Celia Birtwell recalls her partnership with Ossie Clark
Celia Birtwell is recalling her personal and creative partnership with fashion designer Ossie Clark as a new show celebrates their work. Birtwell designed botanical fabrics for Clark’s dresses, and the pair became prominent figures in London’s 1960s and 1970s fashion scene, dressing and socialising with figures including Talitha Getty, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg.
Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark became prominent designers in London during the 1960s and 1970s. Birtwell created botanical-patterned fabrics, while Clark used them in bias-cut dresses combining Hollywood glamour with rock’n’roll influences.
The pair’s Chelsea boutique, Quorum, attracted figures including Talitha Getty, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg. A 1970 catwalk audience included two Beatles, Cecil Beaton and Brigitte Bardot.
Clark later made stage clothes for Mick Jagger and accompanied the Rolling Stones on tour. David Hockney’s portrait Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy was painted two years into Birtwell and Clark’s marriage, when Birtwell was pregnant with their second child.
Birtwell is also recalling her sorrow at the loss of David Hockney.
THE QUESTIONS THIS EVENT LEAVES BEHIND
How did the new show select which parts of Birtwell and Clark’s work to present?
What conditions enabled their designs to reach such a prominent cultural audience?
How might their fashion partnership have developed if their personal relationship had continued differently?
What perspectives from people who wore or encountered their designs are absent from this account?
YOUR QUESTION
Does this story leave you with another question?
Send us the question the report did not answer. It may become the next question IAQ investigates.
GLOBAL CURIOSITY MAP · SEPTEMBER 2026