Muriel Pemberton

Muriel Alice Pemberton RWS (8 September 1909 – 30 July 1993)[1] was a British fashion designer, painter and academic.[2]

Muriel Pemberton
Born	(1909-09-08)8 September 1909 Tunstall, Staffordshire, England
Died	30 July 1993(1993-07-30) (aged 83) St Leonards-on-Sea , England
Nationality	British
Education	Burslem School of Art Royal College of Art
Known for	Fashion design training, painting

According to The Independent, she "invented art-school training in fashion in Britain".[1]

Early life

Muriel Alice Pemberton was born in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, on 8 September 1909,[1] or 8 September 1910.[3]

The daughter of Thomas Henry Pemberton, who was a skilled amateur painter as well as a photographic innovator, inventing a one-camera stereoscopic process. Her mother, Alice Pemberton, née Smith, retired from a career as a professional singer upon marriage and she was also a gifted designer and needlewoman.[3]

At the age of fifteen, she was the youngest student at the local Burslem School of Art.[1] In 1928, she obtained a scholarship as well as a major award to attend the School of Painting at London's Royal College of Art. In 1931, she was awarded the RCA's first ever Diploma in Fashion.[1] Pemberton persuaded the head of the school of design, Professor Ernest William Tristram, to introduce such a course, and he asked her to draft the curriculum.[3]

According to the ODNB,

She proposed a combination of direct contact, sketching, and analysing with an actual couturier, learning the basic skills of cutting and sewing with a professional, and supplementing this with academic studies in the history of fashion and design at museums such as the Victoria and Albert.[3]

Career

Following graduation in 1931, Pemberton was immediately employed to teach fashion drawing two days a week at St Martin's School of Art.[1] Over time, she was able to expand this role and became head of the UK's first Faculty of Fashion and Design.[1] The curriculum was much as she had originally proposed to Tristram.[3]

Even before the war, Pemberton's innovative approach to teaching fashion and giving it a proper place in the art college curriculum had attracted international attention. Her methods were widely copied, with teachers visiting from all over the globe to study her approach.[3]

Her students included Katharine Hamnett, Bruce Oldfield, Bill Gibb and Bjorn Lanberg.[1][3] In 1993, John Russell Taylor published a biography of her life.[1]

Personal life

In 1941, she married John Hadley Rowe (died 1975).[1]

Pemberton died at 56 Vale Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, on 30 July 1993.[3]

References

1. Beetles, Chris (3 August 1993). "Obituary: Muriel Pemberton". The Independent. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
2. McRobbie, Angela (2007). British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry (Reprint. ed.). London: Routledge. p. 24. ISBN 978-0415057813.
3. "Pemberton [married name Rowe], Muriel Alice (1910–1993)". ODNB. OUP. Retrieved 22 July 2014.

Further reading

• John Russell Taylor, Muriel Pemberton: Art and Fashion (London: Chris Beetles, 1993)
• John Russell Taylor, Muriel Pemberton: Paintings (London: Chris Beetles, 1993)