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Nick and Jane Ashley's childhood
The family of Laura Ashley reminise on growing up in a creative household
The beginning of Laura Ashley
Nick and Jane Ashley tell the story of the the company's humble beginnings
Laura Ashley's blouses
Nick and Jane Ashley talk through the best selling blouse from the Ashley label
Laura Ashley
The first designer to indulge our traditional obsession with florals was Laura Ashley, who believed that inside every urban woman was a country maiden waiting to get out. Her clothes took Edwardian period costumes and gave them a hippy twist and she engendered floral revolution. This was pastoral chic for working women who'd never got their hands dirty down on the farm.
Swimming against the tide of rising hems, she rejected the 60s with chaste maxi dresses and proved there was still modesty left in the country-loving townies.
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