Jean Muir is a name that is usually associated with navy blue. However, the Jean Muir boutique hosts a riot of colour: turquoise, hot pink and soft gold .
The fabrics, the stitching and the cut are perfect and meticulous. Each and every detail is exquisited. It is fashion that lasts. The dresses may cost £1,000 each, yet that is what you would pay for couture .
Jean Muir always made clothes for grown ups. She was still very much accepted along with the more innovative designers in Swinging London in the sixties, designers like Mary Quant.
Women are now starting to reject the idea that fashion ought to be disposable. About time too if you ask me!
Sienna Miller, Stella McCartney and Kate Moss are all big fans.
Miss Muir set up shop in autumn 1966 and she unfortunately died of breast cancer in 1995, aged 67.
In celebration of 40 years in business, 18,000 items including patterns, sketches and garments have been donated to the National Museums of Scotland, with a massive Muir exhibition planned for 2008.
The collection for spring/summer 2007 will raid the archives and resurrect a blocked sheer Georgette print from the Seventies, a simple jersey shift which was named Dress Of The Year in 1979 and T-shirt dresses with sequins at the hem, neck and sleeves from the Eighties.
On a boiling hot summer's day I'm standing in the cool white interior of the Jean Muir boutique. I am in my knickers, and the manager, Friederike Steineke, is placing garments on a rail for me.
As someone who had always thought the name Jean Muir to be synonymous with navy, I am surrounded by a riot of colour: hot pink, turquoise and soft gold.
I tell Friederike, who is German-born but has the face of a Brazilian supermodel, that I need an outfit to take me from Ladies' Day at Ascot to a country wedding in the Peak District in July, and I can see she is a woman who likes a challenge.
She drapes a soft Linton tweed (from Carlisle), blush-pink jacket and swing skirt in my arms. Every detail is exquisite, from the silver leaf buttons (made by a jeweller) to the hand-sewn silk bias binding at the waist. This is a garment that will last a lifetime, but with a price tag of around £1,000 is a fraction of the price you would pay for couture.
Even though Jean Muir was accepted alongside all the more innovative designers who made up Swinging London, such as Mary Quant and Foale &Tuffin, she always made clothes that were for grown-ups, not adolescent girls: rare then and even rarer now.
And although the designs seem timeless, there is no hotter label than Jean Muir to be seen in this year, not only because it is celebrating its 40th birthday, but because women are starting to reject the idea that fashion should always be disposable, and now want something unique that can be handed down to their daughters.
Sienna Miller - whose favourite piece of clothing is a vintage Muir purple suede cape -Kate Moss and Stella McCartney are all fans.
'Miss Muir', as she preferred to be addressed, set up shop in the autumn of 1966 having learned her trade as a dressmaker (she hated the term 'designer')
She died of breast cancer in 1995 at the age of 67. But handling one of the black suits in her signature wool crepe or a jersey dress with Georgette sleeves, it is as if she really went away.
Although she and her husband Harry Leukert, whom she married in 1955, never had children, the fact the label is still family-owned is much in evidence.
Friederike is Harry's 30-year-old daughter; after Muir died, he married Friederike's mother, Ingrid. Muir knew about the existence of a daughter, but they never talked about her in public. And although Friederike never met Jean Muir, she and her husband Nicolas, now the MD of the company, moved to London after she died.
Friederike says that her father "has always told me so many stories about her, I feel I know her so well. And, of course, I always wear Jean Muir because the clothes are never overtly sexy, but rather subtle and sensuous.
"They move beautifully on the body. I wore it at my wedding," she smiles, smoothing a pretty print skirt over the bump that signals the arrival of her first baby, due in November.
And the four-strong design team - Joyce Fenton Douglas, Angela Gill, Caroline Angell and Tracy Joyce - were all trained by Muir and have been with the company for more than 20 years.
I pick up a jersey dress that moves like mercury between my fingers and it turns out it was made, from start to finish, by Joanna Leonidas, the seamstress who has been making them for Miss Muir since 1964.
To celebrate 40 years in business, the family has donated 18,000 items, sketches, patterns, toiles, garments, to the National Museums of Scotland, and a big Muir exhibition is planned for 2008.
The spring/summer 2007 designwear collection replicates some of the old designs, from the simple jersey shift dress which was named Dress Of The Year in 1979 to the T-shirt dresses from the 1980s.
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