Alfred Radley (28 June 1924 – 14 February 2019) was a British clothing manufacturer best known for founding Radley Fashions and his association with the Quorum Boutique and fashion designer,

Ossie Clark Raymond "Ossie" Clark (9 June 1942 – 6 August 1996) was a British fashion designer who was a major figure in the Swinging Sixties scene in London and the fashion industry in that era. Clark is now renowned for his vintage designs by present- ...

Biography

Alfred Radley was born in 1924 in the East End of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, the youngest of seven children. His father died when he was eighteen months old, and he was brought up partly at the Norwood orphanage. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he volunteered for the

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

and served in all theatres of war from the Atlantic Convoys to the Pacific. In June 1944, D day +1, he served on a ship landing troops on the beaches in Normandy and was on the first Allied ship to dock in France (Cherbourg). Towards the end of the war, he served on taking returning Russian prisoners to Odessa and bringing back Jewish survivors (among them

Otto Frank Otto Heinrich Frank (12 May 1889 – 19 August 1980) was a German businessman, and the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 (subsequently known in English as ''The Diary of a Young Girl'') and adv ...

, the father of

Anne Frank Annelies Marie Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new li ...

) from the death camps to Marseille. He also was on one to the first ships to enter Japan following the dropping of the atom bombs when he visited

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

. After the war, he started his own company selling dresses and by the early 1960s was part of the

Swinging London The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London denoted as its centre. It saw a flourishing in ...

movement, specialising in party dresses. By 1965 Radley was one of the most important fashion houses in London, with its own fabric mills as well as factories producing gloves and handbags for many high street stores including

Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks & Sparks or simply Marks) is a major British multinational retailer based in London, England, that specialises in selling clothing, beauty products, home produc ...

. In 1968 Radley acquired Quorum with its famous designers

Alice Pollock Alice Pollock (born 1942) is a British fashion designer and retailer who founded the boutique ''Quorum'', which featured the work of fellow designers Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, and later started the male modelling agency ''English Boy'' i ...

and Celia Birtwell. While Ossie Clark flourished under the Quorum label, Radley promoted the careers of many designers including: Betty Jackson, Sheilagh Brown, Sheridan Barnett,

Wendy Dagworthy Wendy Dagworthy OBE (born 4 March 1950) is an English former fashion designer and now design academic. During her career she has led fashion design teaching at both the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, mentoring notable fashion d ...

, Rosemary Bradford and Terence Nolder (who in 1980 won the British Eveningwear Designer Award and The British Designer of the Year Award in 1981) For this, he has been given the epithet "the patron saint of British Fashion"

Sir Philip Green Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) is a British businessman who was the chairman of the retail company Arcadia Group. He owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman, and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020. In May 20 ...

. Radley remained in contact with Ossie Clark throughout the rest of his life. Although Radley retired in the late 1980s, he has retained a passionate interest in fashion and in particular Ossie Clark and has worked tirelessly to keep his work and memory alive. In 2002, he convinced the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

to stage a major exhibition in celebration of Ossie Clark's work which was mounted in July 2003 for ten months. Radley provided many of the garments that were on display from his personal collection and the centrepiece was his daughter Diane's wedding dress. Radley died at the age of 94 on 14 February 2019.Obituary: Alfred Radley
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References

External links

Radley at the Vintage Fashion Guild Label Resource.

Topshop Archives

Victoria & Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Radley, Alfred 1924 births 2019 deaths Businesspeople from London 20th-century English businesspeople Royal Navy personnel of World War II