Born in 1922, in what later became Yugoslavia, Klein moved to the UK at the end of the Second World War, eventually establishing a base in the Borders, where he has lived for the past 50 years.

A designer whose woven textiles were originally inspired by artists such as French Impressionist Seurat, he went on to translate his own abstract paintings into dress fabrics and yarn.

“I’ve always felt the need to look and to paint,” Klein has said, “and to transfer what I saw into what was closest to me - textiles.”

Throughout the 1960s, his stunning tweeds, which were produced in the factory he established in Galashiels, were used by couturiers such as Chanel, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent and featured on the covers of Vogue magazine, worn by the supermodels of the day.

Klein’s design empire eventually embraced not only luxury tweed and yarn manufacture, but fashion ranges, knitwear patterns (designed by his wife, Margaret), shops and a mail order business. Even his Borders studio, designed to his specifications, went on to win an award.

The exhibition in Aberdeen, Bernat Klein, Pioneering Textile Designer, which runs until May 26, will feature more than 16 outfits and accessories dating from the 1970s and drawn from the museum’s collection, as well as mail order catalogues and a selection of the personal colour guides that the designer produced for customers.

The curator, Victoria Ward, says the exhibition will be of particular interest to design students in colleges and secondary schools.

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