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Synthesis and Nostalgia in 1970S Fashion

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Synthesis and Nostalgia in 1970S Fashion ‘Fashion is about taking one out of reality, and this is what he achieved.’ These trajectories include a history of western designers appropriating ideas of counter culture or the Manolo Blahnik avant-garde for the fashion high street. (McRobbie, 1987). In my comparison of these design projects I ‘What Ossie and Alice summed up articulated the freedom of what was going on and they did attempt to trace the synthesis of ideas from trans-national themes and the influence of ‘vintage clothing’ drawings - as well as a, then, newly immerging vintage clothing industry. In close this through clothes.’ proximity to the stores and boutiques that sold fashion to the new and expanded youth market, were Fiona Ronaldson the factories and supply chains and networks of production and manufacturer that enabled designers to respond quickly to ideas and how they were unfolding and then respond quickly to CUTTING demand. Reflecting upon that now throws up interesting questions about urban planning and our Background heritage and how new designers are positioned within it –in view of the fact that large scale fashion manufacturing has all but gone from the UK and has been replaced by imported, global, elite retailing Ossie Clark has been sited as the ‘bridge’ between the angular 60s’ fashion, to the floaty, franchises. The coherence of the UK’s fashion identity in the 70s evolved from what has been romantic aesthetic of the early seventies, informed by elements as diverse as ‘the movies’ and the arts acknowledged as the unprecedented success of new patterns of consumption emerging, highlighting and crafts movement (Menkes, 1996). Taught in Fashion college through the ‘youthquake’ of the 60s, a vibrant and empowered youth market for the first time in Fashion’s history in Britain. To what extent Clark led the rest of the fashion world, in synthesizing the upsurge of romanticism with the influences did other cultural forms compliment and position fashion in London or rather how did fashion corral of Hollywood of a bygone era, to define the rest of that decade and the next one, in a series of iconic other cultural forms in the ”marking out of new territories” socially and culturally in re-spatializing garments. Widely copied, Clark created the female trouser-suit, the maxi and the peasant layered look FOR London? (Evans, 2009). How did designers in London, by the 1970s engage with and progress the first, at street-level; all important trends associated with labels such as Yve Saint Laurent label. design nexus of ‘Swinging London”. Tensions between the commercial practices of the fashion Suzy Menkes, the legendary fashion journalist has said of Ossie Clark: ‘Of all the clothes that have industry and forms that were intended as expressions of counter-culture were played out eventually passed through my hands, his have given me the most pleasure.’ (1996). within a commercial context, however radical, through synthesis in the filtering of aspects of ethnic The joining of his avant-garde aesthetic with a high-end, high street brand was inspirational clothing as symbols of travel and universality, and in their construction, and the freedoms they and innovative, the first collaboration of its kind. allowed: the iconographies of embellishment making them traditional and timeless simultaneously Because of this I have chosen to look closely at the key pieces from this iconic ‘brand’: a ‘brand’ and the wearing of them somehow a radical statement. Where these social boundaries were being people were buying into, to be a part of the bohemian ‘Chelsea set’. FREEDOM tested designers were positioned in the urban setting to respond. These ideas were picked up and The closest analogy now would perhaps be to Kate Moss’s collection for TopShop: but Clark designed dynamically illustrated in much the same way as in 60s fashion: images and editorials through the lens the clothes, cut the patterns, and gave them the all-important celebrity endorsement as well. of metropolitan themes: cinematic nostalgia and sophisticated ethnic and trans-national design. The clothes are sought after more than ever as ‘vintage’ pieces, because the cut was designed to Place and the urban experience was the enabler. Close networks of production and distribution were flatter and to be seductive, in an increasingly permissive society. The clothes still have the power to the reason it was possible and designers were the conduits for this to take place at that particular conjure up the atmosphere of that era, which is why they are in demand now. In view of this, we have Synthesis and Nostalgia time in the UK. The direct consequence of that was cultural exchange manifested in material culture, witnessed the impact of Clark’s influence in much of the 70s revival in fashion and culture and all the namely Fashion, marking out new territory in the decorative and applied arts with Fashion and street parallels apparent in festivals and the boho chic of ‘Cool Britannia’, for the last two decades. style as the main driver. The 70s revival, which has been evident in forms of popular culture for the last It was in the blending of ‘flower power’, the ethnic clothing (collected from his travels to North Africa) two decades is a ‘dialogue of freedoms’: a recognition that something strange, resilient and inspiring of the counter culture and in the romanticism of the early part of the seventies; all of these elements still flickers in the air. were brought together through fashion, and in the mixture, its ability to reflect and articulate the in 1970s Fashion freedoms and mood of that time. The work of Ossie Clark and Alice Pollock of Quoram and Celia Birtwell ‘articulated those freedoms’, bringing their interpretation of modern clothes to two distinct Results of my findings generations over a period of 40 years – an achievement unparalleled (certainly) in the history of British fashion. The garments did not disappoint. In gaining an overview and then being in a position to select the more ‘ethnic styles’ from Ossie Clark’s own label and the Radley collection, I found that I was able to This paper has the central aim of providing a new; critical look at the development of Fashion in the Funded research by The Society of Antiquaries of London on Ossie Clark trace the origins and influences that had informed his cut and design in the objects themselves. UK, in the aftermath of ‘Swinging London’ – the 1970s. (Given as a conference paper at the University of London) During closer examination, three methods of pattern-cutting emerged, used concurrently and with The overwhelming success of ‘6os fashion in Britain has dominated the history of post-war British Clark’s characteristic balance and skill: the flat-pattern method from his training at fashion college fashion. Its exposure, due to the international attention ‘Swinging London’ was afforded from a global Sally Grant, June 2011 and then, ethnic styles from the new influences coming into London at that period (Celia Birtwell refers level and the way in which it was mediated, has obscured the subsequent decade that followed: the to this specifically in several interviews). In addition to those two methods, the bias-cutting from the more eclectic seventies. Fashion and material culture on the streets and the changing patterns of vintage clothing he had been collecting throughout his time in London, that addressed the body as a consumption in the 1960s revolutionized the way London’s creative capital operated and how it was three-dimensional form (from Portobello market and researching at the V&A, looking at Vionnet and read and perceived as an international Fashion destination thereafter. It transformed and re-spatial- Bakst, and his influence from the Hollywood films he loved). In several of the dresses I had examined, ized the West end and gave rise to a powerful and confident post-war youth market for the first time. all three methods blended to create 70’s ethnic- style fashion : it was like witnessing a piece of cultural (Edwards, 2006). In direct contrast, by the end of the 1970s the Fashion industry in the UK had been history coming alive again. It was there in front of me – a combination of the three methods. played out against a background of recession and industrial unrest, in, it had been asserted, the mode of ‘the carnivalesque’. The notion that sixties fashion melted away into a hangover of seventies cyni- This experience has made it even clearer to me how important it is to stay close to the object in dress cism, with the distraction of ‘fancy-dress escapism’ needs to be re-visited. (Webb, 2009). Rather it was - history research, a feeling I hope, is echoed currently in debates within the world of design history a mythical playground of fashion where highly significant cultural exchanges occurred, because: To document all of these illuminating features, I meticulously traced all of the patterns out directly from the garments, in the time and space that I had been given, revisiting all of the nuances and quirks that ‘it is the fashion capitals that have the strongest cultural resources to elaborate and re-work the invent- became increasingly apparent in his work. The appearance of simplicity and ease was brought about ed traditions of their own design heritage.’ (Gilbert, 2006). through complex patterning, worked out on the stand and converted back into flat patterns for manufacture. The garments were then cut out in bulk and sent out all over London to be sewn together Fusing ideas of nostalgia of pre-war cinematic glamour with classical ethnic clothing and the craft by machinists, using the established chains of manufacture and supply already established in the sensibilities that come with them, after a decade of stark, space age modernism, 70s fashion British garment industry.
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