Jean Elizabeth Muir was a British fashion designer.
30 Facts About Jean Muir
2.
Jean Muir's father was an Aberdonian, and Muir would attribute her creative pragmatism and self-discipline to this Scottish ancestry.
3.
Jean Muir's parents separated while she was still a child, and she and her brother Christopher were brought up in Bedford by their mother.
4.
Jean Muir was educated at the Bedford Girls' Modern School.
5.
Jean Muir showed a precocious talent for needlework, claiming to have been able to knit, embroider, and sew by the age of six.
6.
Jean Muir worked her way upwards to selling over the counter, and then despite her lack of formal art college training, was given the opportunity to sketch in Liberty's ready to wear department.
7.
Jean Muir declined, as she did not wish to design for the mass market.
8.
Jean Muir used the best quality fabrics, working in silk, cashmere, jersey and crepe, with a focus on form and fluidity.
9.
Jean Muir made coats and jackets from soft leather and supple suede.
10.
Jean Muir's designs were aimed towards the woman with a mature outlook, regardless of age.
11.
Jean Muir avoided creating clothes for fantasy figures, but focused on modern, restrained elegance.
12.
Jean Muir ignored the fads of high fashion design, but focused on creating a consistently evolving series of understated, sober clothes.
13.
Jean Muir was a sensualist who cared about how her clothes felt to wear as well as how they looked to others.
14.
Jean Muir placed pockets at hip level to encourage the wearer to hold her shoulders back confidently.
15.
Jean Muir eliminated bust darts as she preferred to mould fabric rather than cut it.
16.
Jean Muir's designs were intended to fit into a limited and integrated wardrobe, and to avoid distracting the wearer.
17.
Jean Muir favoured dark and deep blues, very dark greens, and heather-toned purples as well as intensely bright orange and deep saffron yellow.
18.
Jean Muir was a perfectionist about her colours, working closely with fabric mills and dyers to achieve her ideal tones.
19.
Jean Muir has been described as bringing common sense to clothing design to the pitch of genius.
20.
Jean Muir won in 1968 for a ruffled white voile dress with black polka dots, and in 1979 for an ensemble comprising a black rayon jersey beret and dress worn with a black leather jacket.
21.
Jean Muir was made a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, and was a recipient of the Minerva Medal, the Society's highest award.
22.
Jean Muir received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1992.
23.
Jean Muir was often photographed modelling Muir's designs in the fashion press.
24.
In 1967, Jean Muir provided Eleanor Bron's wardrobe for the 1967 film Bedazzled.
25.
Jean Muir did wardrobe for only one other film, Betrayal, in 1983.
26.
Jean Muir's designs were worn by public figures such as the author and historian Lady Antonia Fraser and the publisher Carmen Callil.
27.
Jean Muir's wife was aware of this, and Leuckert continued to live with her whilst paying regular visits to his daughter and her mother, Ingrid, in Germany.
28.
Jean Muir died in 1995, aged 67, at the London Clinic, of breast cancer.
29.
Jean Muir was buried at St Bartholomew's Church in Whittingham, Northumberland.
30.
Jean Muir had kept her terminal illness secret from even close friends, working right up to the end.