David Bond is an English fashion designer who was known for his trouser suits in the 1960s (one of which was chosen as

Dress of the Year The Dress of the Year is an annual fashion award run by the Fashion Museum, Bath from 1963. Each year since 1963, the Museum has asked a fashion journalist to select a dress or outfit that best represents the most important new ideas in contempor ...

in 1967). Since the 1980s he has also written several books on fashion and design history. Bond was born close to Wales, in the area that would become

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

, and won a scholarship to the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...

, where he was one of

Janey Ironside Janey Ironside (1919 – 6 April 1979)"Professor Janey Ironside", ''The Times'', 19 November 1979, p. IV. was professor of fashion at London's Royal College of Art, a position she held from 1956 to 1968. She was a key figure in enabling fashion t ...

's first students. He then went on to become a designer for Slimma, a middle-market brand originally founded in 1935. Under the Slimma Group One label, Bond gained a reputation for his "Total Look" of tight, slender tailoring, often in elasticated fabrics, which was modelled by

Twiggy Dame Lesley Lawson (''née'' Hornby; born 19 September 1949) is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenaged model during the swinging '60s in London. ...

for the fashion press. In 1967 the fashion journalist

Felicity Green Felicity Green (born 26 June 1926) is a British fashion journalist and former newspaper executive. Early life and career Green was born in June 1926 and raised in Dagenham, Essex in rooms above a bike shop. From an impoverished Jewish backgroun ...

was asked by the Fashion Museum, Bath to choose the most representative look for that year for their Dress of the Year collection. Green worked for the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...

'', and wanted to pick something that reflected the type of quality ready-to-wear clothing available from good department stores anywhere in the country, rather than expensive high-end clothing that the average ''Mirror'' reader could never afford. She had also noticed that trouser ensembles were increasingly accepted in a wider range of contexts, and therefore, chose Bond's slim-cut orange, pink and yellow striped trousers, jacket and blouse for the Slimma label. The shoes were made by Saxone, also a widely known and accessible High Street brand, although the hat was a custom one-off design by Edward Mann. 1967 marked the first time that the Dress of the Year was widely reported in the British fashion press, with Green contributing a significant article for the ''Mirror'' discussing her decision to select something that did not include an actual dress. The

Adel Rootstein Adel Rootstein (1930 – 20 September 1992) was a British mannequin designer responsible for premium designs that are sold worldwide. Early life Rootstein was born in Warmbaths, South Africa in 1930. She married the industrial designer Richar ...

mannequin selected to model the look represented the African-American model

Donyale Luna Peggy Ann Freeman (August 31, 1945 – May 17, 1979), known professionally as Donyale Luna, was an American supermodel and actress who gained popularity in Western Europe during the late 1960s. Generally cited as "the first Black supermodel" ...

. In 1976 Bond designed and presented his first collection for Craftcentre Wales, an organisation founded by David Lewis and based in

Porthmadog Porthmadog (; ), originally Portmadoc until 1974 and locally as "Port", is a Welsh coastal town and community in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd and the historic county of Caernarfonshire. It lies east of Criccieth, south-west of Blaenau Ff ...

, North Wales to specialise in Welsh-produced artisan goods. Although he was not Welsh, Bond had close links to North Wales due to regular childhood holidays there, and loved working with natural fibres and traditional Welsh textiles. The Craftcentre designs were made up from exclusive fabrics woven in

Penmachno Penmachno is a village in the isolated upland Machno valley, south of Betws-y-Coed in the county of Conwy, North Wales. The B4406 road runs through part of the village. The village is at the confluence of the Glasgwm and Machno rivers. It has ...

in a conscious effort to preserve the dying skills of the village craftspeople. During the 1980s he became an author, publishing several books on the history of fashion and design.

Bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bond, David Living people Date of birth missing (living people) English fashion designers Alumni of the Royal College of Art English writers Designers from Merseyside Year of birth missing (living people)