The press went wild, with coverage of the Avengers collection featuring in every major newspaper and magazine. There was a four-day deadline.Ĭreated with black and white television projection in mind, the collection included op-art shift dresses, trouser suits, vinyl double-breasted car coats and the quintessential jumpsuits in Celon stretch which became the signature Avengers look. Bates was approached by Anne Trehearne, ex-editor of Queen magazine, to design a new look for an actor Bates had never met before. Blackman’s onscreen costume had been a leather catsuit. The catalyst for the success of Jean Varon was the announcement, made in 1965, that Bates would be designing the wardrobe for Rigg, who had just replaced Honor Blackman as the leading lady in The Avengers. If a client came in I would watch how they were dealt with, how they were treated.”īates with a model wearing one of his designs in 1973 (Getty) “I started by taking messages, cleaning, being taught to sketch. In 1956 he decided to become a fashion designer, apprenticed with Gerard Pipart at Herbert Sidon for £4 per week with free accommodation. Originally intending to be a journalist, Bates learnt shorthand and typewriting before serving in the British army. Peel, played by actress Diana Rigg, was a revolutionary character, independent and athletic, performing moves which originated in martial arts.īates was born on 11 January 1935 in Dinnington, Ponteland, then a mining village near Newcastle upon Tyne. Using fabrics futuristic for the time – PVC and synthetic stretch jersey – Bates’s designs became synonymous with the newly liberated woman. John Bates rose to prominence in the Swinging Sixties fashion scene, but became famous for creating the sartorial onscreen identity of The Avengers TV series’s leading lady, Emma Peel. By 1969 Bates was designing under five different labels, exporting to 44 countries internationally and selling in 28 boutiques across the UK (Getty) My name is John Bates, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on connecting time through old growth forests.Īnd you can find all of our Brief But Spectacular segments online at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.The designer at work in 1965. In my old age now, my job, as I understand it now, is to help people fall more deeply in love with the world. ![]() And in the early ’20s, 1930s, six million acres of Northern Wisconsin was made into public land, because we couldn’t figure out what else to do with it. So, even if you could miraculously grow something, who were you going to sell it to? And so farmers went belly up. We also have this thing called winter, which lasts for five months. We have very poor soils, compared to Southern Wisconsin. Most of this land was sold on the dream of land that couldn’t support farms. Every one of those people needed wood.Īnd so we ended up cutting and then burning all of Northern Wisconsin. And by 1870, there were one million people here. When you think about the history of Wisconsin, in 1830, we had our first census. And you can’t find that in any other setting literally in the world. They’re travelers through time.Īnd standing next to them, you can get this feeling of time having taken place. They’re not stories people have told with all the biases that we have as human beings. If you’re standing under an old white pine here in Wisconsin that’s 400 or 500 years old, you are standing underneath a tree that Native Americans had stood under. My job, as a naturalist, is to help people gain environmental literacy, so that they have a deeper understanding of place based on this enriched understanding of where they are. I found myself feeling a deep gratitude that these trees were resilient enough to still be here. I felt humility walking into these sites in a place where trees are 400 or 500 years old. Why did we cut so many down? They’re a filter for air. ![]() ![]() I’d been walking in older forests, and found that they were quite rare and wondered why. John Bates: My interest in old growth took off in, oh, about 2003. ![]() He’s worked in the area for more than 30 years helping people understand the diversity and the beauty of nature and our place within it.īates’ most recent book is titled “Our Living Ancestors.” Judy Woodruff: And now tonight’s Brief But Spectacular explores old growth trees and the natural history of Wisconsin’s Northwoods.Īuthor and naturalist John Bates takes us there.
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