Saturday 31 March 2007

Venue : Ripon & St John's College, Lord Mayor's Walk, York

AGM and Bill Gibb by Christine Rew. "the golden boy of (1970's) British fashion"

It is some time since we held a meeting in York and this venue best accommodated our speaker, Christine Rew, who travelled down from Aberdeen to be with us for the day. Christine is the Keeper of Applied Art at the Aberdeen Art Gallery and author of the book, 'Bill Gibb, the golden boy of British fashion' which was produced to coincide with a retrospective exhibition of his work which was held there in 2003.

Born into north-eastern Scotland farming stock, Gibb's early talents lead him south to St Martin's School of Art and then the Royal College, where he rubbed shoulders with other 60's designer-icons of the period, such as Zandra Rhodes, Ossie Clark, Janice Wainwright, Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale. He became known for his exotic use of colour, print and decoration but it is perhaps Gibb's knitwear which provided the most important contribution to British fashion. Lost to cancer at only 45, much of his work was well documented and photographed for us to enjoy and marvel at today.

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