Designer to the people
QUESTION What became of Kiki Byrne, Mary Quant’s fashion rival?
KIKI BYRNE was a leading influence in Swinging Sixties fashion. Born Olaug Juliane Grinaker in Trondheim, Norway, in 1937, she grew up on a farm during the German occupation.
Known as Kiki throughout her life, she was 17 years old when she moved to Britain to study at Harrow College of Art.
In 1958, she began selling her own designs at Mary Quant’s Bazaar on the King’s Road in London. Her husband Nicky Byrne became her business manager and would later handle the merchandising interests for The Beatles.
The 21-year-old Kiki caused quite a stir when she opened her eponymous shop just two doors from Bazaar.
She explained her philosophy to the Daily Mail: ‘The secret is couture at reasonable prices. Fashion designers have priced themselves out of the range of the attractive young women. Now the only people who can afford their prices are the middle aged.’
She added: ‘The most important thing is good material and simple design. I think these sequined things of some other designers are just too ghastly.’
She specialised in simple, chic, black dresses and stylish plain suits. Her boutique attracted the actresses Susannah York and Sarah Miles, model Grace Coddington, who later became the director of American Vogue, author Antonia Fraser and Christine Keeler, the model at the centre of the Profumo affair.
As one of her designers noted: ‘Quant is an original whereas Kiki is an elegant minimalist/stylist revered by her loyal clientele.’
In 1963, Kiki and Byrne divorced. The following year, the shop was bought out by Jaeger.
Kiki began a long-term relationship with the talented yet rather troubled artist Robert Brownjohn. He created the opening scenes for a number of James Bond films and Kiki designed the gold bikini worn by Margaret Nolan in the title sequence of Goldfinger.
She continued to design for other fashion outlets and the film industry until Brownjohn’s death in 1970. The following year, Kiki married Stephen Milne, an editor in CBS News’s London bureau, and concentrated on raising her two daughters.
Elaine Stevenson, Lutterworth, Leicestershire.
QUESTION Why do some people dream in black and white?
IN THE 1950s, researchers reported dreams were predominantly a black and white phenomenon, though earlier and later descriptions asserted they were in colour. It’s been suggested that the black and white TV and films of that time were the cause.
In 1942, US psychologist Professor Warren Middleton reported that only 10% of his students said they saw colours in their dreams frequently or very frequently, and 71% said they rarely or never did.
In 1951, Calvin S. Hall announced in Scientific American that just 29% of dreams featured colours. He dubbed these Technicolored, suggesting the visual influence of TV and films.
A 2008 study about dreaming in the journal Consciousness And Cognition found participants aged over 55 dreamed in black and white one in four times, while those under 25 dreamed in black and white only 5% of the time.
Even without the influence of popular media, some people still have black and white dreams. It has been suggested these may reflect emotions such as nostalgia, boredom, depression, indifference or yearning.
Andrew Rice, Ormskirk, Lancashire.
QUESTION Between them, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have won 60 Grand Slams. Have any other individual sporting rivalries matched their dominance and longevity?
WOMEN’S tennis between 1980 and 1996 was dominated by four players – Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles – who won 52 out of 63 Grand Slams (there was no 1986 Australian Open).
The nine boxing bouts between Sugar Ray Leonard, ‘Marvelous’ Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran between 1980 and 1989 are considered some of the greatest fights in history.
Then there was the great 1980s/1990s motor racing rivalry between Frenchman Alain Prost (world champion in 1985, 1986, 1989 and 1993) and Brazil’s Nelson Piquet (1981, 1983 and 1987) and Ayrton Senna (1988, 1990 and 1991). This bears some similarity with the Federer, Nadal and Djokovic comparison as both sets of rivalries had battling British athletes to contend with: 1992 F1 World Champion Nigel Mansell and three-time Grand Slam winner Andy Murray.
Ian Leonard, Balcombe, West Sussex.
THE Big Three, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, dominated golf in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite having strong opposition, between 1958 and 1986 they won 34 Major titles.
In the 1960s, they won a combined seven of ten PGA Tour money titles and 17 of the 40 Major tournaments. Palmer won four of the ten Vardon Trophies for lowscoring average. Player has 24 PGA Tour wins with nine Major championships, Palmer had 62 PGA Tour wins with seven Major
Legend: Martina Navratilova had a long run of success championships, and Nicklaus achieved a quite remarkable 73 PGA Tour wins with a record 18 Major championships.
The other dominant golfing trio, known as the triumvirate, was John Henry Taylor, James Braid and Harry Vardon, who won 16 British Opens from 1894 to 1914. Vardon was the first British winner of the US Open in 1900.
Clive Paish, Chigwell, Essex. Is there a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, DMG Media, Two Haddington Buildings, 20-38 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, D04 HE94. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.