Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell to be celebrated in new exhibition

The Fashion and Textile Museum in London has announced its next exhibition will celebrate Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, who became known as one of the most influential creative and romantic partnerships of ‘Swinging London’ in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The ‘Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell’ exhibition will run from October 2, 2026, to April 27, 2027, and showcase an “intoxicating world of slinky, bias-cut dresses, ethereal flounces of chiffon, astonishing tailoring, slim hipped flares and fitted python skin jackets”.

Clark and Birtwell dominated the London fashion scene from 1965 to 1974, becoming hugely influential in fashion and celebrity circles for fusing Clark’s expertise in tailoring and garment cutting, especially in bias cut and fluid silhouettes, with Birtwell’s whimsical textile design and playful prints, ranging from delicate florals to intricate paisleys, and stylised botanical prints.

The exhibition will feature more than 120 garments drawn from a private collection seen alongside items loaned by Birtwell, exploring the couple's heyday working together as textile designer and designer, as well as also looking beyond to their independent careers post 1974, “allowing audiences for the first time to unravel their separate talents”.

At the heart of Clark and Birtwell’s professional partnership were the outfits they designed for the West London boutique, Quorum, with key pieces including early works such as the mail-order ‘Paper’ dress, featuring Celia’s Art Deco influenced design of orange and green flowers and the ‘Bakst’ dress of 1967 with its circles in purple and red, inspired by Leon Bakst’s costumes for the Ballet Russe and the work of abstract painter, Sonia Delaunay.

Other looks highlight Clark’s training at the Royal College of Art and his skills in tailoring and work with chiffon, such as the powder blue Ziggy Stardust dress inspired by the 1930s, which is a spiralling corkscrew of chiffon cut on the straight grain and wound around the body, while Birtwell’s illustrative print features black birds and splashes of golden flowers.

Tailored items that will be on display include the 1968 Lamborghini jacket, a long satin jacket worn with trousers in Birtwell’s Chinoiserie-style print of black, red and cream which mixes geometrics with florals. This suit was worn by models, celebrities and it-girls from Twiggy to Rolling Stone, Bill Wyman. Other trouser suits for women, such as a tailored black-and-red crepe trouser suit embroidered with strawberries and modelled by Jean Shrimpton, will be shown alongside ruffled and frilled chiffon shirts as worn by Brian Jones.

London’s Fashion and Textile Museum to spotlight Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell

The exhibition will then progress into how Clark and Birtwell’s designs built a bridge between the linear dolly-bird mini of the early 1960s to the later more sophisticated and flowing designs of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which encapsulate the Bohemian freedom of the era, full of movement and sexuality.

A key feature of the exhibition will be the important outfits worn by the couple themselves, such as Birtwell’s wedding dress, the Ophelia dress, which combined two of her prints, 'Floating Daisy' and 'Lollipop'. The garment demonstrates just how radical Clark’s designs were, as the lightweight, ethereal, voluminous dress is made almost entirely of chiffon with a silhouette that resembles a kaftan, while Birtwell’s romantic print offsets the more sensual aspect of a dress that is also very revealing.

The exhibition will continue upstairs with an exploration of Clark and Birtwell’s work after they split up and their partnership with Quorum had ended. Highlights include Clark’s work in jersey, including his dresses and jumpsuits, alongside Birtwell’s later works, such as items from her sell-out collaboration with Topshop in 2006.

Dennis Nothdruft, head of exhibitions at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London, said in a statement: “The contribution of Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell helped define the London look of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“Clark's contributions to fashion, his skilful cutting and innate understanding of the human form, may not have had the recognition of other designers of the era, whose businesses had longevity. We hope this exhibition, which features a large collection of their work, will help to redress the balance.”

The Fashion and Textile Museum is the only museum in the UK dedicated to showcasing contemporary fashion and textile design. Founded in 2003 by British fashion legend Dame Zandra Rhodes, the Bermondsey Village-based museum is operated by Newham College, London, one of Europe’s largest further education colleges.

Previous exhibitions have highlighted work by Orla Kiely, Anna Sui, Biba’s Barbara Hulanicki, and Kaffe Fassett, as well as showcasing costumes from film and television shows, celebrating textiles with deep historical connection to mankind, and the fashion inspired by 80s London.