AN iconic Warrington legend is being celebrated in a unique new exhibition in Italy - more than 20 years after his death.
Ossie Clark, a fashion designer from Orford, headed to London where he took the fashion world by storm.
He has been described as an ‘absolute protagonist’ of the London scene and pop culture of the 1960s and 70s.
The former Sandy Lane resident remains much-loved in Warrington and an exhibition at Warrington Museum in 1999 was perhaps the most popular in its long history.
And now Museo del Tessuto, in collaboration with the Sozzani Foundation and the Massimo Cantini Parrini Archive, is dedicating the first exhibition ever held in Italy to the late Ossie and his atelier-partner Celia Birtwell.
Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell. Image: Norman Bain
Including the important nucleus of clothes from the Massimo Cantini Parrini Archive, with further loans from the American collection of Lauren Lepire and the archives of the Clark family and Celia herself, the exhibition curated by Federico Poletti presents a series of original clothes featuring the iconic prints of the pair.
The exhibition also explains the context and evolution of their work through videos and video interviews, photos, editorials and original drawings.
With his unmistakable flower-power style and one step ahead of new trends, Ossie was defined as the “King of Kings Road” for his 1930s and 40s-inspired dresses with a slender cut that revealed the décolleté amidst sensual movements and plays on transparency.
His short, but very intense, career left its mark in London in the period between Mary Quant’s miniskirt and the subversive punk movement of Malcolm MacLaren and Vivienne Westwood, from 1965 to 1974.
He was the first designer to extend the concept of performance to fashion shows, presenting his garments in a novel manner and proposing them in the most diverse places, for example the Royal Court Theatre in 1971 with the musical contribution of David Gilmour, one of the founders of Pink Floyd.
The Italian exhibition is running until January 8.
Jim Lee, Ossie Clark, Aeroplane, 1969. Image: Jim Lee
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