One International Women's Day, 2 Inspiring Ladies!

I know I'm a little late to the party here, but a weekend without a laptop and playing big sis to my 2 year old brother took priority (and how couldn't it? He's just so damn cute!). Despite this, International Women's Day is a holiday I hold close to my heart. As a self-proclaimed feminist I feel it's my duty to keep flying the flag for women, and argue with those who say that feminism is not needed in this day and age. We still are underpaid, we still live in a mans world, and we still go through trials and tribulations daily simply because of our gender. 

This Friday, however, we had a visit from two inspiring women that put hope for the future of females into my heart. Felicity Green and Caryn Franklin. Let's start with the lovely Felicity Green…

Felicity Green is known for being the first woman to join the board of a national newspaper, which was The Mirror group in the 1960s. Her interest in fashion stemmed from Hollywood movies. She said that herself and her father, who owned a show shop, would go to the cinema every Thursday afternoon to watch films. This is where it opened up a wonderful world of clothing for her and she found one of her  fashion idols, Norma Shearer, among other actresses such as Edith Head.

In Felicity's career, she commissioned and worked with photographers such as John French, and his now better known assistant, David Bailey. John French started fashion photography in magazines and newspapers. The wonderful thing about listening to Felicity Green was her stories from this age! When we talked about David Bailey, she told us about having lunch with him and John French at the Ivy. She said that David took a long time to decide on what to order from the menu, when eventually John suggested the steak, and the first words she had heard out of David's mouth were "I don't eat flesh!". On the subject of photographers, we also learnt from Felicity that it was in fact John Cowan who started to photograph fashion outside of the studio, and not Bailey as some believe.

Felicity Green got the job at the Mirror when asked to see Cutley Hugh, who asked what she thought of the Mirror and she replied: "I think it's the most awful newspaper!". Her honesty got her the job as Associate Editor at the Daily Mirror. At this point, she was a woman in a man's world. This is what makes her story so inspiring. Whilst this may not have changed in the publishing industry, other things have, such as models being paid just three guineas for a fashion spread!

Cecil King, the chairman of The Mirror once asked Felicity when she was going to stop putting those "ridiculous" mini-skirts in the newspaper, to which she replied, "When they stop being news". Not liking the idea, he said if she kept writing about them he would have her fired… Needless to say, he did not follow through!

I could keep going on about Felicity's wonderful stories she told us, but I would not be able to do them justice! Perhaps it's best for you to wait for her book, Sex, Sense & Nonsense to come out in September!

The second woman is Caryn Franklin, who has featured heavily on this blog as we are lucky enough to see a fair bit of her! Her talk was very much a recap of what All Walks Beyond the Catwalk do, and why they do it, for the newer students to Ravensbourne. Rather than repeat myself, the best thing to do is to direct you to a previous blog post about our visit from Caryn. She's a very inspiring woman and I think what All Walks do is incredibly important in the fashion industry.