Weds 24th Sept: Madame Butterfly

Yesterday I was reading an article about Amanda Harlech and found something out that I didn't know. She first worked with John Galliano after his graduation by asking him to make costumes for the Malcom Maclaren record sleeve "Madame Butterfly" which she was styling. I have the record but had no idea that the artwork was such a seminal point in this historical partnership of designer and muse. Galliano must have revisited this reference for Dior S/S 2007 Madame Butterfly inspired collection!.

When trying to find out more, I discovered this charming extract from the book "Two Million Miles" by celebrity photographer Andrew McPherson.

"This was the birth of a new romanticism, a fshion imperative that we lived, breathed, and dreamt. Fashion was our everything, our religion, our nourishment, and our entertainment. This wasn't just a fad, it was a revolution against the chrome-slick sexiness that defined high fashion in the late seventies. I was indoctrinated into the movement by Amanda Harlech, a young fashion editor who was already a style icon. Our influences ranged from Rossetti to Tastafari, from Coco Chanel to Chaplin, an each set of photographs we made sent us on a new visual adventure. Amanda met John Galliano on a Madame Butterfly project during the autumn of 1984 and was one of the first fashion editors to champion the talented young Londoner. They subsequently became one of the brightest teams in the whirlwind of the Paris fashion shows in the late eighties and most of the nineties."