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neilcunninghamdotcom

Designer, film-maker. London, Oxford. Late to Instagram.

Summer 2000, three months before she died. Grief f

Summer 2000, three months before she died. Grief for a soulmate is perhaps the hardest thing in life to bear. Photographer @brianarisphoto styling @marcellastylist hair @keithharrishair make-up @cherylphelpsgardiner

#paulayates
#brianarisphotography
#marcellastylist
#keithharrishair
#neilcunninghamdress

Ubiquitous lame snow photo but isn’t it just typ

Ubiquitous lame snow photo but isn’t it just typical of nature right now to dump a load of freezing ice onto tender young blossom. My 6am morning walk (no filter).

#firstsnowsofspring
#whiteblossom
#whiteonwhite
#thames

I read that The Kick Inside was released 45 years

I read that The Kick Inside was released 45 years ago yesterday. I was telling my young niece that I vividly remember buying it in 1978 when I was twelve, and how the album cover art was now seared into my brain. She wasn’t terribly impressed and then I realised that it would be like my own uncle telling me in the late Seventies about an LP he’d bought in 1933. Sobering.

#katebush
#thekickinside
#1978
#feelit

Ubiquitous image of the week but just too sad to c

Ubiquitous image of the week but just too sad to contemplate the heart being ripped out of Mayfair. Will the new owners get to keep the name of the building? Will it become a hotel? I remember nervously waiting in that iconic foyer to show various fashion editors my sketches, some thirty odd years ago.

#waitingforthegirlsupstairs
#everythingmustchange
#firstworldproblems

The Magic Flute makes a change from The Nutcracker

The Magic Flute makes a change from The Nutcracker this Christmas but I’m not used to wearing two pairs of everything and a parka to the opera. It’s turned midnight now and I might as well have a pumpkin 🎃 and mice 🐁 at my feet (no trains back to Oxford)!

#diezauberflöte
#openingnight
#davidmcvicar
#cinderellatime
#trainstrike

I walk through St Pancras station so often without

I walk through St Pancras station so often without thinking of the refurbishment overhead. Spent a lovely afternoon in the various bars having a jolly good catch up.

Fenella Fielding ‘Do you mind If I Smoke’ holo

Fenella Fielding ‘Do you mind If I Smoke’ hologram ( limited edition of nine) @patrick_boyd_light to order @jross286 gallery.

Fenella lives again - for a month or so at @jross2

Fenella lives again - for a month or so at @jross286 gallery. The opening last night of a new exhibition curated by Simon McKay @fenella_fielding_foundation and @fionn.wilson celebrating madam’s career through newly commissioned paintings. A few of her own outfits (including the suit I made for her 90th birthday) plus wigs and her famous eyelashes breathe extra life into the exhibition. It’s a great opportunity to see the iconic Fenella head and mirror pieces by @andrewlogansculptor too.

#fenellafielding
#andrewlogan
#carryonscreaming
#neilcunninghamdress

Can’t stop staring at these Rosemary’s Baby tw

Can’t stop staring at these Rosemary’s Baby twin chairs in the restaurant this evening 👹

#rosemarysbaby
#creepy
#whathaveyoudonetohiseyes

Hilary Mantel fascinated me for years. I found her

Hilary Mantel fascinated me for years. I found her appearance and personality bewitching. During the first Lockdown in 2020 I encouraged her to have something made for a future gala event, not least the Booker Prize that was ominously looming. She said to me, ‘Have you seen me recently? I’m 5’3”, and currently as much in circumference – I’m the size and shape of Queen Victoria!’

I felt she should revel in her celebrity status and arrive in something huge and rustling, befitting the charismatic literary legend she’d become. My inspiration was Jessye Norman draped in the French flag 🇫🇷 in 1989 singing La Marseillaise for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution. The opera singer’s size and shape was actually a vital ingredient to her spine-tingling appearance on the Place de la Concorde.

We both liked the empire and trapeze line (or no line as I call it) and Hilary admitted she’d have chosen the dramatic shapes I’d drawn even if she were slim. I’d found what I thought was the perfect coloured silk faille for her complexion: a kind of electric calamine pink – a muddy grey warp, shot with a fiery pomegranate orange.

Covid of course dragged on and spoiled everything and she greeted the news that she’d been omitted entirely from the prize shortlist with her gracious ‘disappointed but freed’ line. Almost exactly two years later she is dead.

In her memoir Hilary describes the difficulty in finding clothes as she became unwell, adding that it was more a case of ‘looking at loose covers’. She subsequently told me that her spirits had been lifted that I’d even consider designing for her. She said ‘…it’s as if you’ve seen through the layers to something I used to be.’ Her words mean even more to me now.

RIP Hilary Mantel

#hilarymantel

Salome is back at the Royal Opera House! I intervi

Salome is back at the Royal Opera House! I interviewed The Executioner (Duncan Meadows) about his famous transition from street performer to centre stage Covent Garden after being spotted by the director David McVicar.

Duncan shares what it feels like to be naked on stage in front of 2,500 people but I learned that it was the anti-climax after each nerve-racking performance that he dreaded most.

I fell in love with this opera after seeing Maria Ewing’s unhinged performance at the ROH back in the nineties, and didn’t think it could bettered. McVicar’s reimagining of the story updated to the fascist 1930s creates so many new references (John the Baptist is now a street preacher) that the production is now elevated to something way beyond the central performances.

Go and see this stunning production which ends its run on Oct 1st. I’ll be in the front row – again!

#duncanmeadows
#salome
#rohsalome
#royaloperahouse
#sirdavidmcvicar
#davidmcvicar
#richardstrauss
#executioner
#oscarwilde
#opera

The ER has gone from the curtains! They must have

The ER has gone from the curtains! They must have cancelled Don Giovanni the night before just to unpick the embroidery…

We had a minute’s silence for the Queen before the opera began and then the orchestra played God Save the King 👑

#salome
#openingnight

Back at the best bar in town 🥂 #paulhamlynhal

Back at the best bar in town 🥂

#paulhamlynhall

A mimosa tulle evening dress worn by Queen Elizabe

A mimosa tulle evening dress worn by Queen Elizabeth on her tour of Australia 1954.

Happier times.

#queen
#normanhartnell
#mimosa
#australia

Can’t believe Fran Lebowitz is here in Oxford th

Can’t believe Fran Lebowitz is here in Oxford this evening. I booked front row tickets for her London Barbican show this coming Saturday and tonight she’s five minutes from my home. Since she’s always wanted to be a Supreme Court judge I wonder what she’ll have to say tonight…

#Franlebowitz
#starstruck

Missing the festivities already so I’m celebrati

Missing the festivities already so I’m celebrating another one of my brides on her seventh wedding anniversary today. This is Georgina Hardy and Mark Struthers at Sherborne Abbey and afterwards at the family home in the Dorset hills.

Georgina wears sand gold and coffee sugar bugle beads on blush tulle. The lace weighed a ton; I wanted to add a train but it would have felt like the equivalent of two bags of Demerara.

Horse breeding and dogs were at the centre of family life and so departed pets were the theme of the cake and for guest table names.

I couldn’t resist snapping Georgina’s mother Lady Hardy before the wedding in her curlers and her @stewart_parvin outfit .Sadly, both Sir Robert and Venetia have recently passed away.

#neilcunninghamdress
#englishcountrywedding

Neighbourly tea: homemade scones and bunting. Neve

Neighbourly tea: homemade scones and bunting. Never ask a couturier or a tailor to make his own bunting. It took me a month to decide on the size of the pennant, the width of the spacing and what interlining to use (medium weight woven cotton fusible). Too old for this stress.

#platinumjubilee
#wellhung

Happy seventeenth wedding anniversary today @nicol

Happy seventeenth wedding anniversary today @nicolaswashhardie @john.hardie.104
here with my wonderful vendeuse and friend @carol13been . Nicola wears silver beaded chantilly lace over champagne metallic organza. Carol is wearing black satin brocade with custom Jimmy Choo Couture shoes (made by Jimmy) and I love Bingo bag @antoni_and_alison , custom feathered headdress @cozmo_jenks .Very happy memories of the wedding party at Blenheim Palace: television industry glitter and Glaswegian grit🥂 🍻

#neilcunninghamdress
#englishcountrywedding
#weddingdresses
#jimmychoo
#cozmojenks
#chantillylace

Bittersweet day for Prince Charles - feels like th

Bittersweet day for Prince Charles - feels like the start of a new era. Here’s the last Prince of Wales at the #fashioningmasculinities exhibition at the V&A today. I love this portrait.

A horse just turned up next door wearing #cathkids

A horse just turned up next door wearing #cathkidston

Spring pint, most welcome. #seemslikeoldtimes #l

Spring pint, most welcome.

#seemslikeoldtimes
#londonpridebeer
#stpatricksday

Farewell photographer Steve Schapiro who died last

Farewell photographer Steve Schapiro who died last week aged 87. His body of work, essentially photojournalism, is very impressive (have a Google). I was ten when I first saw this album cover at a friend’s house ( @franceskenward ) and it set me off on a love of Semitic and alternative beauty thereafter.

#steveschapiro
#mourning
#barbrastreisand
#thewaywewere
#1974

So very shocked and sad to hear that Maria Ewing i

So very shocked and sad to hear that Maria Ewing is dead today at just 71. Arguably no soprano will ever surpass her shattering performance as the unhinged, depraved Salome in her husband Peter Hall’s 1986 production at Covent Garden (their daughter is actress Rebecca Hall).

Richard Strauss’s Salome is based on Oscar Wilde’s play (1891) which is loosely based on the biblical tale; his version being more of a study in destructive obsession. The damaged spoilt Salome is furious at being spurned by John the Baptist and tells him that one way or another she intends to kiss him on the mouth – even if it means cutting off his head in order to do so. The opera shocked and revolted audiences upon its premiere in 1905 and was subsequently banned in London until 1907. Critics were outraged that Strauss seemed to take a morally neutral stance on the protagonist’s dreadful deed and furthermore incensed at her singing of her lust and regret to a severed head.

This production was also notorious for Maria’s Dance of the Seven Veils. While past dramatic sopranos actresses have ended what is essentially a tame striptease in a modest body stocking Ms Ewing offered us the authentic bush-to-the-wind nude finale (also sporting a slim perfectly toned body) thus setting a precedent that future sopranos probably wouldn’t thank her for.

I was thrilled to dress Maria for one of John Wilson’s first MGM musical tribute concerts at the Royal Festival Hall in 2003. We were initially looking at a few frocks but ended up with practically a different dress for every number. It was a nightmare for my seamstresses adjusting a dozen inner-corsets to allow for an expanding operatic diaphragm. I hope the Royal Opera House will allow a clip from their 1992 DVD. RIP beautiful Maria.

#mariaewing
#salome
#richardstrauss
#oscarwilde

When you buy yourself a lovely Christmas hat @hist

When you buy yourself a lovely Christmas hat @historyhit and it looks so much better on a friend…

#theregoesmyhat
#fredthegardener
#beardedgardener
#historyhit
#thehistoryguy
#crochetedvikinghat

Was reminded today that it was the anniversary of

Was reminded today that it was the anniversary of Eartha Kitt’s death on Christmas Day (thirteen years ago). She’s been on my mind the past few weeks as I saw her perform in my first Stephen Sondheim show, Follies (1987) at the Shaftesbury theatre. The West End hadn’t offered a production so lavish in years. The synopsis alone was enchanting: a group of ageing former Follies stars and their husbands meet up in their old theatre soon to be demolished, surrounded by the ghosts of their younger selves. Set over one evening, nostalgia turns to bitterness and the disappointments of their lives (Follies, geddit?) and there’s no happy ending. It was as if Woody Allen had written a musical play.

The icing on the cake for me however was witnessing Cat Woman herself Eartha purring her way through I’m Still Here dripping in gold bugle beads like a black Marlene Dietrich. Georgina Howell in the Daily Mail described the audience’s astonished silence after she’d finished her one number before they rose to their feet for an eight minute standing ovation. Howell also noted a ‘mild depression that set in on both sides of the footlights’ afterwards. Eartha famously stopped the show like this every night.

I last saw her perform in London in 2007, the year before she died - she was still touring at 80, and as charismatic as ever. Your mum was one in a billion @kittshapiro photo #mikelaye

#earthakitt
#catwoman
#oneoff
#follies
#follies1987
#stephensondheim
#lordknowsatleastIwasthere

Lame Christmas light pics but Christmas Eve in the

Lame Christmas light pics but Christmas Eve in the West End is always very special. It’s usually less crowded, and calmer than you’d imagine (even more so this year); clear(ish) roads and black taxis in abundance. Last minute shopping has its downside though: dill and mustard sauce and pickled brussels sprouts curiously become must-have items. Many years of happy memories are held for me in this beautiful square mile of London. Happy Christmas everyone.

#christmas2021
#londonchristmas
#bondstreet
#piccadilly

Sunrise this morning 8am (no filter). #jackfrost

Sunrise this morning 8am (no filter).

#jackfrost
#wintersunrise

Just arrived in Gosport to collect some new bone c

Just arrived in Gosport to collect some new bone china from @rob.turnerchina and found I have to take a ferry to get there; so quaint. Remembering Mildred Natwick in Barefoot in the Park, and her resigned face when she’s told they’re taking the ferry to the restaurant on Staten Island in mid-February: “A ferry…🙄😕”

Today is lovely though.

#barefootinthepark

Enjoy a cosy night in. #rosemarysbaby #iralevin #

Enjoy a cosy night in.

#rosemarysbaby
#iralevin
#halloween2021

Remember strawberry Chewits? Hot pink sky gone in

Remember strawberry Chewits? Hot pink sky gone in ten minutes. Traffic jams on the river at 07.25 this morning. No filter.

#happytrees
#happylittleaccidents

Thank you Ophélie Renouard for the mention @lebal

Thank you Ophélie Renouard for the mention @lebal.paris .The delectable Ophélie has worked tirelessly since 1992 creating Le Bal des Débutantes: an homage to the English debutante balls where young women were introduced into society. It’s now just a good excuse for the rich and famous of the world to showcase their offspring in couture gowns. Many months of preparation goes into selecting the girls, dressing and photographing them and finding suitable young gentleman escorts. The evening itself is a whirlwind mixture of beauty pageant; fashion show; prom dance and an opening night – with a non-stop press call. The event raises heaps for charity and attracts socialites, politicians and fashion grandees alike: Anna Wintour donated her daughter the last time I was there (mother and daughter both wore Chanel).

The ball invitations are meticulously designed and this was my favourite illustration by René Gruau chosen for the 2003 ball.

In 2000 I dressed a baby-faced and timid Tamara Ecclestone in red silk zibeline. This was a particularly competitive year – it’s fair to say that Lauren Bush (niece of the president in waiting) in her huge vintage Dior gown rather stole the show.

Photography @thierry.chomel

#ophelierenouard
#renegruau
#tamaraecclestone
#mikimoto
#hoteldecrillon
#hautecouture

Reflecting on the excesses of lockdown. #beaujola

Reflecting on the excesses of lockdown.

#beaujolais
#cotswoldscreamliqueur
#lockdown
#may2021
#fatbastard

Hadn’t heard of #internationalcatday until yeste

Hadn’t heard of #internationalcatday until yesterday but this is a great excuse to tell Thomas the cat’s previous folks: Paul @p.bastock how happy he is and how much he is loved. After his first month indoors he went out and caught a mouse within two minutes. Sociable, vocal and always hungry, Tom is such good company and he has constant attention as the house is never empty. Can’t believe it’s been nearly three years…

#catsofinstagram

Happy 63rd birthday Kate Bush @katebushmusic . I w

Happy 63rd birthday Kate Bush @katebushmusic . I was 16 when I queued at Virgin Megastore Oxford Street to meet this tiny little lady and have her new album signed. I asked her about the lyrics to The Kick Inside - was it all about incest? ‘Yes’ she smiled broadly. Seems bizarre now that anyone could pull up that day for a quick word with this now reclusive genius.

#katebush
#thedreaming
#muchloved
#1982

Happy 76th Birthday @HelenMirren. Have loved this

Happy 76th Birthday @HelenMirren. Have loved this actress since I was fifteen. Such a pleasure dressing her several times. Here in a froth of mocha-cappuccino silk satin and chiffon by yours truly. Styling @rachelfanconi brooch to order @andrewrtprince

#helenmirren
#neilcunninghamdress
#cappuccino
#couture
#satindress
#rachelfanconi
#andrewprince

Not a film set today, just shielding the kitchen w

Not a film set today, just shielding the kitchen windows from 32° sun with equipment to hand.

#ifyoucantstandtheheatgetoutofthekitchen

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