emmapeelpants

Lee Bender was not only a genius when it came to tea-dresses and wearable separates, she was also brilliant at creating wearable suits for women in the early Seventies. Mostly what we see are skirt suits, but her trouser suits were something of a trademark at the time - and are bizarrely somewhat rarer to find nowadays. This suit is a wonderfully relaxed, pyjama-style cut which would have been a superb alternative to floaty, plungey dresses for a groovy young hostess at the time (very similar to the Ossie and Jean Muir suits on my inspirational images page - see below). The trousers are, frankly, enormous in width and flare out beautifully from a typical high waist. The jacket is cut loosely and flares out from the gently gathered front yoke and completely freely in the back, it is then tied to fit in the waist with a completely separate satin tie. There are no belt loops, so presumably this is also an optional thing and you could just as easily tie the satin belt around your hair if you wanted to keep the jacket lovely and loose. I love Bender's work in satin backed crepe, and the way she used the satin to trim the jacket so beautifully at the collar and cuffs.

Stunning and very wearable button front halter neck Ossie Clark dress with beautiful Celia Birtwell garland print. It does have issues stemming from the notoriously unstable dyes used at the time and presumably a few glasses of champagne spilled down it (I like to think it was worn to a few hedonistic parties at the time!) so it is being sold as seen but structurally it is absolutely without problems and so you could easily have it shortened (for the price of a bottle of champers) and it would be immensely wearable. In many ways, I love a good flawed Ossie. My own wardrobe has many of them because I can wear them endlessly without worry, and I love the story you can just sense they possess!

Sultry halter neck and skirt ensemble by Radley. Famed largely for their connection to Ossie Clark, Radley were also in the business of producing some seriously sexy, sassy own-label versions of his very distinctive deco-groupie style. This two piece, oh! so adaptable as separates as well, is made from delicious black moss crepe and cut beautifully to drape. The skirt is a very simple, straight cut from a high waist and the top is just dreamy. Banded with black satin to fit at the waist, then trimmed with blue bias satin around the top and to create the halter ties....it captures the decadence of the era so perfectly. The embroidered detail on the waistband is the finishing touch to what is one of the best Radleys I've seen yet!