Dressed for the occasion? London Fashion Week Arrives!

The most exciting 5 days in fashion begins today as London welcomes designers, press and fashion icons from all over the world for London Fashion Week. The first fashion week Continue reading →

Happy Valentine’s Day?

It’s the most romantic day of the year and in our minds, it’s a bit like Marmite; you either love it or hate it. Have a look at a few figures Continue reading →

HMV Goes Into Administration

It has been reported in the papers today that high street retailer HMV has gone the way of Woolworths, Jessops, Comet, Zavvi (until rescued by HMV), and Fopp (until rescued by HMV) – Continue reading →

90,000 Historical Newsreels For Use in Your History Lessons

The British Pathé Education service has been nominated for a 2013 BETT Award for its digital resource available to British schools and academies. For any of you who are interested, here’s a Continue reading →

The Launch of the QE2

There’s been some sad news that the famous liner Queen Elizabeth 2 (or “QE2″) has been sold as scrap. [UPDATE: It appears that these headlines have been exaggerated. Although the QE2 Continue reading →

Review of the Year 2012 – A Pathé Tradition

From 1922 to 1969, British Pathé produced lengthy round-ups of the year’s news stories that collected together the most dramatic images and covered the most important events. Not confined to Continue reading →

London: A Tribute

2012, if we do indeed survive the predicted apocalypse, will be remembered for many things, but without a doubt it will be considered London’s year. The Diamond Jubilee, the Summer Continue reading →

British Pathé Spreads Its Wings

This quick message is to tell you about our brand new Social Media pages. Don’t worry, we’re not neglecting the old ones. In fact, we’ve recently updated our WordPress blog Continue reading →

Pathé’s Undersea Antics

Continuing our series on “Alternative Pathé“… There’s plenty in the British Pathé archive for those not so interested in history and British politics. For those more intrigued by science and Continue reading →

Twentieth Century Hall Of Fame

Around the time that what was then called “British Pathé News” was producing A Day That Shook The World with the BBC, work also began on a companion series entitled Continue reading →

British Pathé Picks: Early Dec 2012

Earlier in November we blogged about four upcoming anniversaries which may have been of interest (see here). From now on, we’ll be doing this on a regular basis, pointing out events coming Continue reading →

The Pathé Animation Archive

As well as producing regular news stories, British Pathé often included additional forms of entertainment mixed in to add a bit of variety. These pieces could be more comedic or quirky Continue reading →

Pathé’s Hidden Treasures

“That’s all very well, but what has the Pathé archive got for ME?” It can be tempting to think of the British Pathé archive as being only of interest to those with a passion Continue reading →

Burning Down The House: Dangerous Guy Fawkes Night Videos

Reblogged from The British Pathé Archive Blog: Today is Guy Fawkes day and so we had a dig in the archive for some footage of yesteryear’s heretic-honed celebrations. British Pathé Continue reading →

The Girls With Cotton Tails

The 1960s saw Hugh Hefner opening up his Playboy Clubs across the world. Those hostess showgirls wedged in to satin corsets and sprinkled with  bunny ears and bow ties are Continue reading →

Bunny Girls: British Pathé Go Inside The Playboy Paradise (Never To Return)

Reblogged from The British Pathé Archive Blog: Playboy Magazine and the notorious Bunny Girls charmed their way into Metro yesterday with the announcement of a new Mayfair Playboy club opening in Continue reading →

Schwarzenegger Aged 19

Reblogged from The British Pathé Archive Blog: We were searching body builders in the archive today for one of our clients and suddenly stumbled across this freak discovery – a mega Continue reading →

Decline and Transformation: British Pathé from 1958 to the present day

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part IV of IV. For the years 1895 to 1910, see blog post “Pathé Before British Pathé”. For the Continue reading →

A Golden Age: British Pathé from 1933 to 1958

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part III of IV. For the years 1895 to 1910, see blog post “Pathé Before British Pathé”. For the Continue reading →

Establishing Itself: British Pathé from 1910 to 1933

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part II of IV. For the years 1895 to 1910, see blog post “Pathé Before British Pathé”. For the Continue reading →

The Cats of Downing Street

Or should we say Meow-ning Street? Today British Pathe paid a visit to 10 Downing Street! (apparently nothing to do with David Cameron’s recent history quiz on Letterman?!) We’re proud to have a wealth of footage Continue reading →

Pathé Before British Pathé: The Archive from 1895 to 1910

by James Hoyle, archive co-ordinator for British Pathé This post is Part I of IV. For the years 1910 to 1933, see blog post “Establishing Itself”. For the years 1933 Continue reading →

Vintage Workouts: Shape Up For Summer the British Pathe Way!

The great British summer is here! You might not be able to tell from the sky but there lies a clue in the sudden splurge of diet fads and health initiatives. Food packaging and Continue reading →

British Pathe’s Greek Odyssey

We’ve been enjoying Joanna Lumley’s recent ITV documentary series ‘Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey’, and were motivated by it to dig out our own documentary series on Greece. That’s right, British Continue reading →

Beauty and the Beach: A Guide to Pyjama Dressing

By Amber Butchart, author of Theatre of Fashion and half of Broken Hearts DJ duo. “The seaside became the world’s most glamorous stage on which all who visited it could play whatever Continue reading →

There is a Luxurious Cinema Attached to this Train! (PATHE GAZETTE EXTRAVAGANZA)

Who knew there used to be cinema carriages on trains? Or “saloons” as they were called… Today we came across this exciting poster on the National Archives’ Flickr stream which reads – “There Continue reading →

Extreme Bodies – Gigantism!

Most of us are lucky enough to go about our daily lives fairly inconspicuously but there are some men and women who literally stand out from the crowd. Super sized humans have always Continue reading →

1960s Teen Idols: Life Before Lady Gaga

In 1967 the Daily Mail conducted a survey to establish who teenagers idolised Although Hollywood was already a strong force and pop music had major clout over kids’ imaginations, it Continue reading →

Big Fat Gypsy Videos in the British Pathe Film Archive

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings has been a surprise TV phenomenon here in Britain this year, with its sometimes hilarious sometimes sad voyeuristic insight into gypsy life here in the UK. Continue reading →

The King’s Speech Oscar Scoop and James Franco as Marilyn Monroe

We’re thrilled that The King’s Speech scooped four Oscars at last night’s ceremony: Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Director (Tom Hooper) and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler). For Continue reading →

All of Yesterday’s Parties: Forgotten Scenesters of the 60s

A lot of people are getting excited today because someone has scanned in their old copies of Smash Hits! Magazine and uploaded the pages as images to FlickR, meaning thirty-somethings Continue reading →

History of Plastic Surgery: Pathé News went under the knife

We were surprised to find this archived newsreel of a plastic surgery pioneer in 1947, Dr Archibald McIndoe, and his harem of men that went under his largely experimental knife. Continue reading →

Christmas Stuffing: British Turkeys Through History. (No, Really.)

Will you be having turkey this Christmas day? A lot of people have beef or even fish don’t they, or if you’re a vegetarian, a nice nut roast perhaps. When Continue reading →

Burning Down The House: Dangerous Guy Fawkes Night Videos

Today is Guy Fawkes day and so we had a dig in the archive for some footage of yesteryear’s heretic-honed celebrations. British Pathé have so much brilliant archive footage of Continue reading →

Welcome to Baghdad Madame!

Anyone up for a holiday in Iraq? It does seem a fairly fanciful idea when Iraq has been synonymous with war, violence and oppression for such a long time and Continue reading →

Twist And Shout: The Launch of ‘Twister’ in 1966. Where? Butlins Of Course!

   We all know Twister! The embarrassing MB game that always ends up with a pile of panting bodies with minor injuries. I used to fear the moment when a Continue reading →

Before Barbie – The Days when Dolls had Eye Lashes

In the 1960s before the complete world domination of Barbie, and before the invention of those insipid ‘Bratz’, Britain had a glorious dolls industry of its own. The video above is a preview Continue reading →

Traffic in the 1890s

People often ask us what our oldest footage in the archive is and a quick search reveals there are only 38 films pre-1900. Some of this footage includes William Gladstone’s Continue reading →

Everybody Goes To Hollywood

I came across this canister of 1970s Hollywood footage (click on image below). The clip shows 1970s shots of people in the neighborhood, spinning signs that say ‘FAMOUS’ etc, and Continue reading →

Fathercraft: Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour discusses peculiar British Pathe video teaching Dads how to be Dads

British Pathé featured on Woman’s Hour today, as Jenni Murray’s guests chatted about the forgotten scheme called ‘Fathercraft’, in which welfare specialists taught fathers in the 1930s and 40s how Continue reading →

Are We Heading Towards Another British Heat Wave?

British Heat Waves: Three words you don’t often see together. Rumour has it things are going to start getting hot on Wednesday. Suddenly we’ll no longer be able to ignore Continue reading →

Edmund Hillary: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

  Tomorrow will be the 47th anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s Everest conquest. Still an impressive feat today, it is hard to conceive just how famous Hillary was Continue reading →

Large Girls Club!

Today we’re intrigued by this late 1950s colour video called ‘Large Girls Club’. Set against the aristocratic backdrop of the Duke of Bedford’s home Woburn Abbey, a rather grand woman Continue reading →

Grace Kelly: Archive Icon

The V&A’s indulgently stylish exhibition Grace Kelly: Style Icon opens tomorrow and naturally several British Pathé clips will feature. After all, Grace was a popular focus for the British Pathé Continue reading →

Dressed To Kill – An Avengers Themed Fashion Show

Who said fashion shows had to be morose? In 1965 fashion legend Jean Varon took the popular television series The Avengers (starring a young Joanna Lumley) as his source of inspiration and Continue reading →