Pamela Downing attended the Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts from 1938 to 1941. After an initial period of basic training in a full range of Artistic methods and techniques, she seems to have moved in the latter part of these studies to a period where she was studying in the Handsworth School of Dress design.
It is recorded in an entry of her mother Molly‘s diary for 3 Jul 1941 that she went to her daughter’s ‘Dress Design Show’. This was apparently an annual end of term event put on by the students. However, it was very much Pam’s last real involvement at the college.
Below are a few examples of Pam’s work from her surviving Art folio.
Pam’s 1941 ‘National Dress’ sketch shows eccentricity of pre-war fashion replaced by simplicity since the declaration of war
