Thea Porter's Scrapbook

Book excerpt: For nearly two decades, from 1966, Thea Porter created clothes made from sumptuous fabrics that drew inspiration from a view of the exotic Middle East. Combining richly patterned silks with antique fabrics, her clothes were a must for music and film stars such as Pink Floyd, Crystal Gayle, Elizabeth Taylor and Barbra Streisand. Fashion magazines all over the world featured her latest styles and Thea became a key member of the innovative group of British designers that included Ossie Clark, Zandra Rhodes and Jean Muir. During her lifetime she won huge acclaim, and her place in the history of British fashion was ensured when she won Designer of the Year in 1972. Thea Porter was included in several landmark exhibitions on twentieth-century fashion. 'Thea Porter's Scrapbook' is her story in her own words, an unpublished autobiography she put together before her death in 2000. Edited by her daughter, Venetia, and with an essay by fashion historian Amy de la Haye, this book, illustrated with sketches, letters, press cuttings and photographs, describes Thea's family history and upbringing in Syria, and, through her own letters, her years as a student in London after the Second World War and her life in the cosmopolitan city of Beirut during the 1950s and 1960s.