Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin – Made in England

Fashion & Textile Museum Offers Exhibition of Sixties Designs

Nov 3, 2009

This exhibition offers an exciting display of fashions by British trend-setting designers of the 1960s. The show explores their contribution to the changing London scene.

British fashion designers Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin were part of a movement known as “Youthquake”, a 1960s fashion, musical and cultural movement. It was the era of mini-skirts, trouser suits and jump suits. Supermodel Twiggy, recently the subject of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, was an iconic figure of the time.

Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin

Marion Foale (b. 1939) and Sally Tuffin (b. 1938) met in 1955 while attending Walthamstow Art School . They subsequently studied together at the Royal College of Art under Professor Janey Ironside.

In the 1960s, the pair established their own fashion company, “Foale & Tuffin”, located in Carnaby Street, in London's West End. Foale and Tuffin, together with their contemporaries, Ossie Clark, Zandra Rhodes and Bill Gibb, all graduates of the Royal College of Art, had a massive impact on the fashion scene of the 'swinging sixties'.

The exhibition explores the stories of these two outstanding designers who established their partnership with barely £200 between them. The show conjures up the excitement of the 1960s and features a recreation of the Foale and Tuffin premises showing the boutique showroom and design studio.

Also on display are many of the Foale and Tuffin designs which were the 'must-have' fashion items of the day. Trousers, once hardly worn by women, were popularised by Foale and Tuffin and trouser suits became key items in every woman's wardrobe. Colourful mini-skirts, mini-dresses, jump suits and trouser suits were at the heart of the fashion revolution. Speaking recently at the Fashion and Textile Museum Sally Tuffin said:

‘We made our own clothes and we realised that there was a gap. So it was very much that people would make their own clothes, people would dress themselves and style themselves with bits and pieces, and that was what was happening then and we just sort of jumped in and made the bits and pieces for them’.

Foale and Tuffin Forty Years On...

Forty years later and Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale are still good friends and still working as designers. Foale is renowned for her highly fashionable, highly collectable, feminine knitwear designs, inspired by the glamour of the forties.

Tuffin is now well-known as a ceramicist, having designed for both Poole Pottery and Moorcroft Pottery, where she was Art Director from 1986 to 1993. At that time she and her husband, Richard Dennis, established Dennis Chinaworks. Tuffin's ceramic designs are highly sought after around the world.

To accompany the exhibition the Fashion and Textile Museum is offering a range of talks, workshops and masterclasses providing tuition on knitting, ceramic decoration, drawing and paper craft work.

To coincide with the exhibition fashion journalist Iain R. Webb has written Foale and Tuffin. The Sixties – A decade in fashion. The fully illustrated book features conversations with many of Foale and Tuffin's friends and associates.

Foale and Tuffin – Made in England will be on view until 24th February 2010. Further information about the exhibition, related events and publications can be obtained from the Fashion and Textile Museum.

The copyright of the article Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin – Made in England in Special Art Gallery Exhibits is owned by Frances Spiegel. Permission to republish Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin – Made in England in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.