That’s Not My Age

For the first time ever, the V&A Museum is showing an exhibition of 1980s fashion. Proving that the decade wasn’t all power dressing and loadsamoney logos, Club to Catwalk explores the link between club culture, music and high fashion. At the preview, I bumped into Professor Wendy Dagworthy Dean of Fashion at the Royal College, and an eighties fashion designer herself, who has been acting as a consultant for the exhibition. Professor Wendy is a proper Fashion VIP – one of the founders of London Fashion Week –  and she always looks fabulous. Today she’s wearing a Cos dress, H&M neck piece and Zara sandals – and I was struck by the similarity between this outfit and my previous post on Gloria Sharp. Two very stylish women.

John Galliano outfits from 1985 & 1986.

Bodymap knitwear

Anyhow, back to the eighties. As the museum’s Head Fashion Curator, Claire Wilcox, pointed out, ‘What struck me when we were putting the exhibition together is
how different every single outfit is. In the eighties people were mixing and matching, layering, and prints by textile designers like Timney Fowler, English Eccentrics and Georgina von Etzdorf made for a rich visual look.’

English Eccentrics prints.

Having spent the majority of the eighties clubbing, this exhibition really put a smile on my face. Music videos from the likes of Curiosity Killed The Cat and Joyce Sims had me singing out loud – fortunately, the acoustics at the V&A are terrible, so I doubt anyone heard. This was the decade of supermodels and style magazines, the era when fashion went pop. I was living in Manchester at the time (mostly at the Hacienda), which had its very own scene, but as a student of fashion, the London Look was an all-important influence.  Many an hour was spent churning out Bodymap-inspired tube skirts on the industrial overlocker at college, and customizing second-hand clothes. Though Wilcox admitted to me that she wasn’t much of a clubber herself, ‘I was a bit of a stay-at-home, I spent my time reading Jane Austen novels!’ Probably why she’s head curator at the V&A, and I’m not.

Body Con dresses – and Rifat Ozbek’s White Collection.

Customized Levi’s jackets for Blitz magazine.

Monty Don jewellery for Betty Jackson.

As an expert in 20th century style, Wilcox told me one of the reasons she admires eighties culture so much, ‘This was a great decade for London fashion but what I really like is that these are clothes to move in and dance in, they’re dynamic. You could do really good dancing in a Zoot suit.’

And who doesn’t love clothes that you can dance in?

Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s is on at the V&A from 10 July 2013 – 16 February 2014.