Overview
Britain’s postwar contribution to fashion came from the street rather than the salon. Where Paris designed downward, London threw up subcultures — mod, skinhead, punk, New Romantic — that were assembled by young people with limited money and then sold back to the world as style.
Key garments and style
The 1960s belong to Mary Quant and the King’s Road: short simple shifts, the miniskirt, tights rather than stockings, and clothes designed for young women by someone who was one. Carnaby Street sold mod tailoring to men — narrow suits, parkas over them for the scooter.
Punk in the 1970s was the sharper break. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s shop on the King’s Road sold deliberately damaged clothing, bondage straps and safety pins, and the point was to be unwearable in polite company; within a decade Westwood was showing collections and the vocabulary had entered mainstream design.
Underneath the subcultures, two older institutions held: Savile Row bespoke tailoring, and British wool and tweed. London later produced designers who ran the great French houses — Galliano at Dior, McQueen at Givenchy — which is an odd measure of a national industry’s strength.
Transition
British fashion now spans luxury conglomerates, London Fashion Week and a street-level influence that still travels faster than the catwalks.