A significant collection of English wartime fashion designs and drawings by Pamela Bannister. The execution of the drawings is uniformly of a high standard, although the level of detail varies depending upon the “importance” of the subject, a sleeve or collar detail might be rendered in pencil with a touch of colour or a text description, but there are also several high fashion studies of elegant young ladies stepping out with dashing chaps in uniform (Pamela seem to have had a distinct weakness for the gentlemen of the RAF) clearly created in reference to the style of glossy fashion magazines. The glassine images are mostly used to illustrate intricate prints and patterns on blouses and sweaters, but the majority of the pieces are full page, full colour paintings of dress, coat, and uniform design displaying all the angular, crisp silhouettes and profiles of characteristically 1940’s, and especially wartime, fashion. The cinched waists flared straight skirts, the brisk lines of formal jackets and coats, clearly designed in order to offset the literal uniformity of male fashions and provide a distinctive and considered profile and elegance in distinct contrast to many women’s daily and utilitarian clothing, the modes of which were dictated by labour needs, cloth rationing, and a perhaps subconscious societal need to be seen as pitching in and pulling together. The “New Look” that swept enthusiastically onto the scene in the post war years is definitely making its needs felt with Pamela’s work. Her girls are feminine, fitted, sleek, and streamlined with box shoulders, razor sharp collar lines and sweeping, cinched and pleated skirts and dresses. They are dresses and outfits that demand being publicly seen, the sketches are often energetic “stepping out” scenes, there is an irrepressible display, and an end to hiding away or concealing. Blackout is over, and the reds, yellows, and vivid greens are taking over and making themselves seen. An impressive assemblage of a distinctive era in English fashion.

UK, circa 1940’s [1942-1945]. Black cloth covered box, 45cm. x 33cm. x 6cm. 66 individual pieces of artwork, sketches, detail drawings and full colour ensemble compositions, on a variety of mediums including glassine, cartridge paper and artist’s board; [with] two quarto sketchbooks, one softcover, one with a tan cloth spine of heavy card boards, with a further 43 pages of colour and black and white designs.