Hardy Amies

From his teens on, he used his middle name- his mother's maiden name, Hardy- and always cited her as the inspiration for his chosen professional path.

He stopped using his first name, Edwin, which he had been given in honour of his paternal grandfather, Edwin Amies, a successful businessman who owned a factory producing 'dandy rolls', from which watermarks in paper and banknotes were created; he lived beyond his means, however, with a reputation as a "man about town" in both London and Paris, meaning at his death less money was left than had been supposed.

[3] Amies described his father as "most affectionate", saying they "didn't get on badly by any means", but he got on better with his mother, "indiscreetly" opining that his father "wasn't very bright", and that his mother, a "pretty, intelligent... ambitious" "village girl" from a "less financially stable background" than her husband, had "what is laughingly called taste- of course it was restricted to suburban taste, her life being very circumscribed.

Although his father wanted him to attend Cambridge University, Amies considered himself a mediocre student; nevertheless, he was recommended for a scholarship, but failed the examination.

[6] In 1937, he scored his first success with a Linton tweed suit in sage green with a cerise overcheck called "Panic".

At the outbreak of the Second World War, with his language experience, Amies was called to serve in the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

[9] Amies suspected that SOE's commander Major General Colin Gubbins did not regard a dressmaker as suitable military material; but his training report stated:[10] This officer is far tougher both physically and mentally than his rather precious appearance would suggest.

His only handicap is his precious appearance and manner, and these are tending to decrease.Posted to Belgium, Amies worked with the various Belgian resistance groups and adapted names of fashion accessories for use as code words, while he organised sabotage assignments and arranged for agents to be parachuted with radio equipment behind enemy lines, into the Ardennes.

Amies rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel,[11] but outraged his superiors in 1944 by engaging famed photographer Lee Miller and setting up a Vogue photo shoot in Belgium after D-Day.

Amies was an integral part of Operation Ratweek, an assassination project developed by SOE to eliminate double agents and Nazi sympathizers in Belgium.

In late 1945, Virginia, Countess of Jersey, who had been a client during his tenure at Lachasse, financed Hardy Amies' move to 14 Savile Row.

Hardy was quoted at the time as saying, "A woman's day clothes must look equally good at Salisbury Station as the Ritz Bar".

In 1961, Amies made fashion history by staging the first men's ready-to-wear catwalk shows, at the Savoy Hotel, London.

[17] Amies' work was seen in a handful of other films of the 1960s: He dressed Albert Finney in Two for the Road (1967), Tony Randall in The Alphabet Murders (1965), Joan Greenwood in The Amorous Prawn (1962), and Deborah Kerr in The Grass is Greener (1960).

[18] When, in July 2009, the Hardy Amies Designer Archive was opened on Savile Row, the Victoria & Albert Museum reissued the book.

In May 2001, Amies sold his business to the Luxury Brands Group and retired at the end of the year, when Moroccan-born designer Jacques Azagury became head of couture.

[21] Initially discreet about his homosexuality, Amies became more candid in his old age and, when speaking of Sir Norman Hartnell, another renowned dressmaker to the Queen, he commented: "It's quite simple.