Clive Evans, better known as Clive, was a London-born fashion designer of the 1960s who attracted a number of celebrity fans and was promoted internationally as a high fashion designer from
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 ...
.
Operating initially as a couture designer – and at a time when fashion was undergoing a radical shift towards mass-market and ready-to-wear – he was described by ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' fashion editor
Prudence Glynn in 1972 as: "the last flowering on the tree of British couture".
Early life and career
Evans was born in London into a medical family, claiming six generations of doctors came before him.
He chose not to follow family tradition and spent time in 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 ...
, also training as a journalist and working as a porter.
Having completed a course at
Canterbury College of Art Evans began his fashion apprenticeship with
Michael of Carlos Place before working at
Lachasse and
John Cavanagh – all were members of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (IncSoc), giving him an impeccable grounding in the London couture scene.
While working at Lachasse, he won both first and second prize in a design competition organised by the
International Wool Secretariat.
After a spell working with Berketex (then a wholesale house) as an assistant within its ready-to-wear department, he showed his first collection in 1963 in a borrowed space.
Eponymous label
By 1964, Evans was showing from his own salon just off
Hanover Square and in August of that year he was elected as a member of IncSoc – bypassing the normal requirement to show at least four collections before being considered for membership.
After this small (for the time) collection of 24 pieces was shown, ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...
'' described him as "the man of the moment" in British fashion, also noting that, like his first mentor Michael of Carlos Place, he was tuned into the
Balenciaga
Balenciaga SA ( , , ) is a Spanish Basque luxury fashion house currently headquartered in Paris. It designs, manufactures and markets ready-to-wear footwear, handbags, and accessories, and licenses its name and branding to the American cosmeti ...
style. The reviewer added: "His tailoring is superb. His line is pure and his cut intricate."
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' reviewers added further praise: "Clive's clothes have confident assurance...A young man must, indeed, have confident assurance and not a little courage to start a couture house these days when the whole drift of fashion is towards casual clothes and ready-to-wear."
The first full Clive collection was launched in January 1965. It was greeted warmly by the reviewer for ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'', who described it as setting "a mood of high sophistication" with its tunic suits, collarless coats with
kimono
The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn Garment collars in hanfu#Youren (right lapel), left side wrapped over ri ...
sleeves and suits with
culotte skirts. Eveningwear included
sarong
A sarong or a sarung (, ) is a large tube or length of textile, fabric, often wrapped around the waist, worn in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia, Northern Africa, East Africa, West Africa, and on many Pacific islands. The fabric often ...
and
sari
A sari (also called sharee, saree or sadi)The name of the garment in various regional languages include:
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*
* is a drape (cloth) and a women's garment in the Indian subcontinent. It consists of an un-sti ...
-style dresses and an evening blouse made of chiffon and 30 yards of ribbon. The collection included shoes he'd designed and models wore straw turban hats made by
Graham Smith with inbuilt slots to hold futuristic sunglasses made by
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish poet, novelist, playwright, and hack writer. A prolific author of various literature, he is regarded among the most versatile writers of the Georgian e ...
.
Clive clothes soon attracted high-profile clients such as
Lee Radziwill
Caroline Lee Radziwill (; March 3, 1933 – February 15, 2019), previously known as Lee Canfield and Lee Ross, was an American socialite, public relations executive, and interior designer. She was the younger sister of former First Lady of the ...
and a string of actresses – notably
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse (born Tula Ellice Finklea; March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American dancer and actress.
After recovering from polio as a child and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually featured her abilit ...
,
Diane Cilento,
Susannah York
Susannah Yolande Fletcher (9 January 1939 – 15 January 2011), known professionally as Susannah York, was an English actress. Her appearances in various films of the 1960s, including '' Tom Jones'' (1963) and '' They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' ...
and
Barbara Rush
Barbara Rush (January 4, 1927 – March 31, 2024) was an American actress of stage, screen, and television. In 1954, she won the Golden Globe Award for most promising female newcomer for her role in the 1953 American science-fiction film ''It ...
.
Ready to wear clothing
In 1967, Clive signed an agreement with Cope Allman International to produce a ready-to-wear line, 'Clive Set', for the international market.
The first collection was launched with transatlantic fanfare – beginning with a showing in London at 9.30 am, then a second showing on the flight to New York, before a final event on in New York Harbour.
Cope Allman's fashion division had decided to market Clive internationally because they saw him as representative of 'Swinging London' fashion – he was a keen supporter of the
mini
The Mini is a very small two-door, four-seat car, produced for four decades over a single generation, with many names and variants, by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors British Leyland and the Rover Group, and finally ...
and unstructured shift dress, unlike many of his IncSoc contemporaries. The collection, which included casual summer suits, dresses with topcoats and jumpsuits, some topped with Graham Smith hats, was greeted positively by ''The Guardian'' reviewer, who said it was less bold than his couture designs but comprised "quiet clothes in well-chosen materials" and concluded it was likely to be well received on both sides of the Atlantic.
From 1968, Clive Set clothes were available in the designer's Hanover Square store, as well as in the
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...
department store Peter Robinson.
Other commissions
By the late 1960s, Clive had diversified into producing film costumes alongside his work for couture and ready-to-wear clients.
Indeed, in 1966 it was reported in ''The Times'' that he had postponed his London fashion shows and was busy designing costumes for a spy film about a journalist starring
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse (born Tula Ellice Finklea; March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American dancer and actress.
After recovering from polio as a child and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually featured her abilit ...
and
Elsa Martinelli
Elsa Martinelli (born Elisa Tia; 30 January 1935 – 8 July 2017) was an Italian actress and fashion model. Described by ''The Guardian'' as a "versatile star of Hollywood’s international years whose work spanned romantic comedies, period epi ...
.
In 1969, he was chosen as the designer to launch a new leather substitute Porvair, created by British company
Chloride Electrical Storage Company. While he was not known for his menswear designs, the dramatic garments he created led ''The Times'' journalist Antony King-Deacon to comment that he wished he would. Richard Smith of
The Chelsea Cobbler and Glen Carr of Norvic created the faux leather shoes.
In 1970, Clive was chosen as designer of the new
BOAC air stewardess uniform, designing a
terylene and cotton mini dress in pink or turquoise colourway with streamlined space-age styling.
He introduced trousers for the first time to the uniform, although these could not be worn in the cabin while serving passengers.
Demise of fashion label
A year later, Clive's fashion collection was sponsored by the
faux fur manufacturer Borg and, alongside the staple shift dresses that were a signature item, contained a large number of garments demonstrating the fur's potential uses. These included an extraordinary full-length evening dress in graduated shades of terracotta faux fur. A reviewer from the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' – the newspaper which less than a decade earlier described him as the man of the moment – was unimpressed: "Clive is chic and clever, but unfortunately not original this season...With the couture scene as fraught as ever with financial problems, it's inevitable that Clive cannot be as couture as he was".
The couture house of Clive closed in 1971 – the same year that Evans' first mentor Michael of Carlos Place shut his business – and Evans became a design consultant. A year later, he was working with the fashion house of Dorville and also producing clothes made of
tweed
Tweed is a rough, woollen fabric, of a soft, open, flexible texture, resembling cheviot or homespun, but more closely woven. It is usually woven with a plain weave, twill or herringbone structure. Colour effects in the yarn may be obtained ...
from the
Isle of Bute
The Isle of Bute (; or '), known as Bute (), is an island in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, United Kingdom. It is divided into highland and lowland areas by the Highland Boundary Fault.
Formerly a constituent island of the larger County of ...
for a mail-order catalogue.
References
External links
British Pathé film of Clive fashion showClive suit of 1965 at London College of Fashion archiveClive Set evening dress in Liberty print in VADS archiveOutfit for Dorville in VADS archive*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Clive
1933 births
English fashion designers
Designers from London
1960s fashion
1970s fashion
Living people
Alumni of the University for the Creative Arts