Dress, woman's, printed cream and black wool, Ungaro, 1969

Dress of printed wool crepe in black and cream with belt.

Given by Jill Ritblat

Jillian Ritblat has said this about the Ungaro outfits T.35:1&2-2000 and T.354:1&2-2000:

"This Ungaro outfit with the huge blue flower pattern rather reminded me of contemporary design and the zeitgeist. Marimekko in design, and flower power were in the zeitgeist, as was the very new, the bold, and anything that broke the mould. This certainly broke the mould of fabric design. Revolution was definitely in, and this was revolutionary in that it was not only quite unlike anything anyone else was doing, but forward looking in its function as a formal dress and jacket, but in an informal and fun fabric design. It was for the girl with get up and go. Conversely, the black and white Ungaro dress bought at the same time, was much more like contemporary art - Bridget Riley may even have been in Ungaro's mind, or Vasarely.

I think the cream dress and jacket is one of the most beautiful things I ever bought. I treasured it.

I had had my first child in 1968. I paid for my own clothes after I got married in 1966. I used to give myself a dress allowance of £1000/year which went a long way at the time. I had one or two maternity outfits, like jersey trousers with a kind of sleeveless waistcoat top which I recall wearing in St Moritz in the mountains, but otherwise I tried to buy non-maternity clothes that would fit over the bump, such as Deborah and Clare, I had a few of their dresses, and an A-line dress from Yves Saint Laurent which was THE shape around. My child was born in September so this outfit was from the summer collection of 1969. So I decided since I hadn't spent much of my dress allowance I would go and blow it on a couple of great haute couture things. So I thought I'd go have a bit of fun!

Ungaro was the place to go, as he was doing things for the young. One of my friends in St Moritz who I met when I was pregnant, had a copy of an Ungaro dress made by someone under license in different countries using Ungaro material. In Zurich, I lived outside the centre of stuff, so going to Paris and having fun with a girl like Anne, the vendeuse at Ungaro, was amusing. So I bought this dress and jacket, and also a black and white printed dress. The black and white dress was designed to have a black sleeveless leather jerkin, but I didn't buy that. Anne was appalled!

Although the jacket and dress ensemble is heavy wool, it would have been the sort of thing you'd wear to a dinner to a cocktail party. The fabric was so beautiful and so innovative. It was one of the quality fabrics. I loved this ensemble, and thought the material suited me. I kept it for special occasions, including to the christening of one of my godsons. I would have worn it for cocktails, dinners; it was trendy and groovy to wear this kind of extraordinary innovative wool dress for dinner with friends. Shoes? I might have worn also shoes from Mancini, black patent with a beige insert in the front.

I came back to Ungaro in the mid-1980s after I had done my degree in history of Art as a single mother with young children. After I remarried, to John Ritblat, I began buying from the ready-to-wear collections at Ungaro, who became my go-to place for special evening clothes and day clothes."

(DMC, added 21/07/2017)

T.354:1-2000