Box, shirt box

Cardboard box with lid. The sides of the lid are blue and on the top is printed a logo of two red horses, Chinese characters and the label 'Double Red Horse Man's Shirt'. Beneath this is printed 'China National Textiles Import & Export Corp. Shanghai Silk Branch'. The box contained a cream coloured shirt, 85.152/26a.
The donor, Peter Viti, was born in Bloomsbury in 1936. He attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts, then entered into a partnership making costumes and props. He eventually went into the family business of letting property. Viti calls himself ‘a bit of a dandy’. He purchased clothing from the boutiques which revolutionised men’s fashion in the 1960s. Viti recalls the London gay scene both before and after the legalisation of sex between consenting men in 1967, considering that things became a little easier for gay men as attitudes slowly changed.