Given London’s reputation as a breeding ground for multiple generations of cutting-edge design talent, it’s hard to imagine that just three decades ago, its fashion industry was in crisis. “As usual at collection time,” began a 1993 article about the then unknown designer Alexander McQueen, “British fashion editors have been dismissing London as a fashion wasteland.” That article is plastered to the wall in one of the opening rooms of “Rebel: 30 Years of London Fashion,” a new exhibition opening this Saturday at London’s Design Museum, as if to prove how far the city has come. That same year the British Fashion Council launched the sponsorship initiative that would become Newgen, a program supporting emerging fashion talent that kick-started the careers of everyone from Kim Jones to Jonathan Anderson, Simone Rocha to Grace Wales Bonner—and the rest is, well, history.
It’s a history that Sarah Mower, Vogue’s chief critic and the guest curator of the exhibition, both witnessed and played a direct part in. (Today, it was also announced that Mower will receive a special recognition award at the Fashion Awards in December for her work championing young designer talent.) “When I’m traveling with Vogue Runway and people want to know what’s going on in London, they always ask me: How is it that all of these incredible individual designers come out of London?” Mower says. “So I thought the curation of it should offer an answer to that.”
Working with the Design Museum’s senior curator Rebecca Lewin, Mower split the exhibition into individual rooms illustrating the variety of factors that have encouraged the fearless innovation that has come to define British fashion over the decades. There is an atelier-like space stacked high with books and sketches that nods to the key role of British arts education; a room papered with fly posters and filled with flamboyant club couture as an homage to the city’s fashion-forward nightlife; and a perforated metal runway packed with mannequins that recalls the underground spaces and DIY spirit of its most electric fashion shows. “I wanted it to evoke as much about the culture surrounding the clothes as it did the actual objects and pieces that are in the museum,” says Mower.
And as for that runway room, which features projections of the original shows as a backdrop to the likes of Christopher Kane’s showstopping 2007 debut collection of frilly neon minidresses and the avant-garde sculptural jackets from Craig Green’s 2015 debut that were splashed across the pages of the Daily Mail: “I’m hoping that it can give the audience for this exhibition the same kind of chills that we experienced at the time,” Mower says.
Yet arguably the tidiest summation of what makes London so unique can be found in the very first room—tidy, really, because it initially appears to be anything but. A riotous, kaleidoscopic selection of gowns from designers including Mary Katrantzou, Duro Olowu, and Richard Quinn boldly showcases what has always made London an agenda-setting fashion locus: the fierce determination of its designers to carve their own paths and the head-spinning array of perspectives that have come together to form its rich, varied tapestry. “That individuality was brought out by education and being amongst their peers,” says Mower firmly. “It’s not about trends. Maybe these clothes started a few trends along the way, but I don’t think there are movements that are easy to discern because the work is so individual.”
Another element of the exhibition that feels especially striking is how technically accomplished so many of the garments are, despite being whizzed up with the scantest of resources and by designers who were all, by and large, in their late teens or early 20s. Kane famously sourced the materials for that slinky first collection entirely from the humble fabric stalls of Ridley Road Market, for example, and when I gaze admiringly at an egg-yolk-yellow dress by Erdem from 2008 featuring elaborate embroideries on duchesse satin, Mower recalls her surprise when visiting the designer producing these fairy-tale gowns at his studio, then located in a fairly insalubrious corner of the East End. “We’ve been planning the exhibition for such a long time, so it was incredibly reenergizing when everything arrived because it really proved that everything goes back to how brilliant the clothes are,” she says. “I knew that the work would speak for itself.”
The work certainly does speak for itself, but it’s hard not to see the exhibition’s intentional framing of London’s success as a fashion capital within the context of education, inclusivity, and multiculturalism as somewhat pointed—especially at a time when funding for the arts and education continues to be slashed and when anti-immigration rhetoric by senior government officials in Britain has reached a fever pitch.
For Mower, whose mother was an art teacher and who has spent as much of her career working with education institutions as sitting on the front row of fashion shows, witnessing the effects of this has been devastating. “I know from having interviewed all of these designers who were either born in the UK or educated here that it was always an art teacher who really inspired them or made them realize they were special,” she says. “There’s a whole ethos of British arts education that is being chipped away at. You look at the timeline on the wall, and it starts in 1983, when you could study for free. And not only that, if their parents couldn’t afford it, they could get grants to go. Obviously, that’s changed beyond any measure now.”
“One of the important things this exhibition says is that talent isn’t distributed by your parents’ income, nor where you were born,” Mower continues. “I don’t want this to be mistaken as some kind of jingoistic, nationalistic view of British fashion. I made a list of all the countries that the various contributors to this exhibition hail from, and it’s enormous. People have always congregated in London because they have the freedom to be who they are.”
If there’s a silver lining, it’s the possibility that the exhibition—which was designed to be as absorbing for someone with a cursory knowledge of British fashion as for the many visitors who, like Mower, bore first witness to the clothes on display—could inspire the next generation of budding creatives or designers. “Matty Bovan once told me that he came down on the train from York with his mum when he was 13 and she took him to a Stephen Jones hat exhibition at the V&A, and that completely changed his life,” says Mower. “It made him see that this was possible.” One imagines the inclusion of S.S. Daley’s original outfit for Harry Styles’s “Golden” video might encourage a few new visitors to cross the Design Museum’s threshold. “That’s what excites me,” she continues. “To think that there could be young people who come to see things that fill them with wonder, and because those things were also made by young people, they’ll realize, Oh, I can do that too. I think we’re at a really critical moment, so I’m very focused on proving that creativity is a superpower of this country.”
While walking through the art-school room, Mower points out a particularly poignant quote by the up-and-coming designer Paolo Carzana, which is written across one of his sketch pads. It reads: “Imagine you could be the one to change it all.” Indeed, the most energizing aspect of the show is walking away with the knowledge that Newgen is still alive and well—and that there’ll be a new crop of designers debuting at London Fashion Week over the coming days who will inevitably continue to push fashion in a new and more responsible direction. “These are really tough times,” says Mower. “And I’m not saying that tough times always produce the best work—even if very often they do—but the way these young designers talk about working in a better way, in a more responsible way…. That’s what it’s all about, really.”
But first there’ll be a moment to celebrate. “Tomorrow there’s going to be a party, where these different generations can meet each other as well,” says Mower, with a laugh. “That’s exciting too.” What could be a more appropriate way to honor the spirit of London fashion, after all, than a party?
“Rebel: 30 Years of London Fashion,” sponsored by Alexander McQueen, is on view at the Design Museum in London from September 16, 2023, to February 11, 2024.
