Muriel Pemberton
Muriel Alice Pemberton RWS (8 September 1909 – 30 July 1993)[1] was a British fashion designer, painter and academic.[2]
Muriel Pemberton | |
|---|---|
| Born | 8 September 1909 Tunstall, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 30 July 1993 (aged 83) St Leonards-on-Sea , England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | |
| Known for | Fashion design training, painting |
According to The Independent, she "invented art-school training in fashion in Britain".[1]
Early life
Muriel Alice Pemberton was born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, on 8 September 1909,[1] or 8 September 1910.[3]
The daughter of Thomas Henry Pemberton, who was a skilled amateur painter as well as a photographic innovator, inventing a one-camera stereoscopic process. Her mother, Alice Pemberton, née Smith, retired from a career as a professional singer upon marriage and she was also a gifted designer and needlewoman.[3]
At the age of fifteen, she was the youngest student at the local Burslem School of Art.[1] In 1928, she obtained a scholarship as well as a major award to attend the School of Painting at London's Royal College of Art. In 1931, she was awarded the RCA's first ever Diploma in Fashion.[1] Pemberton persuaded the head of the school of design, Professor Ernest William Tristram, to introduce such a course, and he asked her to draft the curriculum.[3]
According to the ODNB,
She proposed a combination of direct contact, sketching, and analysing with an actual couturier, learning the basic skills of cutting and sewing with a professional, and supplementing this with academic studies in the history of fashion and design at museums such as the Victoria and Albert.[3]
Career
Following graduation in 1931, Pemberton was immediately employed to teach fashion drawing two days a week at St Martin's School of Art.[1] Over time, she was able to expand this role and became head of the UK's first Faculty of Fashion and Design.[1] The curriculum was much as she had originally proposed to Tristram.[3]
Even before the war, Pemberton's innovative approach to teaching fashion and giving it a proper place in the art college curriculum had attracted international attention. Her methods were widely copied, with teachers visiting from all over the globe to study her approach.[3]
Her students included Katharine Hamnett, Bruce Oldfield, Bill Gibb and Bjorn Lanberg.[1][3] In 1993, John Russell Taylor published a biography of her life.[1]
Personal life
In 1941, she married John Hadley Rowe (died 1975).[1]
Pemberton died at 56 Vale Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, on 30 July 1993.[3]
References
- Beetles, Chris (3 August 1993). "Obituary: Muriel Pemberton". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
- McRobbie, Angela (2007). British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry (Reprint. ed.). London: Routledge. p. 24. ISBN 978-0415057813.
- "Pemberton [married name Rowe], Muriel Alice (1910–1993)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). OUP. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/53135. Retrieved 22 July 2014. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Further reading
- John Russell Taylor, Muriel Pemberton: Art and Fashion (London: Chris Beetles, 1993)
- John Russell Taylor, Muriel Pemberton: Paintings (London: Chris Beetles, 1993)