Celia's Art Works ; Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark Were Feted in the Sixties for Their Cutting-Edge Fashion, but While His Life Came to a Sad End, Celia's New Designs for Topshop Sell Out in Six Minutes.

Summary

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This summer I was caught in a stampede at Topshop as hundreds of women, most of them too young to have heard of Celia Birtwell, were grabbing her special-edition garments as if their lives depended on it. One silk dress was ripped apart as two women tugged at it. The crush and grab lasted only six minutes, then everything was gone, making retail history as the fastest selling clothing line ever.

Celia's prints defined the late 1960s. Innocent but Bohemian, sexy yet sweet, they were a perfect complement to her husband, fashion designer Ossie Clark's chiffony couture. She wanted to recreate that perfect partnership for today, tweaking and twizzling her designs to attract a new generation. Her winter line is just as covetable - crIpe de Chine, jersey dresses, bags, lingerie, scarves - which will be available in 150 stores around the UK on Monday, but rationed to hundreds not thousands, no doubt ensuring another sellout.

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Celia's Art Works ; Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark Were Feted in the Sixties for Their Cutting-Edge Fashion, but While His Life Came to a Sad End, Celia's New Designs for Topshop Sell Out in Six Minutes.

Celia is now in her 60s, but her look is as iconic as it was when she was in her 20s, when her bow lips and big blue eyes were immortalised by David Hockney in his famous painting of her with Ossie, and their white cat. (The portrait now hangs in London's Tate Britain gallery.) Today she's wearing a black jacket and scarf with white embroidery, and red ballet pumps, and appears genuinely excite...

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