Life After School

Life After School goes back to the memories and experiences on artistic practice and professional career development. This page features an archive montage of interview clips from the Oral History Archive at the Central Saint Martins’ Museum & Study Collection.
Colleen Farr, Camelot/ Leo. Silk.
© CSM Museum & Study Collection

Colleen Farr, Bacchus, 1961. Cotton dress fabric.
© CSM Museum & Study Collection

Colleen Farr, Untitled.
© CSM Museum & Study Collection
Bobby Hillson, Fashion Drawing. © Bobby Hillson
Bobby Hillson, Fashion Drawing. © Bobby Hillson
Bobby Hillson, Fashion Drawing. © Bobby Hillson
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The Life After School montage is a soundscape of interview fragments shared by fashion illustrator Bobby Hillson, textile designer Colleen Farr, jewellery designer and teacher Giles Last and film and cinema professional as well as the founder of British Artists' Film & Video Study Collection David Curtis.

The soundscapes are based on the Oral History Archive in Central Saint Martins’ Museum & Study Collection.

Archive clips courtesy of the Museum & Study Collection, Central Saint Martins.

Theme tune by Hannah Kane.
Life After School Transcript

Theme tune [00:00:13] [Mixed Voices]. 

Howard Tangye [00:00:14] It can be a bit of a struggle trying to keep it all together. And also, you know, worry as a teacher, I always worry that, you know, are they getting enough attention? I think I've been told, you know, perhaps I give them too much attention, but I sort of, I think I know my students and I sort of feel. As an artist or as a designer myself. I sort of feel I know what they need. 

Interviewer [00:00:47] You feel it's important to get the support at that stage. 

Howard Tangye [00:00:50] Absolutely. 

Giles Last [00:00:51]  You know, like a double-decker bus or an [AGA] cooker,. 

Giles Last [00:00:55] Or a piece of sculpture.

GIles Last [00:00:57] Yeah, which Douglas Scott was involved or a piece of sculpture. 

Giles Last [00:01:00] But interestingly enough about Douglas Scott is the fact that he started here as a jeweler and I often tell the first years that he did, because you can see that jewelry, that element of jewelry in the, in the Routemaster and the AGA cooker, those sort of spring handles that you can sort of see in both the bus and the cooker. 

Interviewer [00:01:21] You graduated in 1974 with a first. Yes. So that was very good. Yes. Yes. So what did you do then? 

Howard Tangye [00:01:29] Well, I graduated in '74 and in that year I was asked...

Bobby Hilson [00:01:39] I had applied. I decided that and apparently Vogue went mad and I said, well you know I'm no longer under contract. And if you wanted me to do things, I could have. But anyway, so it was a bit of a shuffle. They were very huffed, very put out by that. And but anyway, I made my career and I was doing freelance. 

Howard Tangye [00:02:02] I'd like to go to Parsons in New York. All right. Because at the time they had this arrangement where a student from St. Martin's would come for one year to St Martin's from Parsons would come this exchange scholarship. Yes. And one would go to Parsons. So they asked me if I'd like to do it. So I said, yes, I would be interested. But for certain personal reasons, I decided I couldn't and so I said could I take the opportunity next year and they said "Yes, that should be all right". So anyhow, when I graduated, I started to work for Zandra Rhodes. Oh right. Yes. But before Zandra, I had a job with a Japanese designer in London. I think, the first sign of Japanese designers coming to Europe. And I'm pretty sure his name wasn't Kyoji 

Bobby Hilson [00:03:02] and Barbara Hulanicki, who was drawing. She opened Biba, you know, everybody was launching. I and I had been drawing a lot of children's wear. And that's when I thought there is a gap in the market. And with a journalist friend who for other reasons wanted to set up something else, we set up a company. Which wasn't going to be called Bobby Hillson, the name we wanted, it already been taken. So in desperation, it was under my name which I, and I

Howard Tangye [00:03:34] Who should I listen to? She said, "Well, you know, the important thing is just to be a sponge as a student. When you leave here, you're going to just do your own thing anyway." So but she said also, you know, you just have to listen to who you, you know who you kind of connect to, but also you should be open, you know, I remember that very well and, you know, so tried to take take it all. 

Interviewer [00:03:58] And so who made up the clothes? Where did you get that done? 

Bobby Hilson [00:04:02] Oh, I had several factories you know, mainly in this country. Some abroad, I used to show in Paris and so well, I sold Japan, I sold it was it had to be the top sort of children's wear companies because the others couldn't afford it, because in order to make it pay, I had to charge really rather a lot. And I was allowed, I did sort of 

Howard Tangye [00:04:35] great. It was really fun. But you worked very hard for it. You worked very hard. Yes. 

Interviewer [00:04:42] Was that where you started to have your own womenswear label? 

Howard Tangye [00:04:45] No, it was when I came back, I decided after the second year I'd also been home to Australia to visit my family during that time and. I decided because my partner had sort of moved to Los Angeles and I was kind of getting homesick for London. And I did miss the designing part of life, doing, designing fashion, designing clothes. So I decided if I came back to London, I'd try and start my own business. So, you know something in that regard. So I did come back and it was 1970. 

Bobby Hilson [00:05:28] Well, I'd be much richer because there was a childrenswear company called the White House, which was owned by Huntsmen in Savile Row. And they wanted to buy me out, and that would have been an answer because I wouldn't have had to do as much because I would have just done the design. 

David Curtis [00:05:46] We all thought this is wonderful because it had been set up to broadcast minority interest work. This is, this what the charter originally said, and it had a commissioning editor for independent film and television. And they were very sympathetic and they proved all sorts of things. I curated a program called Midnight 

Bobby Hilson [00:06:13] and how did I know? Well, my mother had always taken Vogue and I always wanted to work on Vogue which is an extraordinary thing. You know, there you were  

Howard Tangye [00:06:24] All the items with the collection. So we just got in the box and went around to a lot of dress agents, buying agents, which were in sort of just around Oxford Street. You know, that sort of fashion area. Yes. Rag trade. Yes. And also to a few boutiques, you know, just make appointments. You could walk in and see a buyer, that sort of thing. And we sold it straight away.  It was fantastic. And I remember the first big order we got was from a company in Germany called Hertie. Think they had department stores or something. Right. And then they placed a really big order . 

David Curtis [00:07:14] I think a more diverse mix were attracted to film courses, if we're talking about film courses and actually more broadly. And I think Interesting people have gravitated towards the moving image of diverse people, international 

Colleen Farr [00:07:32] And I first went up in the golden days of art education when they were generous with the staffing ratios and so on. I could I could teach quite a bit and I jolly well did. But then it got a bit frantic and the administration became more increased. And I found I wasn't teaching nearly as much as I liked. So that was a pity. And of course, we got in, you know, we had to expand and we went from something like, I think 14 to 16 intake a year. To twenty four to thirty, you know, and you just begin to lose any real contact with the students. I mean, there were students that I knew very, very well, and they were like family when I first started teaching. And there was when it came to the end, when they were 30 in a class, I sort of struggled to remember their names. You know, I hated that, which is partly why I left in the end I think 

Howard Tangye [00:08:37] Just Howard Tangye.

Interviewer [00:08:38] All right. Yes.  And how long did that go on for? 

Howard Tangye [00:08:42] It went on for about. So I think it must be around for about, eight years old together. Something like that. Anyhow, what happened at the sort of towards the '80s. I was still still serving in the '80s and also started to do some part time teaching. 

Interviewer [00:09:09] When you say it was taken away? Did someone else run it?

Colleen Farr [00:09:11] It no, we were told not to report any more students. I see. Just like that. And until very late in the year, I mean, I'd actually started contacting students who were applying for the course. I had to ring up and say or ring up their colleges and say, you know, we are no longer offering an M.A. It was all a bit disastrous in the days of what was called CNAA. 

David Curtis [00:09:35] Yes, there was a huge row in 1977 when the Hayward Gallery reopened and it, it had, it announced the first of what it was calling the Hayward Annual, it was a kind of annual review of new work by painters from all over the place. The selection committee is entirely male and the artists chosen to show were entirely male. And some women noticed that and the next year they did an all women selection group, all women Hayward annual to compensate. But it began a debate which was interesting at the

David Curtis [00:10:26] A number of women who were at LCC, no, Chelsea was one of the

Howard Tangye [00:10:36] Just get a model to come and draw or draw friends or whatever. But anyway, I had also been teaching part time. At St Martin's and I'd been asked to go and teach in some other college

Colleen Farr [00:10:52] He actually didn't support me in various situations that I found myself in that normally you would expect a principal to support you in. And I just, I don't I don't like this at all. And I think that's partly why I decided I'd leave because I left, I decided to leave just a little bit before he left. 

Interviewer [00:11:16] So. what year did you leave? 

Howard Tangye [00:11:20] Who did a drawing class in the evening. 

Interviewer [00:11:23] Oh, yes. 

Howard Tangye [00:11:25] He needed someone to fill in for him and would I be interested to do it and I never, ever thought of teaching. It never entered my head. So I said to Elizabeth, I said. Well, I don't think I'd be any good at that. So she said, oh, no, I don't think you would 

David Curtis [00:11:52] This is an Arts Council committee all sitting here unpaid as advisers to advise on giving grants to artists but we need gender balance here, and she insisted nobody's ever questioned the selection criteria before but to its credit our superiors said, "Yes, OK". And that set a principle that at least within the film area of the Arts Council, didn't happen across all the other art forms. We had gender balance in terms of selection committees

Howard Tangye [00:12:35] the mood of the collection of, these are the colors or whatever, but they don't really tell me what I have to put on the page. So. And that's how I like to work, really, I I kind of think that I'm not a very good illustrator because I actually hate being told what to do. And I think there's a 

David Curtis [00:13:02] Want for women-only screenings and. We're talking about. '78. '79. So that was reported, it may have been earlier than that, it was much disputed even amongst you know the highly democratic processes of the filmmakers co-op and there was a splinter group from the co-op circles was set up by Felicity Sparrow and

Howard Tangye [00:13:47] a treat to be invited to the show. 

Interviewer [00:13:48] And he probably feels about you like you feel about. A sort of respect and well, that's very important. At one stage in his life.

Howard Tangye [00:13:59] What a lovely thing to say, yes. Well, I mean I think if it does feel like that, that's quite amazing because, you know, for , I just thought, you know, she actually changed my life really, I mean she really did. You know, if it hadn't been 

Colleen Farr [00:14:18] I I tried to do it in the summer. And Bill and I used to go take the car and go to drive around Germany and France, you know, as freelance designers. I couldn't, I had an assistant for a time and I tried to keep going, but I, I couldn't, it became too much, and that was another reason for me to leave and start up my own career again

Voice Over [00:14:53] Life After School is a soundscape composed of clips from the oral history archive in the museum and study collection at Central St. Martins, the voices and accounts you've just heard belonged to Bobby Hillson, David Curtis, Colleen Farr, Giles Last and Howard Tangye.
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LIFE AFTER SCHOOL

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