They dressed – and partied with – the innermost in-crowd. As a swirling new show celebrates their fashion creations, Birtwell recalls her happy days with Clark and her sorrow at the loss of David Hockney
In the mythical age of bohemia, the psychedelic decade between Mary Quant’s cheerful miniskirts and the first snarls of punk, Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark were London’s most fashionable couple. Birtwell created the fabrics: daydreamy, botanical doodles that captured the idealism and looseness of the times in wisps of chiffon. Clark magicked these into sensual bias-cut dresses with a freewheeling grandeur that was part Hollywood glamour, part rock’n’roll anarchy.
More than just designers, they were a whole vibe. They dressed – and partied with – the innermost of the in-crowd. Talitha Getty, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg hung out at Quorum, their Chelsea boutique. At a catwalk show in 1970, there were two Beatles, Cecil Beaton and Brigitte Bardot in the audience – and, after Clark began making stage clothes for Mick Jagger, he accompanied the Rolling Stones on tour. David Hockney’s portrait of the couple in their pomp – Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, painted two years into their marriage, when Birtwell was pregnant with their second child – sealed their place in the mythology of the period.
