November 2009

To coincide with the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Sir Hardy Amies 1909 – 2009, The House of Hardy Amies will open its extensive and largely unseen  archive to the public at the newly re-furbished No.14 Savile Row in London, its home since the business was established by the late Sir Hardy Amies in 1946.

The opening of the archive is monumental as it is the first time a British couture house has ever unlocked its archive to the public.

SIR HARDY AMIES: A Century of Couture is curated by Austin Mutti-Mewse, and will pay homage to Sir Hardy Amies, with emphasis on his association with Royalty (he was dressmaker to HM Queen Elizabeth II from her accession to the throne until his retirement in 1989),  celebrity, his foray into menswear and his years on Savile Row as well as photographs and material associated with his country house in Oxfordshire and personal diaries and letters.  Hardy Amies KCVO will be on display along with war medals, badges and pin’s and other material associated with his foray in the SOE during WWII.

Never-seen-before sketches of Princess Elizabeth as she became Monarch will be on display alongside sketches of his film costumes for ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Exquisite drawings of  evening and day wear for Virginia Cherrill the Hollywood star of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘City Lights’ (1931) and then as The Countess Jersey,  Hardy’s first investor.

Hardy’s most famous early creation, the ‘Made in England’ suit will be on display at No. 14, seventy years after it was made for the Hollywood ingénue Mildred Shay for her trip from the USA to England during WWII alongside personal effects from Hardy’s Country home; his desk, a collection of his needlepoint work and paintings, his crocodile skin Hermés cigarette box, silver cigarette case and matching match-holder, signed portraits of HM The Queen –which he received annually each Christmas, as well as other more quirky pieces of printed ephemera they exchanged over the years; correspondence cards and gift tags.

Other letters on exhibit include those from Cecil Beaton, Nancy Reagan, HRH Princess Michael of Kent, and HRH Princess Alice of Athlone, actresses Claudette Colbert, Dame Edith Evans, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher and two wonderfully ostentatious Christmas cards from rival Norman Hartnell.

The exhibition will also feature a specially commissioned documentary film of various fashion luminaries, royalty, society figures and celebrities and those who worked with Hardy talking about his life and times.  Participants include, Princess Michael Of Kent, Lady Astor,  Vogue Editor Alexandra Shulman and Jeremy Irons.

Always quick witted, Sir Hardy Amies was once asked how he would like to be remembered, "As somebody," he said, with a haulty grin. “And that ‘somebody’ is with a capital S."

The Hardy Amies Archive will be open November at No. 14 Savile Row,  London, W1

For further media enquires; please contact Louise Page / Andy Butcher @ Village Press.
020 7 490 7394 louise@village-press.com

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