Robert Opie

Fifty years ago, Robert Opie saw the need to unravel the fascinating story of how consumer products and promotion had evolved since Victorian times. By 1975 he had enough material to hold his own exhibition, ‘The Pack Age’, at the Victoria & Abert Museum. After a sixteen-year career in market research, he opened the first museum devoted to the history of packaging and advertising in Gloucester in 1984.

In 2005 his Museum of Brands moved to London, recently reopening in larger premises in Notting Hill. Recognizing the need to save our ever-changing consumer society, his research has focused on how our culture and lifestyle has been influenced by Britain's consumer revolution. Having written some twenty books and presented a two-hour DVD, In Search of our Throwaway History, he has become a leading authority as a consumer historian, appearing on a wide range of television and radio programmes.