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The Fool a designer women’s hippie fashion company started in 1973 with a little bit of magic. The Fool caught the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time.
Why The Fool? The World is a strange and foolish place.
The Fool does not take the world too seriously.
The Fool knows that what is seen as wise at one time can be seen as foolish at another.
The Fool does not take the world too seriously.
The Fool knows that what is seen as wise at one time can be seen as foolish at another.
Can we ever convey a time that is other than the one we live in? We barely register the changes from year to year, as like a wave rippling on to a shore the currents change imperceptibly. Our yardstick of what we think of as good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable change. Trying to express it, however, allows us to see where we are today and where we have come from, without judgment but simply to pay attention to how our thinking and worldview has changed without us noticing it.
The Fool designed manufactured and sold colourful, flowing, lacy hippie style women’s clothes around The Portobello Road area and later on around the UK and Europe at a time of great change. From Aden, Manchester, Eritrea, Cheetham Hill, Scotland, Clydebank, Dvinsk, Russia, Ruti, Myrna and Aury set up The Fool.
They viewed their huge cultural differences as an asset and made use of their different life experiences , different expectations to make the project of The Fool work.
This hotchpotch combination made the magic happen brought the spark alive and created a successful entrepreneurial business.
They viewed their huge cultural differences as an asset and made use of their different life experiences , different expectations to make the project of The Fool work.
This hotchpotch combination made the magic happen brought the spark alive and created a successful entrepreneurial business.
Beyond the current trend of Mary Quant and Biba, The Fool operated in a different way again.They set up from a back street run down shop with an incredibly low rent in street off Westbourne Park Road, West London from where the 3 of them all lived with their children.The way they lived and worked was different from others of their generation. Many of their peers had a conventional life style, a job, a family, a house and a weeks UK holiday a year. Myrna Ruti and Aury broke away from the expected behaviour from their family background. This allowed them to be open to different ways of seeing and doing things. See History
The area around The Fool was poor in the 1970s. It was very working class then, similar to the East End of London, like Call the Midwife.
Rag and bone men in their horse drawn cart wandered around the streets. In a way this area was the the end of a Victorian, Edwardian era with such poverty that people wouldn’t believe today.
Rag and bone men in their horse drawn cart wandered around the streets. In a way this area was the the end of a Victorian, Edwardian era with such poverty that people wouldn’t believe today.
It was so cold living at The Fool that Ruti, Myrna and Aury lived and worked with their outdoor coats on all day long. There was barely any heating in the place. They had a paraffin heater or a single bar electric heater. The machinists had a one bar electric heater to warm their work area.
There were different smells during that time. In the 1960s and even into the 1970s and 1980s smoking was permitted nearly everywhere: smokers could light up at work, in hospitals, in school buildings, in pubs, in restaurants, in cinemas, theatres, on television, and even on buses, trains and planes. Smoking was integral to every day life. Un-emptied ashtrays were all over the place at The Fool. Many of the workers as well as Aury smoked heavily. Myrna as one of the non smokers had no choice but to put up with it. Smoking was the norm.
The Fool was a female powerhouse..... the ideas, the inspiration, the innovation, the sheer hard graft, the humour, the bonds of friendship..... all women. A unique and joyous experience for me at least - Liza
The Fool Wisdom Myrna and Ruti worked 24 seven going down to the workshop any time of the day or night or weekends excited with an idea they wanted to try out. They learnt that to make a successful entrepreneurial business you have to put full energy into it. If they had worked 9-to-5 hours they would never have got the project off its feet.
1970s photo Chris Reed (C)
