The Fashion BusinessThe founding principles of the Rational Dress Society, established in 1881,
were to: ‘promote the adoption, according to individual taste and convenience,
a style of dress based upon considerations of health, comfort, and beauty,
and to deprecate constant changes of fashion that cannot be recommended
on any of these grounds’.^1
In many respects Shirin Guild’s philosophy embodies these same objectives.
Her signature look is oversized, square-shaped garments informed by the
styles, flat cutting and layering characteristic of ethnographic dress, particu-
larly Iranian menswear. These are interpreted with a modern, reductivist
aesthetic and are made using the finest European fabrics and yarns.
Shirin Guild was born in 1946 and grew up in Iran. Before the revolution
of 1978, she moved to Los Angeles and then to London. Her career in fashion,
like that of many designers, took off when, unable to find clothes she wanted
to wear, she started to design her own. Friends admired them, orders were
placed and in 1991 she launched her own label collection. In common with
many UK designer-level companies, Shirin Guild is in independent ownership
and exclusively produces womenswear. With the support of her husband and
business partner, the interior designer Robin Guild, the business supplies an
Figure 4.1.Portrait of Shirin Guild 1999. Photograph by Christian Cunningham.
- Newton, Stella Mary, Health, Art and Reason, London: John Murray, 1974, p. 117.