Legendary couturier Jean Muir gets a blue plaque


One of London’s most famous seamstresses was commemorated with a blue plaque in her former showroom and offices in Mayfair.

Jean Muir has spent nearly thirty years producing bespoke and elegantly understated women’s pieces at 22 Bruton Street. In 1966 – after stints with Liberty and Jaeger – she started her own label here, and she continued to work at the address until she sadly lost her battle with breast cancer in 1995. Her label finally closed in 2007.

Jean Muir © National Museums of Scotland.

Muir preferred the term “seamstress” to that of “designer”. She rebelled against the popular ’60s notion of fashion as a major art and instead seen his job like “fabric engineering”. This philosophy is reflected in the types of materials she has worked with – natural fabrics such as jersey, soft suede or wool designed to hang and photograph well.

Her designs have appeared on at least 20 Vogue covers and have attracted many famous fans, including author Lady Antonia Fraser and actress Joanna Lumley, a house model for Jean Muir and friend of the dressmaker.

Joanna Lumley (left) and other models backstage at a Jean Muir show © Marilyn Stafford.

Jeans Muir was pretty scary if you didn’t know her, “Lumley revealed when unveiling the plaque last month.

“She was exacting of expert finishes, exuberant, liking nightclubs and jazz; her friends and clients were princesses and judges, actresses and rock stars, writers and painters. kind and impulsive … The French said she was the best seamstress in a generation, I adored her.

Image © National Museums of Scotland.

This is not the first blue plaque to honor Bruton Street. Further down the road, at number 26, you will see another sapphire circle – this one dedicated to Sir Norman Hartnell, former seamstress of the queen.

Speaking of Her Majesty, this is also the street in which Elizabeth II was born. Number 17 was home to her maternal grandfather, the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. The building was demolished after the Blitz but a plaque commemorates the place.

Muir included, English Heritage plans to honor six women with blue plates in 2021 as part of a wider effort to diversify the device. Three of them – for Muir, social reformer Caroline Norton and crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale – have already been unveiled, while those dedicated to abolitionist Ellen Craft, lawyer Helena Normanton and Diana, Princess of Wales.

You can come up with your own suggestions for future plaques here.


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