Bloomsbury threads

A new book about London's most famous literary set explores its lesser-known role in sparking a sartorial revolution

- Alex Needham

It was recently called the most fashionable house in England but Charleston is closed to visitors on Tuesdays and so blissfully empty. In a garden at the peak of its bloom this hot August morning, bees investigate the flowers and apple trees, while ducks cool their feathers in the lake. The Bloomsbury Group used this farmhouse in East Sussex as its countryside HQ for about 60 years, and since the members believed art and life should be thoroughly integrated, their idiosyncratic touches are everywhere.

There is a picture on an easel of a naked man with a six-pack painted by Duncan Grant; yellow circles on a wardrobe decorated by Vanessa Bell; a walled garden designed by their fellow artist Roger Fry. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, eccentric pottery shades cover the lights; upstairs in the attic, there is a door frame covered in patterns painted by Bell and windows that offer majestic views of the South Downs.

The fashion journalist Charlie Porter has spent much of the past two years here, researching an exhibition and a book. Both are called Bring No Clothes, after Virginia Woolf's instruction to visitors to leave their starched crinolines, whalebone corsets and medals at home, since the rejection of formal attire was part of Bloomsbury's revolutionary lifestyle. "I've always wanted to look at what happened at the moment clothing went from Victorian cinched and military dress to what you would call modern," Porter says. "If you look at that moment, what can we learn about the roots of clothing today?"