The Fashion BusinessThe garment was presented with a taffeta shirt showing beneath a mohair
sweater and white jeans, as planned. No explanation was given, nor was
any required by the agents, buyers and merchandisers to whom the collection
was presented. The group of garments of which this was a part sold well in
the stores, again, with no more information other than that the fabric was
waterproof and would not crush. We know from information passed back
to us from the sales teams that the garment was bought and worn in the
way that we had intended. If, as Craik suggests, successful designers must
‘compromise between showing something daring and new while at the same
time ensuring that it is wearable (at least in a modified form) and recognisable
(draws on previous fashion styles)’, this was a success.^52
Jacket B was designed in the winter of 1999, when the sleek ‘urban sport’
look had been a dominant theme for several seasons, using mostly synthetic
fabrics with smooth surfaces, often in black. The look embraced slim
silhouettes with detailing drawn from technical sportswear, such as zips and
velcro fastenings. Although this look had been appropriated by the high-
street, we speculated it would continue to be important at ready-to-wear
level but using high-cost, high-performance, ‘luxury’ fabrics and finishes that
would be beyond the reach of more downmarket collections, including the
‘sub-designer’ Weekend collection. In the meantime, though, we had observed
that the same sort of young, fashionable people who had inspired Jacket A,
had begun to wear recycled ‘English’ clothes – green quilted gilets, beaten-
up waxed jackets, tweed trousers and skirts. The whole thing was done in
an ironic way, but it was clearly a reaction to the clean minimalism of urban
sportswear. This time, the whole collection took ‘authenticity’ as its theme,
but to preserve the sense of irony, in order that the wearer would not be
mistaken for someone who might always have worn those clothes, we played
around with materials and the way things were put together. So, a tweed
jacket might be presented with a pair of nylon trousers, a pleated tweed
skirt with a hooded sweatshirt.
Jacket B was part of a series of three inspired by the ‘authentic’ English
waxed jackets described, but since the ‘real thing’ was readily available, and
having been in fashion relatively recently, many people already had one in
the back of their wardrobe. We decided to ‘move it on’ by using a nylon
canvas, instead of cotton, with a finish that had the effect of being waxed,
but softer and without the smell or the tendency to mark. We took the features
which characterized the ‘original’ and used them on garments with slightly
different shapes and proportions. As I write, I cannot imagine how we ever
- Craik, J., The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion, London: Routledge, 1994,
p. 60.