All We Know: Three Lives
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“high marriage wastage”: “And by the Way…,” n.d., MGP.
“London’s most unusual professor”: Fashion Professor to Marry Museum Director,” March 7, 1952, MGP.
“The First Professor of Fashion”: Marjorie Beckett, “The First Professor of Fashion,” Picture Post, February 19, 1949.
“My dear Gerald…egotism”: MG to Gerald McHarg, July 9, 1949. See Times (London) July 8, 1949, MHFP.
“not only the…industry”: Harper’s Bazaar, n.d., 46, RCAA.
“the civil servant stuffed shirts”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.
She also hired…England: “She was open enough to employ…all kinds of people,” Brogden recalled. “I can remember seeing the number tattooed on this woman’s arm,” she said of the Jewish refugee who taught lingerie, for example.
“I wanted people…industry”: Glynn, “50 Years On.”
“costume history, cutting…embroidery”: Harper’s Bazaar, n.d., 46, RCAA.
“facts and technique…sophistication”: Ibid.
“to train you…awful”: Joanne Brogden to author, interview, London, December 4, 1997.
“She was an…go”: David Sassoon to author, interview, London, September 22, 1997.
“You had visits…time”: David Watts to author, interview, London, June 13, 1998.
“She wears clothes…wit”: “Their Business Is Fashion,” British Vogue, June 1949, 77. There is a “gaiety” to her style, “which is uncontrived, indefinable, but very much in character.”
“original approach to…individuality”: “Two Names in London Fashion,” n.d., MGP.
“a very glamorous…sleeves”: David Watts to author, interview, London, June 13, 1998.
“She was what…heaven”: David Sassoon to author, interview, London, September 22, 1997.
“the way she…awe”: Gina Fratini to author, interview, London, September 18, 1997.
“Paris, Kensington”: Foreword, Christopher Frayling, Royal College of Art Fiftieth Anniversary program.
“We were a…own”: Anne Tyrell to author, interview, London, June 15, 1998.
“would invite all…people”: Joanne Brogden to author, interview, London, December 4, 1997.
“Madge’s office I…all”: David Watts to author, interview, London, June 13, 1998.
“immaculate scarlet varnished…over”: Joanne Brogden to author, interview, London, December 4, 1997. See also Marjorie Beckett, “The First Professor of Fashion,” Picture Post, February 19, 1949.
“addressed 600 locals”: MG to Gerald McHarg, March 27 [1949], MHFP.
Fashion, 92.
“staggeringly beautiful…houses”: Joanne Brogden to author, interview, London, December 4, 1997.
“the rigorous self-discipline…taste”: “And by the Way…” n.d., MGP.
“walking in one…‘off’”: Joanne Brogden to author, interview, London, December 4, 1997.
“We were ‘her’…Vogue”: Sheila Pearson to author, telephone interview, July 9, 1993.
“I definitely would…her”: David Sassoon to author, interview, London, 22 September 1997.
“She was really…intimidate”: Joanne Brogden to author, interview, London, December 4, 1997.
“she thought she…warmer”: David Sassoon to author, interview, London, September 22, 1997.
“employing a designer…designer”: Anne Tyrell to author, interview, London, June 15, 1998.
“In 1948, when…energy”: Robin Darwin to MG, May 9, 1956, Madge Garland personnel file, Royal College of Art.
But they had…place: “‘We disagreed’, said Darwin, cryptically,” notes a recent history of the Royal College of Art, “and that was that.” Christopher Frayling, The Royal College of Art: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Art and Design (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1987), 154. Ironside remembered that Madge threatened to resign in a dispute with Darwin and that he accepted her resignation. Janey Ironside, Janey (London: Michael Joseph, 1973), 83.
“She’d arrive staggeringly…around”: Anne Tyrell to author, interview, London, June 15, 1998.
Like Madge, she: Fashion was “surely no more frivolous than architecture, to which it is closely related,” Carter wrote in her memoir, Ernestine Carter, With Tongue in Chic (London: Michael Joseph, 1974), 181.
“The proper function…‘present’”: Garland, “Artifices,” 82.
“lack of professional…style”: Ibid., 86.
“most people think…‘collection’”: Ibid., 82.
“The fashion writer…fashion”: Garland, Fashion, 105.
“based on a…culture”: Ibid., 32.
“I went—not…‘shown?’”: Garland, “This Fashion Business,” 140.
“The English have…knowledge”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP. Her analysis echoes Lytton Strachey’s observation about the lack of support for literature: “The mere existence of a body of writers officially recognized by the authorities of the State [the Académie Française] has undoubtedly given a peculiar prestige to the profession of letters in France. It has emphasized that tendency to take the art of writing seriously—to regard it as a fit object for the most conscientious craftsmanship and deliberate care—which is so characteristic of French writers. The amateur is very rare in French literature—as rare as he is common in our own.” From Lytton Strachey, Landmarks in French Literature, quoted in Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey: The New Biography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), 248.
“how sensually she…samples”: Ironside, Janey, 63.
“What woman does…gown?”: Graham [Garland], “The Psychology of Dress,” 87.
“There is a…in”: Garland, “Artifices,” 81.
“I can, with…‘mode’”: Ibid., 89.
“We admire a…calculation”: Ibid., 87.
“Apart from money…thought”: Madge Garland, “How to Dress on Nothing a Year,” Brittania and Eve, September 1931, 76.
“really hard work”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979. This friend was probably Kitty Pringle Mocata.
“The selection of…salons”: Garland, Fashion, 148.
“match[ed] perfectly…way”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.
“In those days…money”: Garland, Fashion, 148.
“To consume without…lady”: Madge Garland, “For Thousands of Years Women’s Dress Has Proclaimed Her Status—Does It Now?” British Vogue, n.d. [circa 1960s], MGP.
“as deceptive as…detail”: Madge Garland, “Introduction,” Fashion 1900–1939, 7.
“the best life for women”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.
NOTES ON DISCRETION
“a vibrant voice…flamboyant”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997.
I get…order”: Hilary Spurling to author, conversation, New York, September 1993.
“Sport is absolutely…away”: MG to Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, December 28, 1987.
“She used to…creature”: Patrick Woodcock to author, interview, London, January 25, 2002.
“My child, you…divine”: David Sassoon to author, interview, London, September 22, 1997.
“hysterical”: MG to Peter Shaunagh Ward-Jackson, conversation, London, October 3, [circa 1980s].
“it was interesting…room”: Ibid.
“The atmosphere is…answered”: Garland, “This Fashion Business,” 37.
including one…period: “These tiny Baby Simcas are barely larger than a perambulator and the first time I saw a Parisienne wearing her loose fitting coat, her feathered hat on the back of her head, and her bulky feet fold herself into one of the cars I laughed heartily.” Madge Garland, “Fashion Today,” typescript, BBC Home Service, London, January 16, 1947, BBC Written Archives Centre.
“the way she…lesbian”: Hugo Vickers, unpublished diaries, March 8, 1980.
“She lived very…was”:
Francis King to author, interview, London, March 21, 1998.
“revelations or insinuations…time”: Anne Olivier Bell to author, September 16, 2004. The phrase is in Woolf’s diary entry for February 18, 1928. Consulted at the Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
“People of that…so”: Francis King to author, interview, London, March 21, 1998.
“It was in…discreet”: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997. Another example: Among the short autobiographical essays that make up the drafts of Madge’s memoir are three and a half typed pages in which she recounts a momentous event that took place during her first years at Vogue: her interview with Radclyffe Hall. The novelist was then “the most scandalous woman in London,” Madge writes.
The permissive society of today can have no conception of the scandal caused by the publication of The Well of Loneliness—a book never to be seen on anyone’s table or bookshelf but read by all in secret…And now I was to interview this famous—or infamous lady—but was she a lady? That was one problem but the main problem was that I had not the faintest idea of how to conduct an interview. How did one begin? Every subject seemed fraught with dangerous innuendos.
The interview was nevertheless a triumph—her first real piece of journalism and a coup that made her “the centre of attention” at a party that night. She is describing her life and work circa 1922, however, and The Well of Loneliness was published in 1928—one of several mysteries about this short document.
“gestures full of duplicity”: Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp,’” Against Interpretation (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), 281.
“the impression of…boots”: Graham Reynolds to author, telephone interview, January 12, 2004.
“She was so…it?”: Patrick Woodcock to author, telephone interview, January 22, 2002.
“I wish I…darling”: Shaunagh Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997.
“ate next to…food”: Sybille Bedford to Evelyn Gendel, January 13, 1957, in “A Bouquet for Sybille Bedford,” Five Dials, March 18, 2011.
“It was the…durable”: De Acosta, Here Lies, 132.
“It was the…feminine”: De Acosta, “Here Lies The Heart,” typescript (circa 1960), second draft, 271.
“represented…figure”: Patrick Woodcock to author, interview, London, January 25, 2002.
“had this flair…on”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interviews, London, July 2, 1980, and London, October 8, 1979, IAP.
“seeing the world…phenomenon”: Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp,’” 277.
“taste is not…‘natural’”: Susan Sontag, “The Double Standard of Aging,” Saturday Review, September 23, 1972, 38.
“like stage sets”: Hilary Spurling to author, conversation, London, January 11, 2002.
“painted elaborately by…daring”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, Sunday, November 7, 1926, CBD.
“in pink and…had”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, July 2, 1980, IAP.
“it looked like…different”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.
“was like going…beautiful”: Gina Fratini to author, interview, London, September 18, 1997.
“dead birds, surrounded…frames”: Chloe Tyner to author, telephone interview, May 19, 1997.
“She was the…‘that’”: Isabelle Anscombe to author, conversation, London, January 2, 2002.
“held that all…homosexual”: Hilary Spurling, Ivy: The Life of I, Compton-Burnett (New York: Knopf, 1974, 1984), 279.
“with a grey…coat”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997. Ward-Jackson went on to say that a taxi driver taking Roger’s fare once said, “Cor blimey sir, you’ll be wearing earrings next!” To which Roger replied, “Not with tweeds, my dear fellow!”
“Purple Party”: David Sassoon to author, interview, London, September 22, 1997.
“my dears”: Selina Hastings to author, conversation, London, January 14, 1999.
“very bright star…world”: Graham Reynolds to author, telephone interview, January 12, 2004.
“his flair for…objects”: Graham Reynolds to author, February 2, 2004.
“Primary Galleries…time”: Ibid. See also, Graham Reynolds, “Leigh Ashton,” obituary, Apollo, May 1968.
“it was a…seriously”: Graham Reynolds to author, telephone interview, January 12, 2004.
“Just read the…it”: Allanah Harper to Sybille Bedford, February 27, [1952], SBP.
“Fashion Professor to…Museum”: Morna Condell, March 7, 1952, MGP.
“A title draws…country”: Isabelle Anscombe to author, conversation, London, November 10, 2003.
“You can’t even…fabric”: Patrick Woodcock to author, interview, London, January 25, 2002.
“She loved to…Ashton”: Colombe Pringle to author, interview, Paris, December 5, 1997.
“DEAR GERALD MARRIED…Madge”: John McHarg to author, interview, Melbourne, September 10, 2003.
“an ambition which…Leigh”: Graham Reynolds to author, March 2, 2004.
“a nice cosy…austerity”: Ibid.
“Don’t marry,” Madge…“regulations”: MG to Isabelle Anscombe, interview, London, October 8, 1979, IAP.
“drinking career…occasion”: Graham Reynolds to author, telephone interview, January 12, 2004.
“Dear Leigh,” she…“agreement”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, conversation, London, January 4, 2002.
“So the performance…months”: Graham Reynolds to author, telephone interview, January 12, 2004.
“for reasons of failing health”: “Leigh Ashton,” obituary, Times (London), March 17, 1983, MGP.
As Lady Ashton…title: Her snobbery had its most meaningful applications in England, but it was global in reach. When she traveled to India late in life, said her goddaughter, it was “not only for the gurus, but for the Maharajas.” Colombe Pringle to author, interview, Paris, December 5, 1997.
Ivy, 506.
“Ivy came to…again”: Madge Garland, “A Friendship Without a Thorn,” unpublished typescript, MGP.
“one of the…life”: Spurling, Ivy, 506.
“Madge could do no wrong”: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997.
“She was besotted…world”: Francis King to author, interview, London, March 21, 1998.
“although she belonged…it”: Garland, “A Friendship Without a Thorn.”
“she knew that…dependable”: MG to Flora Groult, interview, London, July 26, 1986.
“had strong feelings…tone”: Garland, “A Friendship Without a Thorn.”
“Madge is in…her”: Barbara Robinson to author, telephone interview, July 30, 1998.
“passion for clothes”…homosexual: Spurling, Ivy, 263.
“clothes-conscious”: Ibid., 364. Spurling also argues that Josephine has strong affinities with her creator.
“Oh, pray let…over-civilised”: Ivy Compton-Burnett, A Family and a Fortune and More Women Than Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965 [1933]) 434, 488, 311, 335.
“I have said…women”: Compton-Burnett, More Women Than Men, 489–90.
“Ivy educated me”: Garland, MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, London, September 18, 1975.
“The whole thing…anyone”: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997.
“a wildly mixed…velvet”: Garland, “A Friendship Without a Thorn.”
“in the end…drunk”: MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, London, September 18, 1975.
“deep tenderness”: MG to Barbara Robinson, September 22, 1969.
“She might flay…safe”: Garland, “A Friendship Without a Thorn.”
“I felt I…helplessness”: Ivy Compton-Burnett to MG, June 7, 1968, quoted in Spurling, Ivy, 533.
“that it prevented…was”: MG to Barbara Robinson, September 22 1969.
“submerged stones against…toe”: MG to Hilary Spurling, interview, Lo
ndon, March 31, 1973.
“Ivy said nothing…point”: MG to Hilary Spurling, quoted in Spurling, Ivy, 352.
“He’s getting married…knows”: Quoted in ibid., 438.
“Will you come…coming”: MG to Hilary Spurling, conversation, London, October 1974.
“Come on Madge…hers”: Francis King to author, interview, London, March 21, 1998.
“discreet to the…obsession”: Spurling, Ivy, 368.
“she never, as…life”: Francis King to author, interview, London, March 21, 1998.
“didn’t make any…it”: Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, January 12, 1999.
“tell her a…Lesbians”: Cecil Beaton, unpublished diaries, September 2, 1927.
“It wasn’t Madge…married”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997.
“She was always…women”: Hardy Amies to author, interview, London, January 14, 1999.
“a wonderful bridge…second-rate”: “Madge Garland,” obituary, Sunday Telegraph, July 17, 1990.
“was so furious…quashed”: Madge Garland, “Rose Bertin: Minister of Fashion,” Apollo (January 1968): 40–45, 44.
“Madge came down…work”: Rebecca West to Janet Flanner, November 2, 1958, JFP.
“What Camp taste…thing”: Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp,’” 286.
“great amount of…room”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997.
“parchment velvet…gowns”: Madge Garland, “A Portfolio of Fashion,” The Bystander, September 20, 1933, 529.
“terribly tough, with…fun”: Sarah Stacey to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997.
“the most percipient of friends”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.
“smug, self-assured…did”: Hilary Spurling, “Madge Garland,” obituary, Independent, July 17, 1990.
“within two years…life”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.
“Everybody was one…flames”: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, December 7, 1997.
“one of the…life”: MG to Hugo Vickers, interview, London, March 8, 1980.
“was leaving me…man”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.
“The years passed…May”: MG memoir drafts, MGP.
“I cried and…crying”: Peter Ward-Jackson to author, interview, London, September 17, 1997.