In this week's blog, Costume Society Ambassador Holly Siddle reviews the exhibition Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style, currently on display at the Museum Of London Docklands.
Having opened on the 13th October, Fashion City at the Museum of London explores the impact and involvement of London’s Jewish community on global style, from tailor’s shops in the East End to top-end couture seen on the likes of Greta Garbo and David Bowie. Curated by Dr Lucie Whitmore, this sensitive and stimulating exhibition takes care to focus on individual craftsmen and the real people who made an impact on London’s garment trade, and their stories.
From the beginning of the exhibition, Fashion City takes care to thoroughly explain how Jewish people have been systematically discriminated against (and still face discrimination). Jewish people were banned from certain professions in the 17th and 18th centuries, meaning many found work in the garment trades. This context runs throughout the exhibition and is integral to understanding that fashion does not exist in a vacuum and is instead closely tied to our political and social history.
Fashion City plays out in multiple, non-chronologically ordered rooms, with vitrines creatively presented to look like shop windows, and partitioned ‘shops’ exploring different aspects of Jewish life. The atmospheric set design is really quite beautiful. The exhibition begins in the East End, and is immediately very personal: belongings, oral stories, and personal effects highlight particular businesses and individuals, such as Julius Rosenthal and Samuel Jacob, who are displayed at the beginning of the exhibition. Owners of Rosenthal, Jacob & Co made silver objects, accessories and jewellery in Fitzrovia. The exhibition showcases their silver working skills through a silk bag belonging to the royal family, possibly owned by Queen Victoria.
“From Roman times in London, migrants have made the clothing trades what they are. London would not have been able to become a global fashion city without their contribution,” says Dr Lucie Whitmore, Lead Curator of Fashion City. “The space that feels really important to me, in terms of thinking about legacies, is the section ‘Crossing Paths’, where we talk about how many different waves of migrants from different places, with different backgrounds, have been drawn to London’s East End in particular, and then have been able to use existing, or build, textile trades or garment trades there, and use that as a means to start a new life in London. And it’s so important to remember and acknowledge that, and recognise that no migrant population, no community, exists in a vacuum; there are always connections between them.”
The exhibition space is dotted with photographs, ephemera, and the oral histories of the people who shaped this industry. What is so invigorating about this exhibition is the very personal touches from the curatorial team which showcase the impacts of individuals on their communities. For example, one room is set up as the ‘Photography Studio’, an interactive dress-up studio decorated with photographs of real people who would have visited Henry Shaw’s studio on Commercial Road in Whitechapel. What is so refreshing to see in Fashion City is the spotlight placed on overlooked immigrant practitioners who were integral to the development of London’s reputation as a fashion capital.
There is a wealth of photography throughout the exhibition, showing people, places and practices all linked to different Jewish and immigrant communities. Oral histories present the opportunity to listen to these stories from the people most closely connected with the items on display, which range from sewing machines and dresses to umbrellas.
Shneider’s & Son Tailors, for example, displays objects from a tailor’s workroom, including fabric scissors and a partially constructed jacket. Also on display are tailored suits and ‘Rules for the Cutting-Room’ books that employees in the cutting rooms would have referred to.
“Jewish people were working at all levels of the fashion industry in London throughout the twentieth century but the extent of their contribution has been widely unrecognised. Jewish makers established the ready to wear industry, worked their way into the highest levels of London fashion and dominated Carnaby Street in the swinging sixties. Many of these designers were internationally famous – favoured by the rich and famous and highly respected for their creativity, skill, and originality. It’s a contribution that deserves to be recognised.”
Through an ‘Underground’ tunnel we emerge in the second part of the exhibition, the West End, featuring carpeted boutiques and displays of famous faces wearing Jewish made clothing. Here the exhibition explores the interplay between Jewish and British culture and tradition, and how the two interlink and have become mixed, such as in the case of Moss Bros, a Jewish owned company created in the 1850s which is now a staple of the British high street.
In the ‘Couture Salon’, designs from couturiers such as Bellville Sassoon and Madam Isobel are on display in a luxurious, boutique-like room. Fashion illustrations made for Princess Diana by David Sassoon greet you in a glass case, with inscriptions and notes from Diana, who was working collaboratively with Sassoon to create items for her wardrobe. Carnaby Street is also featured in the exhibition. In another little ‘boutique’, Jimi Hendrix’s The Wind Cries Mary plays softly in a red-carpeted reconstruction of a Mr Fish shop, displaying clothes owned by Bowie, Jagger, and more. What is so appealing to this part of the exhibition is the ‘world-building’ aspect, with each boutique having its own unique furnishings, music, and atmosphere. The exhibition does a fantastic job of involving and immersing the viewer in the living history of these places and these couturiers.
One item in the ‘Couture Salon’, a Madam Isobel evening gown, is of particular importance to the Costume Society, as it is with the help of the Costume Society’s Elizabeth Hammond Grant that the gown could be conserved and displayed in Fashion City. This gown is one of four currently known surviving Madam Isobel pieces. Madam Isobel was a passionate couturier who celebrated British fashion. The lace evening dress, made from silk and velvet, is a beautiful example of Madam Isobel’s clever approach to garment making and marketing, and was made in 1930. A video of the conservation process can be found here.
Across the exhibition space, another room highlights the works of dressmaker Peggy Lewis.
“There is a very special place in my heart for the Peggy Lewis section,” explains Dr Whitmore. “There is one dress in that section, an olive-y green dress from around 1950, and it has the most amazing embroidery on it. It looks like it is inspired by Jacobean crewel
work, and that was the first object I researched, four and a half years ago. Everything I have learned about her has been a really important lesson in not falling into stereotypes. The journey that she took was not what people think of when they think of Jewish people working in the garment trades in London....The pieces are just exquisite, they are really beautiful. I love the unfinished pieces that we were able to acquire last year, I think they do so much important work for reminding us about the hand of the maker and the skill behind the object.
The exhibition concludes with an striking white wedding gown created by Netty Spiegel, who is remembered fondly by many Jewish brides as the designer of their wedding dresses. Particularly known for their detail and beading, the Neymar wedding dress closes the exhibition with exquisite decorations of beads and flowers.
Fashion City is open now until the 14th April 2024 at the Museum of London Docklands. If you missed our member’s only exclusive book launch with the exhibition curators and book authors, the recording will be uploaded soon in the member’s area of our website. The book is available to purchase through the Museum of London shop online.
Holly also reviewed The Fashion and Textile Museum's current Fabric of Democracy exhibition, which you can read in her recent post.
