To the casual observer, there can be little that unites Charleston Farmhouse, a 17th century home-turned-museum in rural East Sussex, and Dior, the storied French fashion maison. Yet the two now share an employee, as Dior menswear’s creative director, Kim Jones, has been appointed as one of Charleston’s latest Vice Presidents.
It is just the latest example of the ways in which the fashion world has become intertwined with Charleston, the idyllic former bolthole of the artists (and couple) Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The home was a hive of artistic and intellectual activity from the 1910s through to the 1950s, with a revolving door of house guests made up of fellow Bloomsbury Group members, including Bell’s sister, Virginia Woolf, the artists Roger Fry and Dora Carrington, and the economist John Maynard Keynes.
Bell and Grant first moved into Charleston before the First World War, as it was necessary for Grant to secure farm work in order to avoid conscription and contribute to the war effort as a conscientious objector. They remained here for the rest of their lives, and over the next several decades set about decorating every possible surface in their idiosyncratic style, painting everything from the walls and doors to the fireplaces. House guests were also encouraged to participate, leaving their own unique mark on the place.
“The reason why Charleston keeps coming up and being a source of inspiration for fashion designers is that different designers have found different things in it,” shares Charlie Porter, an author and journalist who curated an exhibition about the Bloomsbury Group’s relationship to fashion, ‘Bring No Clothes’, which ran until January this year. The paperback book of the same name, based on the exhibition’s work, is released on 5 September. “They’ve still barely scratched the surface.”
Justine Picardie, a former editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar and avid Virginia Woolf fan, agrees. “It’s such a rich vein and there are so many layers to their aesthetic. There’s so much that different designers are going to respond to.”
Jones’ appointment at Charleston comes just two years after his Duncan Grant-inspired Dior menswear spring/summer 2023 collection, which saw a scale replica of Charleston brought to Paris as the fashion show set. Earlier this year, the fashion house was also the sponsor of the ‘Bring No Clothes’ exhibition. Jones’s inaugural womenswear collection at Fendi in 2021 was also inspired by the group; his 2022 book, The Fendi Set, was a tribute to the Bloomsbury Set and released to mark the 100th anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s death. The designer himself is also a huge collector of Duncan Grant’s work, placing him in a long lineage of fashion designers who have been drawn to his art.
Kim Jones was inspired by Duncan Grant for his Dior spring/summer 2023 menswear collection
Another prolific collector of Grant is the designer Christopher Bailey, whose tenure at Burberry from 2004 to 2014 is widely credited with reviving the fortunes of the historic British fashion brand. Charleston and the Bloomsbury Group were a constant reference in his collections, and formed part of his central rebrand of the label as a stalwart of British craftsmanship and design, often with a whimsical, playful touch. His autumn/winter 2014 collection in particular zoomed in on this affiliation, with painterly prints, Woolf-esque oversized scarves as shawls, and patchwork accessories.
Other designers who have been inspired by the group include Erdem, Roksanda and Commes des Garçons, who costumed a recent operatic adaptation of Woolf’s Orlando. Woolf in particular has become a popular reference point, with photographs of her in her long skirts and oversized jumpers often finding their way onto a designer’s moodboard. “She didn’t see herself as stylish, but she is, and she’s become a style icon,” explains Picardie.
A model wearing one of Bailey’s Charleston-inspired designs for Burberry Prorsum, photographed at Charleston for Harper’s Bazaar in 2015
And despite the title of Porter’s exhibition – ‘Bring No Clothes’ is a reference to an invitation sent by Woolf to E.M. Forster, in which she was simply saying ‘we don’t dress up for dinner here’ – the group were undoubtedly interested not in fashion in terms of trends, but in what clothing meant as artistic expression.
“Different members of the Bloomsbury Group used clothing in different ways,” shares Porter. “They used clothing to push forwards. Virginia Woolf was completely obsessed with clothing. She used it as a device in her books, she wrote about it all the time in her journals, and what she writes about very explicitly is this dichotomy between being obsessed with clothes yet being repelled by fashion. Vanessa Bell made clothes, and that was part of her creative output. Duncan Grant loved being naked, so for him, it was the removal of clothes. Lady Ottoline Morrell was about self-fashioning.”
While it would be easy to assume that it is the design of Charleston itself that is so inspirational to designers, as Porter explains, it’s actually the ethos of the place and what the Bloomsbury Group stood for as radical thinkers and counter-cultural icons. “Most of the time, designers aren’t doing a ‘Bloomsbury look’, they are using the ideas of the group to further their ideas on the catwalk,” he explains. “When Kim Jones was inspired by Duncan Grant for his Dior menswear collection, he was very clear it wasn’t about a Duncan Grant look, it was about expressing ways of living and ways of being, and attitudes to creativity, inspired by Grant’s own philosophy.”
Following Jones’ appointment, Charleston will no doubt be discovered by a new generation of artists, designers and creatives. “Over the decades they’ve had a series of powerful allies and champions, Kim Jones is the latest in an ongoing chapter in the story of Charleston,” says Picardie. “It’s wonderful as it allows it to continue to inspire and influence, and bring it to a new generation, as well.”
“The thing about Charleston is it’s so beloved yet there’s something about it that makes everyone who goes there feel like it’s their own discovery,” concludes Porter. “Part of it is its location, as it’s nestled far away from civilisation, over the hills, it’s in its own little world – you can’t even hear traffic. I think people have a really personal and individual reaction to it.”