Wendy Dagworthy

Fashion designer turned professor Wendy Dagworthy is one of the founders of this month’s London Fashion Week. And she is currently curating a show of bags at Notting Hill’s Flow gallery

When pillars of the fashion establishment claim to love high street clothes, you wonder if they’re just humouring normal people to make us feel better about our kit. Surely once you’ve got used to wearing beautifully cut pieces in fabulous fabrics, you must be immune to the limited charms of a £1.99 Primark top. But not Wendy Dagworthy. The former designer who is head of fashion at the Royal College of Art may have seen it all, fashionwise, but she’s still thrilled to have found some brilliantly cheap pumps, even if she a little anxious about their provenance. Maybe instead of immunity, she’s just developed a bigger appetite for clothes.
Wendy Dagworthy was one of the biggest British fashion designers of the 1970s and 80s and one of the main players in setting up London Fashion Week, before which there was no real platform for designers in London. Now she’s embarking on a research project about its origins that’s set to culminate in an exhibition at the V&A plus a book in 2010. And over the past 20 years, her former pupils have included such household names as Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo, Clements Ribeiro and Giles Deacon as well as countless successful fashion people.
In her bright, neat office overlooking Kensington Gardens, Wendy is smily and predictably stylish, dressed in black and white (despite her professed taste for the high street, most of her clothes are actually by her friend Betty Jackson, for whom she performs a consultancy role) and wearing multiple rings and bangles. A pinboard overflows with cards, photographs, sketches and invitations, giving the impression that Wendy is a popular woman.
This month, Wendy is curating a selling show of bags for Notting Hill’s Flow gallery. “We thought, bags are so important at the moment, they’re the ultimate piece of accessory really, getting the right bag is such a big thing, so we thought, let’s do bags,” she smiles. Around 40 pieces by former graduates, current students and tutors will be on display and for sale at the show that continues until November. But she’s not making one herself. “I stopped making clothes many years ago,” she says.
The Wendy Dagworthy label was characterised by simple, comfortable clothes in an experimental mix of fabrics, textures and colours. Her first pieces were embroidered satin quilted jackets. “I always liked pattern and using different fabrics for unusual things, such as a daywear jacket in satin. There was quite an eclectic feel to the collections.” Lots of her ideas came from travels and she has always loved what she calls “working clothes” – uniforms such as French working suits, Thai fishermen’s trousers, priests’ clothes and Nehru jackets. Are today’s students interested in this stuff? “Yes, a lot of them are. They are going back to old traditions in lots of new ways. People are using childhood memories and things are coming from the heart in a world that’s all mobile phones and technology.”
Though really there’s no categorising what students are currently into. “It’s all sorts now,” says Wendy. And there’s no predicting what direction fashion may take in coming seasons either: “if you could you’d make a fortune,” says Wendy. Though she sees a big future for new smart fabrics, healing fabrics, textiles with things woven into them. Medical clothing is all happening,” she says.
The problem with fashion students, says Wendy, is that they’re not keen on the hard graft. “People think it’s glamorous, and it can be, but most of the time it’s not. Most of the time you’re chasing fabric companies, ordering buttons and arranging delivery dates.” Everyone wants to have a show but often they don’t know how to get things produced, they haven’t got the money to buy cloth and don’t have anything to back up their own hype. And that’s when people fall by the wayside, says Wendy. “They give London a bad name. Designers should have a few selling seasons behind them before they’re allowed to show.”
Spotting the future successes hasn’t been hard, says Wendy. Hussein Chalayan was an obvious one. “He was so clearly innovative and original, not really a fashion person because he was interested in all kinds of other things. He had his own view and every show he did I thought, how could he ever top that, and then he did each time. He’s very clever, with no ego and just does what he really believes in.” Getting students to be aware of world issues is a big part of Wendy’s teaching ethos. “We want fashion to be broad-minded.” Also immediately identifiable were Suzanne Clements and Inacio Ribeiro, who were together as students but worked on separate collections. “You could just tell, they just had it,” says Wendy. “Phoebe Philo was really into what she was doing and Stella McCartney was very down to earth and worked very hard. And Giles Deacon, he was very good.”
Without Wendy, many of these people may never have become household names. And without Wendy, this month’s London Fashion Week might not exist.