Fashion at Fortnum's
London Fashion Week has arrived - and as famous faces and names from the fashion world make their way to the capital, it got us thinking about our own fascinating forays into fashion. From the 1920s until 2004, Fortnum & Mason engaged fashion designers to create unique clothes for its many customers. Names such as Schiaparelli, Mainbocher, Molyneux, Bunny Rogers, Angele Delanghe, Yves St Laurent, Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Emilio Ungaro, Jean Muir, Bill Gibb, Zandra Rhodes and Mary Quant made clothes exclusively for our Haute Couture and Ready-To-Wear departments.
So join us for a saunter down our long history with fashion.
Hats Off to Fortnum's
When we decided to expand in the late 1920s, perhaps one of its greatest successes was its swift dominance in millinery. Today hats tend to be worn for special occasions only, but before the 1950s, everyone wore hats.
As the 1920s favoured look for women was now slim – almost boyish – and hair was cut in a bob to reflect a modern outlook on life, Fortnum's comissioned milliner George FitzGeorge to create a hat for the new hairstyles. He created a felt cloche that could be shaped in several ways – so that one hat could reflect many moods and outfits, and many occasions and activities.
Hats remained an essential during the 2nd World War, and Fortnum’s continued to offer exclusive designs between 1939 and 1945, using the minimum of fabric, as decreed by government edict.
As the 1960s progressed, and hats began to be worn only on special occasions, Fortnum’s engaged top milliners Otto Lucas, Freddy Fox and Philip Somerville to design exclusive hats for the fashion department. The Millinery Department was an important adjunct to the Fashion Department, especially for outfits required for the London Season (Ascot in particular) and for summer weddings. In the 1950s and 1960s, Fortnum’s featured hats by Lanvin, R.M Hats (who specialised in waterproof headwear) Norman Edwin, Simon Mirman, and Dolores. These last three were well known for making licensed copy designs by Givenchy and Dior.
The millinery department was closed in the 2004-2007 refurbishment, but the customer is queen, and the demand for occasion hats encouraged Fortnum’s in 2010 to seek out a pupil of Philip Somerville, one Adrian Philip Howard. Adrian created unique hats for customers for Fortnum’s customers for the next ten years. One hat, in the shape of a giant hamburger, was sold to an American customer who wore it to the Kentucky Derby. He made a speciality of beautiful silk turbans for Middle Eastern customers – which he also made in tweed for domestic clients to wear on country walks.
If the Shoe Fits
One of the most important sections at Fortnum’s from the 1920s until the early 2000s was the Shoe Department. This was initially thanks to the man selected as shoe designer and buyer for the post War revamped store, one Bernard Oswell. He opened a separate shop for Fortnum & Mason shoes at 169 Piccadilly in the early 1920s, in anticipation of the new store being built later in the decade.
He was a renowned maker of sports shoes, the future chairman of the British Quality Shoe Association, and was behind the company opening up a shoe shop in New York in 1925. There was a rumour that Fortnum’s had secured a consignment of pre-revolutionary Russian leather, which had unequalled softness, but I have never been able to determine whether or not this was true, or an urban legend and a clever marketing ploy..
The department was one of the most important in the building, for both men and women, as it supported fashion, tailoring, and the sports department. Under Bernard Oswell’s guiding hand, new materials were created – crepe for soles, canvas for beach shoes, non slip models for sporting activity, and in any colour to match your outfit.
In 1936, the company patented evening shoes with little bells on the front, and offered to tint evening shoes within 24 hours to match any outfit. This service survived until the 1980s: many years ago I interviewed a former member of staff called Betty Lewis. She recounted how a particular elderly titled client, who loved dancing, would buy an outfit and demand that the shoes be dyed to match exactly for use that evening. Betty used to run up to Soho to have the shoes dyed, running back with them in her outstretched arms, in the hope that they would dry out en route to Piccadilly.
During the Second World War, Fortnum’s switched to stylish utilitarian shoes, as leather was strictly rationed. Decoration was minimal, and the shoes were expected to last, and to require little by way of repair. No longer making shoes ourselves, in the late 1950s, Fortnum’s still featured exclusive Ferragamo designs, and offered shoes by Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli and the "King of the Dance" Roger Vivier.
The Glass of Fashion
In the 1930s, Ginette Spanier, a young woman from a wealthy background, took a job at Fortnum & Mason’s Gift Department under Major Christie Miller after her family lost their fortune in the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Born in Paris in 1904 to a pearl merchant and a socialite, she was accustomed to haute couture but had to find work. Rejected by couturier Norman Hartnell, she sought advice from actress Marie Löhr, who used Chi Chi, a kind of Chinese fortune-telling. The answer - "something in wood" - led Ginette to Fortnum & Mason, where she would become one of the most important women in the world of haute couture.
In her role, she soon made friends with many of the customers, including the Prince of Wales and his future wife, the American Mrs Wallis Simpson. She always recalled how much she loved working in Piccadilly, because it was beautiful and fragrant, and she found she had much in common with her customers. She said she loved selling “very expensive things to very rich people.” Eventually, she was given charge of buying for the Handbag Department, which entailed frequent trips to the Continent. The Gift Department was in the basement, and after a few years she realised that her eyesight was being affected by the lack of natural light. Accordingly, she got a job as a handbag buyer for a wholesale company, but always regretted leaving the rarefied atmosphere of Fortnum’s.
In 1947, after having given up her job at Fortnum's in London, she was visiting the Paris salon of a young couturier, Piere Balmain, with a friend and her teenage daughter. The saleswoman tried to sell a black velvet dress to the youngster, and Ginette insisted that something more suitable be found for her. Balmain’s mother was in the salon, and approached her, asking that she might consider working in the salon. She served first as the manager of the boutique, and then as the directrice, and remained with the fashion house until 1976.
She never forgot Fortnum’s, and it was through her good offices that Pierre Balmain agreed to create his first ready-to-wear collection for the Piccadilly store.
Ginette Spanier was a guest on the radio programme, Desert Island Discs, in 1973, and a rather bad recording of this is available online. Her relationship with Fortnum’s lasted all her life; she visited the store regularly while she was with Balmain, seeing old friends. She left Balmain in 1976, the year her husband died, and briefly ran a boutique for Nina Ricci before returning to London to live near her sister. Ginette Spanier had become an accomplished after dinner speaker, and spent her retirement crossing the country, telling tales of the rich and famous, and haute couture. Her writings have much to say on the atmosphere of luxury retail in the inter war period, but that can wait for another day.
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