Ossie Clark

Clark is compared to the 1960s fashion great Biba and influenced many other designers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Sui and Tom Ford.

Manolo Blahnik has said of Ossie Clark's work: "He created an incredible magic with the body and achieved what fashion should do—produce desire."

Soon after leaving Beamont Secondary Technical School, Clark attended the Regional College of Art in Manchester at the age of 16.

While attending college in Manchester, Clark was introduced to Celia Birtwell by a close friend and classmate named Mo McDermott.

Clark and Hockney took an inspirational trip to New York City together while still at college where they made many valuable connections in the fashion, art and entertainment communities.

The final line-up featured a dress with flashing lightbulbs down the front which was shown in every major newspaper and fashion publication the following day.

A popular shop named 'Woollands 21' in London's Sloane Street was the first to begin selling Ossie Clark's clothing line.

[3] Clark quickly began to make his mark in the fashion industry, with Alice Pollock's exclusive boutique Quorum featuring his designs in 1966.

Pollock wanted Clark's clothes to have a more organic feel, and so commissioned Celia Birtwell to produce special textiles for the next collection.

Clark's great idol was the famous dancer Nijinsky and his love of dance inspired his clothes to be free moving and not to restrict the female form.

Clark got in on the ground floor of many of the popular performers and actors of the time period and was accepted in their circles when many other designers were not.

Peter Gabriel borrowed a red Clark dress from his wife Jill to wear with a fox's head, as depicted on the cover of the Genesis album Foxtrot.

However, in 1977 Ossie went into business with Tony Calder and Peter Lee, and for two years enjoyed a revival with hugely successful fashion shows, rave reviews and commercial stability.

Clothing from Vivienne Westwood's shop on the King's Road became the most popular look and one of Malcolm McLaren's "Scum" T-shirt text went so far as to include Ossie Clark under the heading "Hates".

Famously devoid of business acumen, he blamed his downfall on banks and the taxman's ruthless insistence on cashing in all his assets.

His bitterness at this and a short-sighted determination to sit out the bankruptcy term, along with deep depression, meant he worked only on private commissions that were paid for by barter.

Clark produced garments with shoulder details based on sea shells but according to his diaries was then sacked by Radley that same year.

A note written by Clark to the DHSS (p. 147) says: "I did not leave my position as a dress designer with Firwool of my own accord, as stated overleaf.

This version of events is backed up by a friend, the artist Guy Burch, who recalls that Clark told him Radley had found the complicated shell patterns impossible to make commercially.

With Clark's encouragement Balaban applied to the Byam Shaw School of Art and went on to start his own highly successful fashion business producing printed T-shirts for high-street boutiques and multiples.

Although most published accounts choose not to pay much attention to Clark's gay relationships, his sexuality was predominantly homosexual.

Only with Balaban's death from AIDS in 1994 and a conversion to Buddhism did Clark finally begin to rebuild a career and shake off the past.

On 6 August 1996, Ossie Clark was stabbed to death in his council flat, in Kensington and Chelsea, London,[8] by his former lover, 28-year-old Italian, Diego Cogolato.

In November 2007, Marc Worth, the founder of WGSN purchased the name Quorum and announced the re-launch of "Ossie Clark".

[15][16] Fashion designers influenced by Ossie Clark include Anna Sui, John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, Dries Van Noten, Malcolm Hall, Clements Ribeiro, Marc Jacobs, Gucci and Prada.