Liberty is well known for it’s high quality fabrics and unique prints. That is all I thought they did. I’ve never been to London so I’ve never been to the Liberty shop. I have heard other sewists who have been there, but I just assumed it was a massive fabric shop. How wrong I was. The book Liberty: British Colour Pattern has opened my eyes to the vast range of products that Liberty sells and their long history.
Written by Marie-Therese Rieber and published in 2013, Liberty: British Colour Pattern gives the reader an overview of Liberty and how it has been successful for over 100 years. Presented as a hard back book in it’s own slipcase it immediately gives you the impression that this is something of value. There are lots of photographs throughout the book with many examples of what Liberty has sold over the years.
The back of the book has a pocket that holds a poster and multiple envelopes. These envelopes contain reproductions of advertisements, catalogues, a 1975 Vogue magazine article about Liberty, fabric design sketches, letters to Arthur Liberty, and a transcript of an interview on BBC TV show Parkinson. These all give a sample of the marketing Liberty has used over the years, as well as how others regarded Liberty.
What I learnt from this book
Liberty was created by Arthur Liberty in 1875. An experienced draper, he opened a shop called the East India House, with financial backing from his future father-in-law. He imported beautiful and high-quality fabrics from the Far East, expanding into an exotic range of goods like ceramics, Japanese fans, screens, oriental carpeting, antiques and curios. It was an immediate success and by the end of the 1870’s the shop expanded and was renamed Liberty & Co.
When there was an undersupply of imported goods Arthur Liberty commissioned the best British designers and manufacturers to keep up with demand. Never losing his love for the exotic and the East.
His business philosophy was:
To produce useful and beautiful objects at prices in the reach of all customers
Arthur Liberty
Arthur Liberty stepped back in 1894, passing the business down to his nephew Ivor Stewart-Liberty. Ivor commissioned the mock-Tudor building which opened in 1924, seven years after the passing of Arthur Liberty. It is called the Tudor Shop, and is a striking landmark. Liberty still operates from this premises today.
There are many artefacts and departments at Liberty that have evolved over the years:
- Liberty Art Fabrics – Dress and Furnishing fabrics woven, dyed and printed in Britain
- Glassware and Ceramics – from the far east as well as local British firms initially
- Furnishing and Decoration – highly fashionable pieces imported and designed by in-house designers
- Jewelry – rare and antique alongside affordable articles
- Costume – producing costumes for Gilbert & Sullivan operas, and others
- Metalwork – incredible variety of silver, brass and copper designs
- Liberty Scarves – affordable and ‘safe’ way of experimenting with print
- Furnishing Fabrics – high-quality linens, cottons and velvets
- Young Liberty – fabric designs for younger, design-conscious clientele
- Lifestyle Fabrics – for patchwork, quilting, crafting and sewing
- Little Liberty – children’s wear
- Classic Liberty London – range of menswear and womenswear
Liberty have always used innovative and effective marketing strategies as they stamped their mark as a company who doesn’t follow existing fashions but creates new ones. The Liberty shop with it’s many rooms, each theatrically decorated so customers could envision how it would look in their own home. There were catalogues, mail order, in-shop exhibitions and regularly appeared in influential publications. A dedicated window display department was started after World War II where professional window dressers would showcase the wares available with spotlighting, photographic backgrounds and invisible nylon thread to suspend objects.
Final Thoughts
Liberty: British Colour Pattern is a good overview into the Liberty company and I certainly know a lot more about Liberty than I did before I read the book. So if you are new to Liberty, the company and the brand you will certainly get a good grasp of where they started and how they have developed over the years. But with just under 100 pages and lots of images, it doesn’t go into a lot of detail. I want to know more about the fabric printing process, stories behind the designs, the owners throughout the years and what affect that had, but this just isn’t covered. It is also quite an expensive book to buy. Fortunately I was able to get a copy at my local library.
It has definitely whetted my appetite to learn more and to sew some more of their beautiful fabrics.
Marie-Therese Rieber has a new Liberty book released in 2020 – Liberty of London Treasures: Treasures from the archives of the luxury department store. I’m not sure if it’s an updated version as the blurb is quite similar to this 2013 version, so if you know if this is the case please let me know in the comments below.
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