Join fashion historian, lecturer, and author Cally Blackman in conversation with writer Rosalind Janato mark the publication of her new book The Colour of Clothes.
Through 370 exquisite images, the book celebrates the unique beauty of the autochrome, photography’s first widely accessible colour process as it evolved from the Edwardian era to the freedom of the 1920s. The colour process, invented by the Lumière brothers, not only transformed photography but also recorded the transition of fashion from Edwardian elegance toward a liberating modernity.
Hear how couturiers embraced the way the process showcased their exquisite designs to luminous perfection—among them Fortuny, Poiret, Doucet, Vionnet, Lucile, Chanel, and Lanvin. And how both famous and lesser-known photographers helped to immortalize one of photography’s historic moments, when the camera first revealed the world of fashion in full colour!
Cally Blackman is a fashion historian, lecturer, and author. Her research into autochromes is both original and extensive, with a large number of images she has sourced that have either never or very rarely been published since they were taken more than one hundred years ago. She has written several books including 100 Years of Fashion Illustration (2007), 100 Years of Menswear (2009), 100 Years of Fashion (2012) and co-author of A Portrait of Fashion (2015).
The Colour of Clothes – Fashion and Dress in Autochromes 1907-1930
Cally Blackman, with Rosalind Janato
Fashion and Textile Museum, London
24 April 2025, 18.00-19.00
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