Fashion In The 1980

’s Essay, Research Paper

For the New York teenager, the European or Japanese housewife, British fashion means pop videos on MTV and splashy Di and Fergie cover stories. To the world at large, our style is that which is worn by youth as its class extremes: British fashion in international markets is Rock ‘n’ Royalty. Rock & Royalty, Vogue, August 1987 Britain’s new ambassador for fashion had an aristocratic lineage, endless legs. At the age of 19 years old, Lady Diana Spencer possessed a shy smile and a firm grip on the public imagination – key ingredients, which made her the most photographed woman in the world. The decade which worshiped status symbols and courted conspicuous dressing was rooted in romantic fantasy. Royalty and soap opera lived in parallel universes. The twin obsessions of the 1980s were Dynasty and Diana; both bonded by the upwardly mobile shoulder pad. By 1980 punk burnt itself out and vogue entered the decade with a series of exclamation marks on its cover: ‘STARS! MORE! SUCCESS! WIN! By 1980 Vivienne Westwood had abandoned bondage trousers and was experimenting with radical cutting. She dissected pirates, pillaged ideas from the past and opened a shop called World’s End of London’s King’s Road, where the clock outside whirred backwards. The Japanese where already thinking along the same lines: Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto took a more refined approach origami pattern cutting. Japanese designers would shop logically by putting minute qualities of origami clothes in expensive area of prime retail space. Bruce Webber, how had worked on Ralph Lauren’s advertising campaigns pioneered the idea of a fashion shoot as stylish newsreel, seducing the customer with a mix of beauty and wide open spaces. Vogue pre-empted the royal engagement in its portrait portfolio by Snowdon in February 1981. It was the first official sitting of the 19 year old Lady Diana Spencer. Mrs. Peter Shand Kydd’- dressed in a cream orandie and lace dress by Gina Fratini, and also photographer in a pale chiffon blouse by Emanuel. The royal romance coincided with the arrival of the New Romantics in 1982 Vogue called them, ‘Afresh sartorial wind has blown across the last eighteen month. Punk dress has at last become coffee table history. Suddenly, it’s cool to be Glamorous.’ In the run up to the royal weeding, romance flourished on the fashion pages: ‘Escape to the Sun. The New Romantics decked in castaway cottons, pirate smocks, pantaloons.’ In June: ‘ Shock romance… a midsummer night’s cream, bejeweled and frilled to bits.’ And July: ‘ there is magic and madness about – it must be midsummer. One could hardly forget romance,’ Vogue, August 1981, was dedicated to ‘The Day of the wedding. Official Snowdon Portraits of Princess Diana in her Emanuel wedding dress.’ Style wars broke out between the political parties. The Labour party was out on a limb. Vogue took a wry look at partiamentary style: Margrate Thatcher versus Shirley Williams, co-leader of the Social Democratic Part. Thatcher: ‘A slickly wrapped package. Strikingly handsome, English rose.’ Williams: ‘French, amiable. Looks that her clothes were produced by a band of blind British fashion designers.’ With wall to wall engagements, and with the press hanging on every seam, the Prince of Wales Wardrobe was formed. In her previous life, Princess Diana had worn the Sloan Ranger uniform of piecrust-frilled shirt, multicolored sweaters and Laura Ashley skirts. Now dressing had turned from instinctive decision to serious business. The Prince of Wales was to be scrutinized from every angle; each minute detail – hat shape, heel height, colour, cut dissented and analyzed. The new wardrobe was British designers such as Bruce Oldfield, Victor Edelstein , Belville Sassoon and the occasional Zandra Rhodes. Diana’s long time favorite became Catherine Walker, a quite French woman living in London. Bodymap a design duo from Middlesex – explored radical cutting and were regarded as London’s brightest sparks, bringing in the buyers and creating a stir. In Paris Channel had a new man at the helm. Karl Lagerfeld, who had designed for Krizia, Max Mara, Fendi and Chloe, was appointed in 1983 and picked up where Coco left off. The house had kept a low profile since her death in 1971, and Lagerfeld proceeded to take the signature to the limit, cleverly keeping Chanel’s spirit with it’s classic suites through the use of new fabrics and reworked accessories, playing with new variations of glit chains and double ‘C’s’. After two decades of brilliance and a quick kick of fluorescence, black came back in, the colour of fashion. In the early 1980s buyers and editors converged on Tokyo to see what was happening. When the Japanese started showing in Paris, the shade card of chic changed to neutral conformity. Tokyo was responsible: ‘What hit and when fashions in Tokyo they do so with speed and thoroughness was very black, ver big, and with a very blank look.’ Reported Vogue in 1985. The natural antidote to frills and layering came in the shape of a diminutive Tunisian, Azzedine Alaia. When he launched his first collection in 1981, he was quickly doubbed the ‘King of Cling’ and ‘Titian of Tight’, and given an assortment of epithets which, roughly translated, meant sexy dressing for supermodels. Alaia adored tactile fabrics, smooth leather and elasticity. Each was approached with the same principles as courtesy – holding in and pushing out. It didn’t matter th