Banks, Jeff

Jeff Banks started London boutique ‘Clobber’ with business partner Tony Harley in 1964. It began as a retail outlet, supplied by designers such as Ossie Clark, Janice Wainwright and Jean Muir for Jane and Jane. Clobber was the forerunner of Biba; with its intimate, stylish feel. Banks turned designer when the shop regularly sold out of its stock. “The day after we opened we were standing in the empty shop and Freda Fairway, who had worked for Hardy Amies and Mary Quant, came into the shop and said, ‘Why don’t you make your own clothes?’ There was nothing she didn’t know about making clothes. She stayed with me seventeen years.”

His clothes were also sold in Fenwicks in the 1960s and 1970s. He married Sandie Shaw in 1968 and they had a daughter, Grace, before divorcing in the 1970s. He moved into mass retailing with his ‘Warehouse’ chain in the 1970s. He later became most famous for working on BBC’s The Clothes Show and is still designing clothes and homewares, and co-running Graduate Fashion Week in the UK.

See also: Clobber

Written by emmepeelpants

from a 1970s fitted blouse

Courtesy of emmapeelpants