Fashion and Fantasy!

Bill Gibb: Fashion and Fantasy by Iain R Webb

A night for golden oldies - one of the year’s best and quirkiest fashion parties was at Zandra Rhodes’ Costume and Textiles Museum in Bermondsey, where Twiggy opened a fantastic exhibition of designs by the late and much lamented Bill Gibb, and launched a brilliant new book about him by Iain R.Webb. Ladies of a certain age swigged champagne and swapped personal stories about the designer while looking fab in his originals especially the knits, with complex patterns by Kaffe Fassett, and sinuous jersey dresses with sequinned insets. For anyone who knows little about this outrageously talented Scot, who sadly died in 1988 aged 45, he was a style icon of the 1970s and still quoted as a big influence by designers of the calibre of John Galliano and Giles Deacon. Given that he flourished in a recession, expect to see similar wildly romantic designs and fantasy fabric mixes on a catwalk near you soon - he is well overdue a revival. - Avril Groom