Japan & Liberty: In Conversation with Liberty Archivist Anna Buruma

About

Discover how London’s iconic department store and design institution Liberty has been historically shaped by its long-standing respect and passion for Japanese design in an online talk broadcast live from Japan House London.

In conversation with Japan House’s Programming Director Simon Wright, Liberty’s Head Archivist Anna Buruma will draw from Liberty’s rich archival collections to explore the historical and cultural connections between Japan and Liberty. These links stretch back to 1889 when founder Arthur Liberty and his wife Emma took a trip to Japan that deepened their admiration for the country’s craftsmanship and creative heritage. A pictorial record of the trip kept by Emma Liberty, an avid photographer, was made into a leather-bound journal that remains in the archive today.

About the Speaker:

Anna Buruma trained as a theatre designer and has worked in the theatre and as a costume designer in television and film. During the 1990s she graduated with MA in an art history from the Courtauld Institute, specialising in the History of Dress. Since then Anna has been the archivist at Liberty as well as a curator for the Central Saint Martins Museum & Study Collection. She has published various articles on dress and a book on historical costume, including Liberty & Co. in the Fifties and Sixties: a Taste for Design (Antique Collectors Club 2009, reprinted in 2015).