of couture. In November 2008, after going bankrupt,[3] the Hardy Amies brand was acquired by Fung Capital, the private investment arm of Victor and William Fung, who together control the Li & Fung Group.[8]
Hardy Amies Today
Further Reading
- Here Lived…, Cambridge, 1948.
- Just So Far, London, 1954.
- The ABC of Men's Fashion, London, 1964.
- Still Here, London, 1984.
- The Englishman's Suit, London, 1994.
References
- ^ a b Day, Peter (April 29, 2003). "How secret agent Hardy Amies stayed in Vogue during the war". London: The Telegraph. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
- ^ glbtq >> arts >> Amies, Sir Hardy
- ^ a b "No rescue for Hardy Amies company". BBC News. October 10, 2008. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
- ^ Vanity Fair
- ^ Hardy Amies at IMDb
- ^ a b Chilvers, Simon (July 31, 2009). "How to dress like Hardy Amies". London: The Guardian. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
- ^ "Hardy Amies". Victoria & Albert Museum. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
- ^ "Hardy Amies UK stores to close following sale to Fung Capital". Retail Week. November 11, 2008. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
External Links
- Hardy Amies Official Website
- Hardy Amies Official Facebook
- Hardy Amies Official Twitter
- Hardy Amies designer profile at [Vogue]
- Hardy Amies Style Advice article at [The Guardian]
- Hardy Amies abandons to its heritage article at [The Telegraph]
- Hardy Amies Guide Mens Fashion feature in [GQ Magazine]
- Hardy Amies Guide Mens Fashion reviewed inside [The Guardian]
- Hardy Amies at the Victoria & Albert Museum
- The Hardy Amies Exhibition review at [The Independent]
- Hardy Amies profile at [Famous Why]
- Hardy Amies designer profile at [New York Times]
- Hardy Amies obituary at [The Times]
- Hardy Amies at IMDb