Marian Clayden

Marian Clayden (1937-2015) was an artist and fashion designer from Preston, Lancashire. She attended Nottingham School of Art and trained to be a teacher before moving to Australia with her husband Roger and their two children. where she collaborated with costumier Bob Mackie. Before starting her own company, Clayden, inc., she worked with two of Cecil Beaton's designers and the McBerman's Costume Company in London.

She worked as a primary teacher in the UK before moving to Australia with her young family. She made wall hangings in Australia before moving again to the USA in 1967 and founding her fashion house Clayden, inc. in Los Gatos, California.

In 1987, with her clothing carried by luxury boutiques including Obiko in San Francisco and Bergdorf Goodman in New York, Clayden, inc. surpassed $1 million in sales. A year later, in 1988, that had doubled with the company projecting sales of $2 million.

With a long term interest in Japanese textiles her work was included in an exhibition about the American interpretation of the Shibori technique Most of her clothes design used some form of simplified shibori. Clayden used the South East Asian word “plangi” to describe her tie-dying and dipping technique.

In 1995, a year after suffering a brain aneurysm, Clayden won the Golden Shears Award for Fashion.

Clayden, inc. closed in 2005. Clayden died on 15 September 2015 after a period of illness at the age of 78.