Not Quite Jean Muir
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 28 June 2020
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jade Halbert lectures in fashion but has never done any sewing. She swaps pen and paper for needle and thread to create a dress from a Jean Muir pattern. In a diary charting her progress, she reflects on the skills of textile workers she has interviewed as part of a project charting the fashion trade in Glasgow and upon the banning of pins on a factory floor, the experiences of specialist sleeve setters and cutters, and whether it is ok to lick your chalk. Jade Halbert is a Lecturer, Fashion Business and Cultural Studies at the University of Huddersfield. You can find her investigation into fashion and the high street as a Radio 3 Sunday Feature https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gvpn
New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten early career academics to turn their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Shahed Abari, and welcome to this episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, |
| 0:42.3 | in which we'll hear an essay from one of the 2019 New Generation thinkers. |
| 0:47.4 | They are early career academics who work with BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council |
| 0:53.1 | on a scheme that turns their research into radio. |
| 0:56.9 | In this year's essays, you'll hear topics ranging from crime and punishment and archaeological |
| 1:01.9 | views of the earth to moving large tracks of it to build dams in Pakistan, satire in Egypt, |
| 1:08.9 | Russian pogroms, Renaissance art, racism in techno music and rethinking facial disfigurement. |
| 1:15.9 | Jade Halbert from the University of Huddersfield took up a needle and thread before she wrote this piece called Not Quite Jean Muir. |
| 1:23.8 | In a London fashion studio, a designer contemplates her latest collection. |
| 1:28.8 | All her signature classics are there. |
| 1:31.7 | There's the elegant suit in her own favourite shade of Midnight Navy, |
| 1:36.0 | the butter soft black suede coat, |
| 1:37.9 | and the long, fluid dress in lipstick red jersey. |
| 1:42.9 | The designer is Jean Muir, the internationally revered great lady of British fashion, |
| 1:49.6 | who had brought style and good taste to women's wardrobes since the 1960s. |
| 1:55.8 | Jean Muir was also a powerful advocate for skilled fashion workers, |
| 1:59.2 | and in March 1994, she put down her needle and |
| 2:02.6 | thread and took up pen and paper. The resulting manuscript, what she called her manifesto for |
| 2:09.0 | real design, was a Sunday Times cover story in which she argued for the importance of British |
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