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Margaret Thatcher - A life in objects | Christie's

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Who was Margaret Thatcher? Here, we offer insights into Britain's first and only female Prime Minister - both public and private - in a selection from the 15 December sale of her personal collection at Christie's London

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Amelia Bloomer, American women's rights advocate, gave her name to the emancipatory bloomer style of clothing because of her prestige as a spokesperson for women. Her newspaper, The Lily, promoted a change in dress standards, arguing that 'the costume of women' should be 'suited to her necessities'. in 1851, Elizabeth Smith Miller, of New England, became the first to adopt the loose trouser 'bloomer' style. The rational dress reform movement of the Victorian period encouraged the adoption of practical clothing for women, raising awareness of the damaging effects of tight corseting which had been the mainstay of fashionable dress for women, and advocating more comfortable alternatives. It drew considerable derision and mockery from contemporary commentators. The national suffrage amendment of 1920 and increasing career options for women led to a more profound shift in fashions, as masculine-inspired clothing was used to emphasise the more equal social status of women. Androgynous fashion, including sober suits, were emblematic of the 'new woman' and her independence. And yet, the dress of women in the legal profession continued to attract close scrutiny for decades after their revolutionary career opportunities first came to the fore in the early twentieth century. The 2014 Bar Council report on the experience of self employed women at the bar interviewed female lawyers, and its findings demonstrate the continued focus on what women wear in the workplace. One barrister commented: ' When I came to the Bar it was still considered risqué for a woman to wear trousers and that was only in the mid to late 90s' This woman clearly felt a social pressure to dress in traditionally feminine clothing, and avoid the clearly controversial trousers. But the pressure was not merely social. Surprisingly recently, firms issued actual restrictions on women wearing trousers. As another female lawyer recalled: 'When I was a lawyer before my recruitment career, it was announced at our firm that women could start wearing trouser suits, it wasn't really that long ago either - about 1999 / 2000!' In the past century, women have taken huge strides in their presence in the legal profession. It was perhaps the shock of this change which produced these attempts to keep the clothing of women traditional, whilst their behaviour became increasingly modern. Whilst firms did relax their restrictions on women wearing trousers, it was still suggested that women should dress in a feminine manner to improve their careers, e.g. to ingratiate themselves with judges and clients. Another quote from a woman interviewed by the Bar Council report reads: 'I was told by my senior clerk that instead of wearing trouser suits I ought to wear shorter skirts' The recent media uproar after the dress code controversy when a woman was obliged to wear high heels to work provides an opportunity to examine the role of clothing as an effective means of communication. For individuals whose voices are repressed, dress is a way to express oneself, a site of political importance and an opportunity to send a powerful message when words do not. Yet for many women, wearing trousers was primarily an act of practicality and functionality, particularly gaining ground when women had a more important role in the workplace. But at the same time, the association of trousers has continued to be with masculinity, and through wearing a traditionally masculine type of clothing, women demonstrated their irrevocable and insistent entrance into the male world of the public sphere.

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Amelia Bloomer, American women's rights advocate, gave her name to the emancipatory bloomer style of clothing because of her prestige as a spokesperson for women. Her newspaper, The Lily, promoted a change in dress standards, arguing that 'the costume of women' should be 'suited to her necessities'.

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So why does fashion matter?

Some still claim that fashion is an elitist luxury reserved for the wealthy, or it's a subject that is merely frivolous and ephemeral.

Not so.

Fashion plays into our human need for change and difference. Fashion reflects our very human need to both stand out and fit in.

Clothes can outrage and alienate. They can provoke the political - think hoodie or burkini - and they can represent liberation and democracy - think trousers for women.

I believe that it is this very quality of change and adjustment, embodied within the landscape of fashion and identity, that expresses our humanity.

And now, more than ever, we have a responsibility to ensure that future generations of fashion design, business and communication talent are nurtured. For the sake of our economy, our industry, our society, our political future and our ability to build robust communities, where individuals are recognised and appreciated.

That's why we started Fashion Matters three years ago.

Our Fashion Matters gala is the College's annual fundraiser for scholarships and bursaries, providing invaluable support to our most in need students. And the money also supports the work we do with community groups, shoring up our commitment to working with young and vulnerable people where issues around, identity, working with others, developing choices and securing sustainable futures are tackled as part of our Better Lives programme. Be it working with female offenders to set up sustainable social enterprises or with individuals formerly involved in knife crime, we introduce designing and making skills to foster life changing opportunity.

To date Fashion Matters has raised over 600k, and our mission continues this year on November 10th where our special guest will be non-other than fashion legend and super model, Carmen Dell'Orefice.

Born in America in 1931 Carmen grew up during the great depression. And it seems those uncertain times are not unlike the uncertainty the world currently faces.

Carmen was first discovered in New York at the age of 13 and by 15 she had already graced the cover of Vogue. Her early and meteoric success led her to work with some of the most famous fashion photographers of the era including Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson and Cecil Beaton.

The daughter of a Hungarian mother and Italian father, Carmen grew up a resourceful and determined young woman. Carmen once told me - "Women didn't have much choice in those days for a career - a lot of women didn't go to college."

So it was this necessity to survive and her own personal experience of poverty that has led her to a commitment to ensure that fashion education is available to all, regardless of background or privilege.

And I'm on that same mission. You could say I'm a fashion activist who wants to use fashion and clothing to change the world. This belief is a product of my own childhood, which encouraged reflection and contemplation about our responsibilities to others, and it's a product of early insights as an adult into how other people who haven't had the same education and chances have had the possibilities of their lives reduced.

I strongly believe that talent and creativity know no social or cultural boundaries and that education, and creative education in particular, provide the means to transform not only ourselves but also the society and world we are a part of.

Last year's winner of the Fashion Matters Placement Bursary, Cordwainer's Footwear student Amber Capewell, has told us how the money she received meant she could totally focus on her education without financial worry. Amber, who is the first of her family to go into Higher Education and has worked part time throughout her degree, is aiming to get a First when she graduates next year.

Likewise, Lara Jensen (MA in Costume Design for Performance) who won a full Fashion Matters Scholarship to study her MA at LCF, says the money meant she could buy materials that she could never have dreamed of working with. Lara reflects how the financial support gave her creative freedom to expand into her designs and since graduating Lara has worked with iconic performers such as Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue and has been commissioned by Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

Globally, the industry is valued at 3 trillion dollars. In the UK it's worth 26 billion pounds to the economy. It's the second biggest worldwide economic activity for intensity of trade - employing over 57 million workers, in developing countries, 80 per cent of whom are women.

If we ensure our students and staff are aware of the issues, they can use the great power of fashion to draw us in and to bring about change.

And already there are changes.

Fashion is collaborating with science, engineering and technology to create a new future. One where it has a positive influence on the environment, society and our health.

And whilst the developments of technology and fashion are undoubtedly very exciting - for example the bra with the ability to detect tumors before both breast exams and mammograms or the photo catalyst which can be used on textiles to break down air-borne pollution into harmless chemicals - it's also important to remember that fashion is relevant to us all.

So don't we all have a duty to foster its continuation and the type of innovation it can lead to?

Next time you're shopping online or thinking about what to wear, I urge you to think about this.

And that's why fashion really does matter.

The Fashion Matters auction website is now live, with a fantastic range of auction prizes. Bidding closes at midday on Wednesday 9th November. Visit the auction website here.

Professor Frances Corner OBE is Head of London College of Fashion and Pro Vice-Chancellor of University of the Arts London. You can visit her website here.

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So why does fashion matter? Some still claim that fashion is an elitist luxury reserved for the wealthy, or it's a subject that is merely frivolous and ephemeral. Not so. Fashion plays into our human need for change and difference. Fashion reflects our very human need to both stand out and fit in.

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Why Fashion matters. To the economy, to society and to each of us personally.

This book, published by Thames & Hudson sets out to provoke thoughts about fashion and its many facets; demanding that we question our preconceptions and reflect on our choices as consumers. Through 101 entries, it aims to show how fashion deserves to be taken seriously, warts and all, and to be celebrated for its beauty, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.
Visit the Thames and Hudson page here...

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Why Fashion matters. To the economy, to society and to each of us personally. This book, published by Thames & Hudson sets out to provoke thoughts about fashion and its many facets; demanding that we question our preconceptions and reflect on our choices as consumers.

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Frances Corner - Head of London College of Fashion, UAL

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From the Golden Globes black-dress-code protest to Kim Jong-un's suits and Meghan Markle's M&S jumper, fashion is the news channel to watch

he Oscars are six weeks away, and already my red-carpet predictions for this season have been proved wrong. When the Weinstein scandal broke last autumn, I assumed that red-carpet pageantry would be sidelined in the new world order. In 2018, surely no one would care what actors were wearing?

I could hardly have been more wrong. Last weekend's Golden Globes may go down in history for the emergence of a new presidential candidate, but the black dress code that symbolised feminist solidarity against sexual harassment will be a significant footnote. The importance of the dress code was reflected by the fact that it was faithfully followed by almost everyone, potential presidential candidates included. At one of the most political award ceremonies in memory, clothes mattered more than ever.

Fashion has never been so important - and yet you can forget all about hemlines, which have never mattered less. It is 61 years since Carmel Snow's post-show compliment to a young Dior - "Dear Christian, your dresses have such a new look" - was distilled into a soundbite that, framing fashion as news, carved out column inches accordingly. From those column inches, fashion has evolved into a TV channel on which we watch the whole world. The colour of the season matters less than a protest vote in black. Thousand-pound handbags get less play than home-knitted pussy hats. Politics, ideology and identity are narrated through clothes. We watch Kim Jong-un swapping his Mao suit for western-style tailoring, and Meghan Markle wooing middle England with an M&S jumper. Daniel Day-Lewis has chosen to play a couturier in what he pledges is his last on-screen role, while costume designers such as Michele Clapton (Game of Thrones, The Crown) are feted as thought leaders in modern television. Pep Guardiola's current accessory of choice, a yellow ribbon pronouncing support for Catalan independence, may have been overshadowed at Anfield on Sunday by a spectacular game of football, but we are more sensitive than ever before to the messages of clothing. H&M, now facing worldwide outrage over a "Coolest monkey in the jungle" sweatshirt photographed on a black child model, can vouch for that.

This is a visual century and for those in search of an audience, fashion is the platform of choice. Kanye West, Victoria Beckham and Jaden Smith represent a new intake drawn to fashion to make their mark on the world. "Fashion is a way of engaging in debate that is accessible to everyone," says Prof Frances Corner, head of the London College of Fashion. "Maybe you can't articulate the argument you want to debate, but you can make a statement with your clothes."

None of this is new, of course. Even the modern obsession with politicians' dress can be traced back to 1960, says Central Saint Martins professor Alistair O'Neill: "In the first televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon, the polish and style of Kennedy's haircut and form-fitting tailoring won out over Nixon's traditional suit and receding hairline."

Coco Chanel uttered her famous line about fashion reflecting the world we live in almost a century ago. But in the age of the selfie, we are more interested in looking at our own reflection than ever before. So fashion, the most bewitching mirror of them all, finds itself spotlit.

Instagram is the heir to MTV in the way images dominate popular culture. The narrator of Zadie Smith's Swing Time writes of Aimee, the novel's Madonna-esque pop star, that "whenever you heard those songs ... you were sent back primarily to a visual memory, to the movement of her hand or legs or ribcage or groin". The generation for whom this rings true have embraced the primacy of image, as has everyone since. Images are global currency, and the accessibility of technology has allowed the masses to own the means of production. (There were more photos taken in the year 2015 than in the history of photography up until that point.) We have become more sophisticated, more strategic, and more narcissistic about imagery: you only have to look at a teen Instagram feed versus a 1990s family album to note how a formula of look-at-the-camera-and-smile has been overlaid by poses that borrow from fashion shoots and from portrait photography. "An understanding of fashion is now regarded as not only giving you a sense of how to dress, but also offering a form of agency in modern life," says O'Neill.

The importance of fashion - or self-importance of fashion, possibly the same thing in this context - has been amplified by the close relationship with technology. (Funny to think, now, that Twitter featured only words, no images, until 2010, a modus operandi that seems unimaginable just eight years later.) Fashion houses such as Burberry act like tech companies, bringing new ideas to the mainstream, while tech companies behave like fashion brands.

"Apple, Google and Facebook position themselves as reflectors of our culture, which is kind of in the fashion space," says Matthew Drinkwater, head of the Fashion Innovation Agency at London College of Fashion. "Facebook has more than 2 billion users. Its brand is about giving a sense of belonging, of finding your tribe. That's what the fashion industry has always been about."

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Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty exhibition, which 'legitimised discussion of clothes'. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

The Alexander McQueen exhibition Savage Beauty, which broke box-office records at the Met in New York and the V&A in London, was a game changer in the story of how fashion took over the cultural airwaves. Fashion has been expanding its space in museums since 1971, when Cecil Beaton persuaded many of his society subjects to donate their couture to the V&A for Fashion: An Anthology, the first exhibition to use fashion in the title.

"Anyone who works in my field will tell you that fashion draws a huge crowd to museums," says Alice Black, director of the Design Museum, where an exhibition celebrating the late Azzedine Alaia will open this spring. "The Christian Louboutin exhibition [in 2012] averaged more than 1,000 visitors a day. The Paul Smith exhibition [2013] has been touring ever since - it's in China now." These exhibitions "are a form of culture that you don't need a formal education or cultural capital to appreciate," says O'Neill. "And yet, at their best, as in Savage Beauty, they are able to raise quite complex ideas about the human condition." Savage Beauty, with its rave reviews and all-night openings, bridged a gap between fashion and culture, and legitimised discussion of clothes, "which had always been something that you sort of weren't supposed to do, if you were the intelligent, bluestocking, exhibition-going type," says Frances Corner.

Next month, Royal Women opens at the Fashion Museum in Bath, with the intention of interrogating the wardrobes of queens Alexandra, Mary, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret not just for their style and beauty, but for "the role they played within the monarchy and how that was reflected in their choice of dress".

The next test of fashion's status will come when the award season hits its stride with the Baftas, and Oscars mania begins in earnest. There is as yet no clue from Hollywood as to how these red carpets will follow the Golden Globes blackout. "The Golden Globes reminded people that fashion isn't just glamour, but can be about many things, including solidarity and protest," says Corner. "So it will be interesting to see what happens next. Because you can't keep repeating the same look, or it will go out of fashion."
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Power dressing: why fashion has never been so important

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From the Golden Globes black-dress-code protest to Kim Jong-un's suits and Meghan Markle's M&S jumper, fashion is the news channel to watch he Oscars are six weeks away, and already my red-carpet predictions for this season have been proved wrong. When the Weinstein scandal broke last autumn, I assumed that red-carpet pageantry would be sidelined in the new world order.

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My sketchbooks do not make up a smooth, continuous series, as at different times in my career the sketchbook has played different roles. I think my attitude towards the sketchbook originates from when my grandmother gave me a little stack of very cheap notebooks. I treasured them and filled them with diagrams of fantasy aircraft and plans of racing cars, adventure comics and war scenes. What I enjoyed was the density of the little tomes, the way I could fill each page with detail. My dedication made them precious, and this feeling has never left me.

At art college we were indoctrinated with the notion that sketchbooks were a central plank of being an artist. Tutors would pore over students' sketchbooks, checking that there was no mismatch in imagination and energy between the scrawled doodles, taped-in scraps and drunken cartoons compared with more outward-facing work. They understood that students would often choke when laying out their ideas in a larger, more finished form. They used to call it "degree show-itis" - whereby a student would make art full of careless abandon and rough-hewn poetry, only for their creative sphincter to nip up when asked to present a group of resolved artworks on which to be judged.

In the early years after college, sketchbooks were a way of keeping my practice going, as I had no other creative outlet; and I put several hours into each image, giving the books the obsessive, private quality of outsider art. Like one of my artistic heroes, 40:492" title=""40:492" title="">40:492"40:492" title="">Henry Darger, I often heavily worked both sides of each leaf, with no thought as to how I might display - let alone sell - these works.

When I managed to set up my first ceramic studio, in 1986, all my creative energy became focused on clay. I drew less and less on paper - I usually worked directly onto the pots, with no preparatory drawings at all. I used sketchbooks in a much more cursory and utilitarian way - just to remind me what to do and in what order.

I became a father in 1992, and when my young daughter Flo and I started drawing together for fun it rekindled my enthusiasm for sketching, reminding me that not every artwork had to count towards my slowly developing "career". We would draw for hours, filling sheet after sheet of photocopier paper. Ironically, I can trace some career-defining artworks directly back to those afternoons, scribbling with Flo. One game we often played involved inventing a character, then drawing their family, then their house, car, holiday destination, etc. One of those drawings evolved years later into the first conception of A House for Essex. With Flo I had learned to play on paper again.

Since the late 90s, sketchbooks have become increasingly important to me. I carry one with me most of the time, and if I can't do that I usually stuff a pen and a few sheets of paper into a pocket or handbag, just in case.

A sketchbook is a place where I can discuss ideas with myself, a place I work through and refine an idea for a good while before I will let it run around the studio, and then the world. A sketchbook is an airlock for visual thoughts. I have to feel I have developed an idea enough before committing to the labour-intensive version - beginning with postage stamp-size doodles, through to double page full-colour layouts that may take several hours. It is the place to make mistakes - they are cheap in time and materials; those initial marks often tell me in a few strokes whether an idea is a goer or a dud.

I regularly flick through old sketchbooks, as I have a habit of jotting down a few words or a tiny doodle of an idea at the very first glimmer. I may dismiss them or forget them, so I go back to see if a silly squiggle needs to be taken more seriously. So a sketchbook can be an archive of daft notions that later become art.

A sketchbook for me is a sacred artefact, more so than many of my finished works. The density of thought, the love of art and the sheer number of man-hours in each one load them with huge meaning and memory for me. I know I could never sell them. Consequently, the drawings inside are financially worthless. Curiously, this is one of the reasons sketchbooks have become so vital to me today. As I have become more successful and my prices have risen, drawings have become like currency, sometimes worth thousands of pounds. If I put pen to paper it can feel like I have a version of the Midas touch - each mark becomes a pound sign. This makes me feel self-conscious, and I find it difficult to truly let go. I call this feeling "Picasso Napkin Syndrome" - it refers to the fact that Picasso could pay for a meal in a restaurant with a sketch on the table linen. Nowadays, pretty much the only time I draw on loose paper is for charity. Luckily for me, sketchbooks are different. Between the covers I feel safe - the drawings need never be seen by anyone but me - and thus I can play.

Sketchbooksby Grayson Perry is published next week by Particular.Grayson Perry: All Man begins on Channel 4 in the spring.

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From treasured childhood notebooks to drawing with his daughter, Perry's sketchbooks are the place where the artist learns if an idea is 'a goer or a dud'

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Entering Fluidity's elegantly understated interior you can see straightaway why it might have become May's favourite. The shop spans two floors, selling an 'individual edit' of designer dresses, upmarket denim, Chinti and Parker jumpers, swimwear, shoes and underwear. There's even a men's department should Mr May wish to try some stylish shorts while his wife is busy in the changing room.

On a soggy Tuesday morning it's not busy - aside from me, there's only one other customer, a young mum with three bored boys in tow - but its website boasts of "the ultimate personal shopping experience, drawing a wide range of loyal clientele" from Marlow, Maidenhead and beyond.

The prices are not for the fainthearted - as Henley-based author Emma Clark Lam notes, "It's for high-end, special purchases, but the sale prices are very good. The staff give you great advice, even if you're not a regular they make you feel like an old friend. And the stock isn't dowdy, it's quite cutting edge. Great for Theresa May who dresses well, she's a breath of fashion fresh air for female politicians."

It's true, there's not a bright boxy jacket - as favoured by Merkel and Sturgeon - nor a drab Clinton-esque 'pant suit' in sight. Instead the rails are hung with Roland Mouret and Maxmara shift dresses, gorgeous Amanda Wakeley gowns and brightly-patterned knee-length coats of the kind that Mrs May favours. There's a deliciously soft Escada cashmere coat in baby blue - she has a similar one - for £1,950.

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Inside the Henley boutique that dresses Theresa May for Downing Street

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Entering Fluidity's elegantly understated interior you can see straightaway why it might have become May's favourite. The shop spans two floors, selling an 'individual edit' of designer dresses, upmarket denim, Chinti and Parker jumpers, swimwear, shoes and underwear. There's even a men's department should Mr May wish to try some stylish shorts while his wife is busy in the changing room.

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About his mother and step father

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Grayson Perry is all manned up - bestubbled, brute of a laugh, verging on the laddish. On a wall in his spanking new north London studio, there is a comforting sight: a framed picture of Perry as Claire, his alter ego, clean-shaven, in a Little Bo Peep dress and matching bonnet. Phew! I thought I'd come to the wrong place.

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Grayson Perry is all manned up - bestubbled, brute of a laugh, verging on the laddish. On a wall in his spanking new north London studio, there is a comforting sight: a framed picture of Perry as Claire, his alter ego, clean-shaven, in a Little Bo Peep dress and matching bonnet. Phew! I thought I'd come to the wrong place.

The Turner prize-winning potter and tapestry-maker, curator, writer and presenter is working on the final stages of a new TV series on identity. It's not a new subject for him, though: in one way or another, Perry has spent most of his life exploring the subject. He has chosen a number of people to sit for him, and is turning their portraits into a series of pots, tapestries, statues and maps. The idea is that they represent modern Britain, and most have undergone a radical change - so there is the jailbird politician ( Chris Huhne), the Muslim convert, the transgender man, the fella who's famous for being famous and, of course, Perry himself.

He is hush-hush about how the portraits will turn out, partly because he hasn't finished them and partly because he wants to save the big reveal for TV and an accompanying exhibition. But he shows me his own self-portrait. It's a beautiful piece of draughtsmanship, intricately drawn, like a psycho-geographer's board game, and looks nothing like the man himself. Words and expressions squitter about at all angles, some seemingly random, some clearly personal, the conscious and subconscious making merry in a work he's calling Map Of Days. The map starts with Sad Puberty, My Ultimate Dream, Lingering Doubt, before segueing into Casual Sexist, Internet Porn, Neophilia, Alpha Masculinity, Anecdotage. There are a few bluffs thrown in: is he a casual sexist? No, it was just something he heard on the radio.

What's at the heart of his self-portrait? He directs me to the dead, empty centre. "If you look in the middle, there is no heart. There's a tiny figure kicking a can along the road. It says, 'A sense of self.'" He laughs. "It's fairly bleak. There is no self." Has he been surprised by anything the project showed him about himself? "Well, I've had a lot of therapy, so there are not many booby traps." His wife, Philippa, is a psychotherapist. Has she ever analysed him? "No, of course not. You can't get it from your wife," he says, slightly impatiently.

There is a hint of self-mockery when Perry uses the word "identity"; he'd rather show himself and others in all their glorious contradictions than reduced to the literal. "It seems so amorphous, it's like grabbing smoke. Different bits of us come out at different times." And he is aware that it is his own multiple identities that give him currency as a public figure. "I tick so many boxes. That's why I get a lot of gigs - because I can do the lectures, I can do the television thing, and I dress up, and by the way, I'm an artist as well."

When Perry won the Turner prize in 2003, he was in his early 40s and had been working as an artist for a good two decades. He was reasonably well known in the art world, but pretty anonymous outside it. It was hard to say at the time what got the most attention: that a transvestite had won the Turner, or that a ceramicist had - who thought a contemporary artist would be feted for his pots?

In the early days, Perry was defiantly uncommercial, making sculptures and short films, often featuring himself as Claire, seen by few and bought by none. He was also involved with an avant-garde group, the Neo-Naturists (started by his then girlfriend, Jennifer Binnie), who would paint their bodies and exhibit themselves at nightclubs and galleries. (There is a striking image of a twentysomething Perry, body-painted to the nines, with a bell and bow dangling from his penis.)

Then he went to night school, started to make pots and discovered he was good at it. He was heralded as a great ironist: what could be more postmodern than taking a traditional, hidebound form and calling it modern art? "I had friends with a very particular sense of humour, and they'd say, 'Grayson, you're making pottery!' And there were layers of horror, and then it was, 'Aha, I see what you're doing. Like, oh yeah, pottery!' Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did. Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven't yet been colonised by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn't been fully explored."

In another way, though, it made perfect sense: Claire, whom he has described as a cross between Camilla Parker Bowles and Katie Boyle, seemed just the type of woman who might produce pots at evening class. And Perry was, of course, subverting the form: however wholesome they looked, the pots illustrated scenes of child abduction, sadomasochism, masturbating teddies, sweet little girls with penises hanging from their dresses. Through his work, he explored the issues that had bewildered and fascinated him since childhood: who was he? Where did he belong?

He was born in Essex to working-class parents. He says his father, an engineer, was a weak and narrow-minded man. His mother suffered from mental illness, had a volcanic temper and was eternally disappointed. She was an aspirational woman (hence Grayson's name, taken from a man she once met), who felt she had been destined for a bigger, better life. When Perry was four, she ran off with the milkman (this is why, he tells me, he has always hated cliches) and married him. His stepfather was violent and intolerant, a newsagent by day and an amateur wrestler by night. (He is no longer in touch with his mother.)

Like his mother, young Grayson was bright and mixed up. He wanted to be an officer in the armed forces and he also wanted to dress up in women's clothes. He knew from the off that this was an unusual combination. At 10, he had not heard of transvestism and felt he must be a solitary freak. He asked his sister if he could borrow a dress and wore it in private. He didn't talk about it with her or anybody else, but he knew he wasn't gay and he knew he didn't want to be a woman; he also knew it was part of his sexuality. He was outed only when his stepsister found his diary.

How did his family react? "Oooh, not well," his voice rises to a squeak. "Classic horror, I think. I reacted badly to that as well. I was a big sulker. I closed down and told them I'd stopped. And I put a cap on it until I went to university."

He recalls watching The Naked Civil Servant, Jack Gold's classic film about Quentin Crisp, with his father. "They'd just found out about me being a tranny, and I think he was watching me watch it, to see if I was gay." Did he assume he was? "Yes. In those days, if you dressed up in women's clothes, people thought you were gay." Did Perry put him right? "No, I was a pimply, incredibly nervous, anxious, shy 16-year-old. I'm not going to have an open, confident conversation about my sexuality with my father, whom I don't really know that well."

His lifelong exploration of identity has always been about more than the girl-boy thing, though. There was the working-class boy moving into a middle-class world and feeling alien to both (he once said he feels most relaxed with the aristocracy); the inhibited conservative who tells me that his wife would be shocked if he ever came downstairs without a shirt on; the man of the people who nurses an unbridled ambition (in Perry's personal mythology and art, his teddy bear Alan Measles represents the omnipotent artist-God that he would partly like to be); the popular artist who turned his back on the avant garde. Nor is Claire a stable identity. She has evolved from Monsoon girl, to Little Bo Peep, to chic woman of the world - and now has a thing for clown outfits.

The sofa we are sitting on is covered with one of Perry's tapestries. It's a typical work, covered in words and references to places of pilgrimage for the spiritual (Amritsar, Nirvana) and the materialistic (Davos). Perhaps there was something inevitable about his move into tapestry, a craft every bit as traditional as pottery, and so conservative, it's radical. Did he stitch it himself? No, he says, of course not - it would take for ever. (As it is, it took him two months to complete the drawing on which it was based; the sewing is then done digitally.) Can he sew? "No. I did basic embroidery and can probably mend a sock." Now he sounds a bit defensive.

In one of the wonderful Reith lectures Perry gave last year, he concluded that today's art establishment is something of a dictatorship, simpering about the avant garde, snobbish towards the middle ground. He is dismissive of the avant garde, says it's old hat, conservative. "It's rather tired and insular. It's talking to itself a lot of the time. I embrace the middle ground, because curiously it has more edge to it than the cutting edge. It has been a weirdly neglected path for the audience of contemporary art. I'm making art not for people who don't like art, but for people who are interested but maybe alienated by the more esoteric pieces. I'm addressing them, and I think that's more interesting than being yet another avant-garde try-hard." His test of how good a piece is is simple: will he still like it when he comes down in the morning?

Perry with his wife Phillipa and daughter Florence, receiving an OBE this year. Photograph: Alan Davidson

He then gives me a brilliant off-the-cuff lecture about how photography destroyed classical narrative paintings, leading to the formation of a new intellectual art elite that trades on abstracts, concepts and multiple meanings. Perry says the problem with many art students is that they are too anxious to create stuff they simply like. "You have to know the impact of everything you're making, because that is the nature of contemporary art. It is very self-conscious: it knows, or should be seen to know. Irony has become this crippling get-out-of-jail-free card. Britain has the toad of irony sitting on it."

Has he been squatted on by the toad of irony? Oh yes, he says. He admits that what attracted him to pottery in the first place was its very naffness. "Unwittingly, I stumbled across a niche that hadn't been occupied by anybody in the art world. There is a long history of ceramics, of course, but nobody who had really embraced the conventional craft, the orthodoxies: pots that are pot-shaped, that are fired, that are glazed, that are decorative."

When did he realise it was a niche? "Well, it evolved gradually. I, like many artists, am brilliant at post-rationalisation. You stumble into it."

His first pot sold for £50. He was 24, living in a squat and shocked that anybody would want to buy his work. To date, the highest price a single vase has fetched is £120,000. Is he loaded? "I have a very healthy income, but I don't make much work." If he had identified pottery as a niche from the start, would that make him a cynical artist? He laughs that great brute of a laugh. "I'm not in danger of suddenly looking cynical. Hehehehehe! I think that boat has sailed long ago. Hehehehe!" So people already think he's cynical? "Sometimes they do. That's the nature of my humour. I ramp it up. My default has always been to be as cynical as possible. Then I'll row back." Is he cynical by nature? "No, not at all. It's probably a protection. The classic thing: the last refuge of the undying romantic."

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Perry's World Leaders Attend The Marriage Of Alan Measles And Claire Perry, 2009. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist/Victoria Miro London © Grayson Perry

Some of his detractors have dismissed the cross-dressing as cynical, a shtick. But they simply don't understand the nature of transvestism, he says. "People say if you're trying to access some kind of feminine, emotional experience, dressing up is a rather crude way of going about it. And I always go, yeah, but you don't decide to be a transvestite when you're a sophisticated adult - you're a child. Our sexuality is formed in the Petri dish of our childhood. So that's why it's always historic, that's why men like women who look like their mothers, because that formed their emotional life when they were young." Friends who have met his mother say Claire bears a resemblance to her.

It's not even as if he thinks he looks good as a woman, it's just something he has to do. He gives himself seven out of 10 as a man and nought out of 10 as a woman. Binnie has said that even when he was young, he looked like a middle-aged woman; she'd pretend to be his niece. Perry's girlfriends have embraced his cross dressing as his parents never did. His mother told Philippa that she must have been desperate to marry a transvestite.

Perry rarely dresses up unless he's going out, because it's such an effort. Does he ever get bored with it? Now he tells me I don't understand the nature of transvestism. "No, I'm not bored with transvestism. That would be silly - I'm a transvestite. The dress is only one element of the psycho-sexual process. Just because you don't have a dress on doesn't stop you being a tranny, in the same way as, if you're not in bed with a man, it doesn't stop you being gay."

Does he still find it sexually exciting? "Oh yes," he shouts excitedly. "Yeah!" But there is a problem, he says, with being a very public tranny. You mean, you couldn't be seen at the Royal Academy in a nice frock and a stiffy? He nods enthusiastically. "You couldn't do it. If I could manage it, I'm sure I'd be thinking how to do it. But I can't." He pauses. "My days of a spontaneous erection are long gone, anyway," he adds a little sadly.

As a young man, he dressed as a more conventional woman. Why did Claire change her look? "I had a Damascene moment when I realised that the masquerade of dressing up as a woman and getting away with it, or 'passing', as they call it in the tranny world, was a fairly unrewarding experience. I used to come back from shopping in Oxford Street in my Monsoon outfit and think, well, nobody really gave me a second glance and that was boring." He wanted to be noticed? "I was always slightly envious of those trannies who dressed more flamboyantly and didn't give a shit." But why, for instance, the Little Bo Peep look? "It's a classic look. I used to call it the crack cocaine of femininity. It's the furthest from the male macho look you could get. It's vulnerable, it's young, it's humiliating. The fantasy of humiliation is a big drug for many men."

These days, most of his dresses are made by students at Central Saint Martins, where he teaches a course in fashion ("teaching them is pushing it: I expose them to my sensibilities"), and he has to tell them he's got more than enough Little Bo Peep numbers. At 54, he thinks he is struggling with his look. "Trannies go through this horrible cycle. When they're really young and just post-pubescent, they can look gorgeous as a woman - you're fairly androgynous, you're thin, you just look good. When I look back at the first photographs, I realise what a wasted opportunity it was. I didn't have the budget, experience or confidence to pull it off. Now I've got the budget, experience and confidence, but I've not got the features. You go through this cycle where you get older and older, and you get to around 35 to 40 when you're looking your most manly. Then there's a little payoff at the end, where, as you get really old, you become androgynous again." He can't wait for his 70s: if he's got his hair, he's going for the lilac rinse. "I'm going to go the whole way. I'm looking forward to being an old artist and not giving a shit."

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'I had a Damascene moment when I realised that the masquerade of dressing up as a woman and getting away with it, or "passing", as they call it in the tranny world, was a fairly unrewarding experience.' Outfit by Central St Martins student Oto Kazumi. Photograph: Tim Walker/Guardian

I ask how he broached his transvestism with his daughter, Flo, now 22. It was obvious from a young age, he says, because she'd see him in his frocks. Did he go into details about what it meant to him? No, he didn't think it was appropriate. "When she was very young, we used to say, 'Oh, Daddy's dressing up to go to a party', which was pretty true most of the time. I never sat her down and talked about my sexuality. Too much information!"

It was when Flo was four that he started going to therapy. "I was getting very depressed and anxious. I wasn't fully functional. It's classic: you wait for the chickens of your childhood to come home to roost. Often, when you have your own children, when they get to the age that you had your problems, that's when there's some unconscious recognition that brings home your own trauma." He went to therapy for six years, says it was hugely helpful, and that it continues to inform his art - not least his work on identity.

He opens a few drawers, and takes out roughs and notional ideas for the new portraits, and talks about some of the people he has met. There is a Muslim convert (a 25-year-old white woman), a deaf Jewish woman who chose to identify primarily as deaf rather than Jewish because her synagogue was unsympathetic to her disability, the gay adoptees, Chris Huhne. What fascinates him is the layers within an identity. So, for example, he wanted to know whether Huhne now identified with the prisoners he had just left, or with the rich and powerful he is more used to mixing with. "I interviewed him before he went to jail. He was there as a powerful white male who potentially was going to lose some of that power. I was interested in what effect prison and that condemnation would have on his confidence and identity."

And has he changed? "You'll have to see." Perry comes over all coy. Oh, come on. He grins. "Of course he hasn't changed. There's not a flicker. I was fascinated and appalled. I'm white, male, middle-aged myself, and if there's one aspect I feel alienated by, it's the class thing. So to see someone with that chutzpah and bullet-proof, Teflon confidence close up is fascinating. And sort of horrifying. At one point, he bragged and said something like, 'I must be the only politician who comes out of prison without changing [see footnote].'"

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'The idea that your identity is a solid, consistent, tangible thing is an illusion Photograph: Tim Walker/Guardian

We're back looking at the self-portrait on the wall, the myriad contradictions and kinks of Grayson Perry that are there for all to see. Between the elegant calligraphy, words and terms such as Tinnitus (which Perry has: he is deaf in one ear), Bullshit Detector, Devil's Advocate, Matey, there are drawings of the art critic Robert Hughes and the poet Philip Larkin. I compliment him on these likenesses and ask if he's ever worked as a caricaturist. He takes umbrage, at this more than anything else I've asked. "No! You just trace them off a photograph - it's not that difficult. The skill of the likeness is not one I worry about having. It's what 14-year-old boys in art class worry about when they're copying the album cover of their favourite band."

Well, I'm just saying I thought they were good. No need to throw a wobbly. "I'm sorry, Simon, that empirical judgment of art is something I try to avoid. Craft is a dangerous pit to fall into."

I burst out laughing. "You're insulted when I say it's a good likeness."

"Sometimes I think it's an easy way of judging something."

Look, I say, I'm not going to say you're a brilliant artist because you can do a decent Larkin likeness.

"I'll take the compliment!"

"No, you won't, you're insulted."

Now we're both laughing. Perry is too self-aware not to realise that, for all his protestations about representing the middle ground, he's still a bit of an art snob at heart.

I ask whether the television project has taught him anything about his own identity. Of course, he says, you continue to learn. "I was reading a book by Julian Baggini about identity, and he said, 'I is a verb masquerading as a noun.' You perform yourself. It's like going for a walk, you carry it along with you and it changes all the time. So the idea that there is a solid, consistent, tangible thing is an illusion."

He compares it to the tapestry we're sitting on. "If you want an analogy, all the colours are present right across the tapestry. There are 20 colours, that's why it's so thick. But the machine brings the colour to the surface when it's needed. I think that's an analogy for our character. We've got all of ourselves there, but the bit that's necessary in any given moment comes to the surface. So, with my daughter, I'm a father. When I'm in the studio, I'm an artist. When I'm out, I'm 'Grayson Perry'. So you ask what your identifiers are - artist, tranny, father, man, motorcyclist - and you've got a hierarchy of things. And that's the nature of identity, isn't it?"

One of the most important things he learned in therapy is that you can only begin to understand yourself if you confront your ambition. "When we did group therapy, we went through the various aspects of relationships, and the last one was wishes, hopes and dreams, and that was the most tender, embarrassing and secret of all. Because it can be something very close to the heart and you get shot down, and you don't want to be seen as an idiot. Therapy is very useful for being ambitious, because you can sound out in a safe space what you'd like to have a go at."

And was his secret that he was hungrier for success than he would admit? "Yes. It goes in tandem with a realisation of your abilities. A good therapist will give you an accurate reflection of your abilities. I came to realise, maybe I am pretty good."

How good? Aha! he says, as if he's caught me out trying to catch him out. And he roars with laughter. "Erm, I'm brilliant at being Grayson Perry. Hehehehehe! Really brilliant at it."

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Chris Huhne: 'There I was, just out of jail, having a full English with Grayson, with his glitter on, in a very steamy motorway cafe.' Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Grayson Perry's subjects: Chris Huhne, former minister for energy and climate change

I said yes right away. Grayson got in touch around the time of the court case [in March 2013, Huhne was found guilty of perverting the course of justice, and sentenced to eight months in jail]. I knew and liked his work, and I thought it was rather an honour. In fact, I was hoping he might turn me into a pot.

We met three times. The first two sessions, before I went to prison, were at my place in Clerkenwell [in central London]. It was very informal: I cooked him tuna steak and lentils, and he took a load of photographs and sketches of me. I took some photos of him, too; I'm not sure he was expecting that. He was particularly interested in what the prison experience would be like: the third time we met was actually on the day I came out. He'd been at the Baftas the previous evening, and still had his glitter on. There I was, just out of jail, having a full English with Grayson, with his glitter on, in a very steamy motorway cafe.

Grayson was intrigued by what it was like to go from being a cabinet minister to a prisoner. But his ideas were a little wide of the mark. He seemed to feel that a minister was inevitably part of the establishment, and that this was therefore an extraordinarily awful event for me. I explained to him that I didn't go into politics to be somebody - I never cared about ministerial cars or apartments; in fact, I got rid of both. I kept assuring him that the worst part was not going to prison, but losing a job I really cared about. But I'm not sure he entirely believed me.

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Alex White: 'I can't wait to see how he has played with the idea of changing from female to male.' Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Alex White, transgender man

I came out as trans two years ago, at 23. I told my friends and my mum, and after I started taking testosterone I began making YouTube videos, documenting my transition. That's how Grayson found me. When they got in touch, I thought it must be fake: I wasn't sure who he was. Then I looked him up and was like, "Oh, him!" I was really chuffed to be asked.

Our first session was on my 24th birthday. I had some friends and family round, and then there was this famous artist standing in the kitchen, talking to my mum. He sat on my bed like one of my mates, asking about my experience. I know he plays with gender himself, and I think he was interested in the fact that being transgender is still kind of taboo. It was worse when I was at school - I remember Googling "boy trapped in a girl's body", because there was no other way to research what I was feeling. There's much more awareness now, but sitting for Grayson still felt an important thing to do: seeing people like yourself in the media is the only way you know you're not alone.

I can still see him sitting in my room, drawing me. I did feel a bit self-conscious; I couldn't stop thinking about how I might look through his eyes. I'm still wondering about that, not least because I was a completely different person then. I've since had surgery, taken the testosterone and changed my name. I can't wait to see how he has played with the idea of changing from female to male, and with the concept of Britishness. I'm from a Caribbean background, and think of myself as Jamaican and British. That's the thing about being British now: it means so many different things.

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Rylan Clark: 'We clicked instantly. Grayson said he chose me because he could see through what the telly was doing to me, how it was making me into a character rather than a person.' Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

There are two different sides to me: famous Rylan and normal Ross, my birth name. The first time I met Grayson, I'd just come out of Celebrity Big Brother. We clicked instantly. He said the reason he chose me was because he could see through what the telly was doing to me, how it was making me into a character rather than a person. Over the days we spent together, I was probably the most honest I've ever been. I've normally got my guard up in an interview - I know what to say and what not to say - but this was like rehab, as if I'd jumped out of my body and started asking myself questions.

We talked about the clear-cut divide between those two sides of my character. We visited places I hadn't been to in years, even the house in London where I grew up and I'd never been back to. A woman opened the door, saying, "Are you Ross?" She showed me the cupboard under the stairs: the words "Ross - Spice Girls" were still written on the wall. Then we sat in the park that I used to play in as a kid, dreaming of being famous. Fifteen years on, I was sitting there thinking, "Why did I want that?"

We're from different worlds. Like 90% of the population, all I knew about him was that he was that bloke who'd worn a dress to the Baftas. Now I'm bringing Grayson to my audience and he's bringing me to his. I just hope that after this, some of the people in his world who probably do look at me and think, "What an idiot" will sit there and go, "Actually, he's normal."

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Christopher and Veronica Devas: 'Whatever the portrait turns out to be, it will be one of the highlights of our experience of living with dementia.' Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Veronica Devas, partner of an Alzheimer's ambassador

The Alzheimer's Society put us in touch. My husband, Christopher, was diagnosed six years ago and has since become something of an ambassador for the charity.

I was a bit worried about the effect being interviewed and sketched by Grayson might have on Christopher; about whether they'd even be able to communicate. But I needn't have been: Grayson is terrifically empathetic, as well as full of mischief and fun.

I'm not sure whether Christopher can fully remember it, but he still talks about "that very nice man who came".

We all spent several days together. We took a boat out into Poole harbour in the pouring rain - before his diagnosis, Christopher was a keen sailor - and we also went along to a support group for people with dementia.

On the third day, Grayson sketched the two of us together, which he said was the first time he'd done any sketching since art college. Whatever the portrait turns out to be, it will be one of the highlights of our experience of living with dementia.

Christopher doesn't view himself any differently from how he was before - he doesn't think his identity has gone. If you spoke to him, he would say, "I'm not dying - I'm living with Alzheimer's." He has an incredibly positive outlook, and for that, he is very lucky.

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Melanie Cohen: 'What will I look like in Grayson's work? I have no idea. I just hope I look like me.' Photograph: Suki Dhanda/Guardian

Melanie Cohen, plus-size beauty contestant

Grayson sketched me and two other girls, George and Sarah, during a boot-camp weekend for Miss Plus Size International, a beauty pageant for bigger girls. While he was working, we talked about why we'd got involved with the plus-size movement. I couldn't stop myself from crying.

For 10 years, I went through a really bad marriage and a really bad divorce. I was never skinny, but that's how I came to put on all my weight: I was comfort-eating. Then, one day in 2012, my mum called and told me to turn on the TV and watch a show called Britain's Biggest Beauty Queens. It turned out to be a documentary about a pageant for plus-size women. I thought it sounded amazing, so I applied right away. A few months later, I heard I'd got through. I just couldn't believe it.

Everything has changed for me since then. The way the media and society portray bigger people is very negative and dangerous; the girls we see in magazines don't bear any relationship to reality. The plus-size movement is about encouraging men and women to feel good about who they are, no matter their shape or size.

Grayson is a good dancer. He came out with us to Big Girls Paradise, a club night for bigger girls and the men who love them. He went nuts on the dancefloor. And at boot camp we all jumped in the swimming pool after dinner.

It's amazing to have the chance to appear in an artwork about what it means to be British. I feel 100% British - I'm based in Glasgow, and I voted no in the Scottish referendum. What will I look like in Grayson's work? I have no idea. I just hope I look like me. However it turns out, I'm sure it will be magnificent.

* Interviews by Laura Barnett.

The Channel 4 series Who Are You? With Grayson Perry begins in late October; the accompanying free display at the National Portrait Gallery, sponsored by Coutts, opens on 25 October. Perry's book, Playing To The Gallery, is published by Penguin.

* This article was amended on 31 October 2014 to append the following footnote: to clarify, what Chris Huhne actually said was "I'm probably the only politician who's been in prison whose views about prison have not changed".

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Grayson Perry: 'Just because you don't have a dress on doesn't stop you being a tranny'

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Grayson Perry is all manned up - bestubbled, brute of a laugh, verging on the laddish. On a wall in his spanking new north London studio, there is a comforting sight: a framed picture of Perry as Claire, his alter ego, clean-shaven, in a Little Bo Peep dress and matching bonnet.

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The artist Grayson Perry, 47, won the Turner Prize in 2003 for his ceramic work. He received his prize dressed as his alter-ego, Claire, wearing a pink dress embroidered with bunny rabbits. In 2005, he received a Royal Television Society award for his Channel 4 documentary Men Wear Frocks, in which he examined transvestism and masculinity. Perry is married and has a teenage daughter.

I get my ideas from sexual fantasies. These are mainly about the clothes that would be most embarrassing for me to wear. I imagined myself winning the Turner prize dressed as a little girl and, hey presto.

I have been dressing up for 34 years. It started when I was 13. It was a secret then; it's not something you brag...

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The artist Grayson Perry, 47, won the Turner Prize in 2003 for his ceramic work. He received his prize dressed as his alter-ego, Claire, wearing a pink dress embroidered with bunny rabbits. In 2005, he received a Royal Television Society award for his Channel 4 documentary Men Wear Frocks, in which he examined transvestism and masculinity.

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The discount card was registered by Mrs May on July 31 and is valid from January 2017 to January 2018.

Other notable entries on the latest register of interests include two tickets for Commons Speaker John Bercow in the Royal Box at Wimbledon - worth an estimated £8,590.

The list also says former Labour leader Ed Miliband expects to be paid £2,500 for hosting Jeremy Vine's BBC Radio 2 show for a week in June.

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Theresa May given discount card for high-end shoe shop Russell & Bromley

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The discount card was registered by Mrs May on July 31 and is valid from January 2017 to January 2018. Other notable entries on the latest register of interests include two tickets for Commons Speaker John Bercow in the Royal Box at Wimbledon - worth an estimated £8,590.

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(Image: Getty)

All eyes were on Theresa May on Wednesday morning, as she delivered her big keynote speech during the Tory party conference in Manchester.

The Prime Minister touched on important subjects such as housing, foreign aid and the NHS, as she stood on stage against a blue backdrop with the message 'Building a country that works for everyone.'

Wearing a navy pin stripe dress by British designer Daniel Blake , whose average price point for a frock is £600, we also noticed that Mrs May was sporting a new pair of shoes.

The PM, who's become renowned for her leopard print heels, was wearing Russell & Bromley's teal 'Humbug' courts , with crystal-encrusted bug embellishments. And they come in at £265.

Yes, we're aware there's more to Mrs May than her shoes , but in relation to the party's slogan emblazoned across the backdrop, not everyone in the UK can afford to buy goods from luxury high street stores.

And while, we applaud her for her stylish, on trend shoes, it might have made more sense to wear a more conservative style on this occasion. Or perhaps, she wanted to distract everyone from her coughing fit ...

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Theresa May has got everyone talking about her shoes again

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All eyes were on Theresa May on Wednesday morning, as she delivered her big keynote speech during the Tory party conference in Manchester. The Prime Minister touched on important subjects such as housing, foreign aid and the NHS, as she stood on stage against a blue backdrop with the message 'Building a country that works for everyone.'

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With Theresa May currently packing to head to David Cameron's former residence at number 10, the country will once again be led by a female prime minister, the first since 1990 and the talk of political intention, party rivalries and inevitable discussion of post-Brexit has been pushed aside once again as talk turns to wardrobe.

The promotion of her own style and the power of dressing for the female leader who has nestled herself into the boys club of British conservatism is nothing new with the shadow of Margaret Thatcher looming over the forthcoming Prime Minister. However, rather than focusing on May's sartorial style as a hindrance to her potential, perhaps it is worth noting that the shoes she puts on are certainly designed for leading, whether we like it or not.

The Fawcett Society started a campaign last year called #viewsnotshoes in order to challenge media to highlight female politician's policies rather than clothing, but it seems that May's style has become very much a part of her politics, using footwear and fashion to firmly and continuously mark her territory as a stand out candidate.

At the 2002 Conservative Party conference, the then Conservative Chairwoman made headlines when she debuted her now iconic leopard print heels as she addressed her party about the need to step away from Punch and Judy politics, damning Tony Blair and asking for the party to be more representative of Britain as a whole. The rhetoric is as applicable today as ever was and so are her shoes. Confident and confrontational, May's leopard print sartorial statement has continued to prove that she is very serious about her image and being noticed.

In a recent Evening Standard interview May declined to number how many pairs of shoes she owned, but noted that it was "fewer than Imelda Marcos" yet for the accompanying shoot she sat with her feet firmly in the foreground protected by a vibrant red and natural toned leopard print heel, very similar to the pair that she wore to launch her party leadership campaign. Standing out has become part of her political agenda and the shoes are as intrinsic to this as Thatcher's pearls were.

Before even stepping into the top job, May distanced herself from the homogenised style of the female politician with success, eschewing the simple skirt suit and matching accessories that the likes of Nicola Sturgeon, Angela Merkel and short-lived rival Andrea Leadsome rely on and refused to bow to the pressures upon women in power to simplify their dress sense in order to be taken seriously. When Hilary Clinton moved from first lady to Democratic candidate, the designer labelled stayed with her but the style altered dramatically from directional to serious.

During her Desert Island Discs, May said she would take a lifetime subscription to Vogue as her luxury item, a refreshing admission from the then Home Secretary but the ongoing belief that caring about one's appearance is tantamount to political incompetence does not work with May and nor does a playful shoe choice mean that she is in anyway frivolous. Nick Clegg reportedly told he reportedly told David Laws: "You know, I've grown to rather like Theresa May... She's a bit of an Ice Maiden and has no small talk whatsoever - none. I have quite difficult meetings with her."

It could of course be questionned as to whether her style would have altered if she had to achieve the vote of the country to be Prime Minister rather than succeeding Cameron a la Hillary Clinton but it seems unlikely having already held the title of the longest serving Home Secretary in 50 years.

Patent knee high boots to Buckingham Palace and lipstick printed pumps to Downing Street already prove that the 59-year-old is confident that her style should not and will not detract from her political work and nor should they. Of course her choices are not always the best they could be and the likes of the IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde could certainly give her a run for her money in the style stakes but at least there is confidence.

Whether or not you are a fan of the new Prime Minister's political or pumps you cannot argue that she is willing to back down on either and enters Downing Street with confidence and probably a carefully chosen leopard print heel.

Click through to see Theresa May's best footwear to date:

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Theresa May's shoes are almost as important to her power as her politics

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With Theresa May currently packing to head to David Cameron's former residence at number 10, the country will once again be led by a female prime minister, the first since 1990 and the talk of political intention, party rivalries and inevitable discussion of post-Brexit has been pushed aside once again as talk turns to wardrobe.

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Those quite simply mind-bogglingly awful leopard-print high heels in which Ms May strode on to the platform and terrorised the ever-ageing party faithful. It was like watching the collective fantasy of all those Tory men in the audience: to be harangued by a scary, school-marmish woman with hints of kinky inclinations. Listen to me or I'll kick you with my pointed printed toes, you naughty, naughty boys!

But let us pause a moment and think. Imagine, if you can bear it, that you are the chairman of a party trying to scrape itself off the bottom of the boot of unpopularity and focus attention on the rather dull here and now. Unfortunately, aged dinosaurs from the past insist on resurrecting themselves at the most inopportune moments, rather like embarrassing relatives at Christmas lunch when you've invited all of your friends around ('Oh, Auntie Edwina, will you stop unbuttoning your blouse at the dinner table! And Uncle Jeffery, please stop pinching my best friend's bottom, thank you.')

So was Ms May pulling a Vorderman - the old trick of wearing an implausible item in order to create a new image and divert attention from a tiresome past? Will she turn up tomorrow in a gauzy Julien Macdonald slip? (Maybe that's more Edwina.) On balance, probably not. After all, a bit of animal pelt on one's feet is not the most effective method of replacing the party's seedy reputation with a vision of a sober future.

So what was our Theresa up to, then? Well, this may come as a bit of a shock, but perhaps the Tories have a normal woman in their midsts: perhaps Theresa May is just a shoeaholic. Let us examine the evidence: on Monday it was leopard-print pumps; on Sunday she was photographed wearing a rather improbable pair of pink-and-black kitten heels. Before that, well, who knows? The only person who ever studied assiduously a Tory lady's feet before was the late Alan Clarke, but, if memory serves, that was more of an appreciation of Lady Thatcher's ankles than a consideration of her fashion choices.

May's weakness for dodgy footwear has marked her out as the most human, most identifiable-with woman in the party. (Although, considering her competition is Ann Widdecombe, who is currently dieting on screen with the fat teenager from Pop Idol and, it was revealed by her secretary the other week, frequently "shouts at her salad", that wasn't too tricky.)

In one tabloid last week, Joan Collins counselled women that in order to be "really glamorous" they should just wear tan and black shoes and ditch the gimmicky ones. Now, this is why Joan is Joan and the rest of us, thank the Lord, aren't. We know that silly shoes are, well, silly, and won't go with anything and make us all look like Minnie Mouse, and yet women do still buy them. Just yesterday, I saw a grown woman in what looked suspiciously like an Armani suit buying a pair of turquoise flats with butterfly appliqués on the toe - by choice.

It is as though women siphon off style weaknesses and questionable taste into the footwear compartment of their closets, away from the Joseph jackets and Nicole Farhi trousers. Hence Theresa in her sombre black suits paired with pink or pelt shoes. I, for example, have a notorious weakness for pink, round-toed shoes, a problem that has led to various unflattering comparisons with cartoon characters. I am not proud of this and, yes, I am considering counselling.

Occasionally, these urges will seep out into other areas of women's wardrobes. Posh ladies, for some reason, think it is "just relly blahdy good fun" to wear flower pots and fruitbowls on their heads at formal occasions. There was a spate, about two summers ago, when normally right-thinking women took to lacy pink vest tops outside. But, in the main, women relegate these perversions downwards to their feet.

Men have a similar problem with ties (hence the strange phenomenon of businessmen in stern suits with hot-air balloon-print neckwear), but women's shoes somehow garner more attention. How could we forget the columnist Suzanne Moore, whose fondness for so-called "fuck me shoes" were said to have revealed her lack of real feminist beliefs. In fact, to some of us, those pointy monstrosities revealed nothing more than Moore's impressively high threshold for pain.

Shoes are actually the one part of a woman's outfit that are entirely for the wearer's pleasure, as opposed to that of the man. The male gaze tends to work from the top downwards, rarely ever getting as far as the shoe. So women tend to treat shoes as their secret outlet for fantasy self-image. The rest of their outfit is usually intended for the approbation of the observer. But down there, squirreled away, hidden beneath their hem lines and trouser legs, is the secret treat they save for themselves, that they can look down and admire with a small smile in the middle of their working day. Thus, my unfortunate weakness towards pink shoes says as much about me as Teresa's footwear does about her. But what, precisely?

Well, certainly, her choice of shop is not smart - Russell and Bromley, one of the most overpriced shoe outlets on the high street. And her choice of leopard print is objectionable on every possible count of taste. It is outdated, a little bonkers, intrinsically associated with the late 70s and somehow redolent of very tacky and somewhat distasteful sex. In other words, it is the perfect pattern for the Tory party today.

But at least someone is having fun at the party conference.
Topics

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Those quite simply mind-bogglingly awful leopard-print high heels in which Ms May strode on to the platform and terrorised the ever-ageing party faithful. It was like watching the collective fantasy of all those Tory men in the audience: to be harangued by a scary, school-marmish woman with hints of kinky inclinations.

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DRESSED as a cross between Countess Raine Spencer and Margaret Thatcher, artist Grayson Perry proved to be a delightful guest of honour.

The Essex artist joined 130 guests at the Firstsite Fundraising Gala Dinner, organised to raise money for the gallery's creative and educational programmes.

Fenwick goody bags filled with chocolates and beauty products were handed out with money off vouchers and gift cards which commemorate the vibrant Life of Julie Cope exhibition.

Firstsite supporters and fans of Grayson enjoyed a two-course meal and auction as well as a short speech by the creator.

Grayson in talks with the BBC's Stewart White

Mark Inglefield, a spokesperson for Firstsite, said: "Funnily enough during his speech he brought up an article about him in the Evening Standard about how he lost his cat Kevin and was utterly distraught.

"Then at the end of the evening he made an announcement that his cat had been found on the roof of his house where he lives in Islington, and was perfectly okay though his tail was a bit damaged.

"That made people giggle.

"Grayson also showed off his new look which consisted of a very short dress he designed himself, quite extraordinary 1970's-style glasses and skyscraper heels."

Grayson's pins were a conversation starter. Pictured with Sally Shaw

Proceeds from the event will go towards Firstsite's creative and educational programmes.

Two lucky guests secured seats after entering a public prize draw.

Picture: Marwan Sallouta/courtesy Firstsite

Close to 200 people filled Colchester Council's Moot Hall beforehand for a sold-out talk where the Chelmsford-born cross-dresser spoke about the inspiration behind the Life of Julie Cope, love of Essex and answered questions from the audience.

Mr Inglefield added: "The audience couldn't have responded more warmly to him and the fact he talked about Essex a lot really struck a chord with everyone."

Picture: Marwan Sallouta/courtesy Firstsite

Sally Shaw, Firstsite director, said: "Grayson Perry is a one off.

"A brilliant artist and writer, a challenging social commentator, maverick, snappy dresser, but above all that a lovely, humane and generous human being.

"It was a great pleasure to welcome him to Firstsite."

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One-of-a-kind artist Grayson brings 70s glam to gala

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DRESSED as a cross between Countess Raine Spencer and Margaret Thatcher, artist Grayson Perry proved to be a delightful guest of honour. The Essex artist joined 130 guests at the Firstsite Fundraising Gala Dinner, organised to raise money for the gallery's creative and educational programmes.

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Madonna has no patience for bad wine. I learned this while sitting in a well-appointed living room at her New York City home, with Nina Simone playing softly in the background. I must tell you, Madonna's house smells amazing-something delicious, maybe roasted chicken, was cooking in a kitchen elsewhere in the manse, and there was a gentle fragrance in the air, jasmine, perhaps. While I waited for Madonna, her day-to-day manager, her publicist, and I chatted while reclining on gorgeous cream-colored furniture set upon the largest rug I'd ever seen, on top of immaculate black wood floors. On the wall behind me was a black-and-white photograph of a woman perched on the edge of a mussed bed, scantily clad, sucking on a gun, it's Helmut Newton's "Girl with Gun" photograph. Of course.

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Madonna was late, but that didn't matter because she is Madonna. What is time, really? She was all apologies when she arrived, and we quickly got down to business. She was in the process of planning a fund-raiser at Art Basel in Miami Beach, and like any perfectionist she wanted to taste the wines that could be served. She knelt on the floor as she considered various reds and whites and a rosé-or "summer water," as she called it. "Roxane," Madonna said. "You don't have to wear that dress tonight. ..." That's when I exhaled. This was familiar territory. My name is part of a well-known song or two. I smiled and said, "No, I do not." At one point she asked me for my opinion on a particularly troublesome wine, handed me her glass, and swore she didn't have anything contagious. I believed her and took a sip. To be fair, the wine was terrible-it tasted like vinegar-and the year on the bottle said 2016, so it wasn't really wine yet. It was the suggestion of wine.

Madonna is very good at multitasking. While she was considering the wines, she held forth with me, and before long she was done with the bad wine. "Take the mediocre out of here," she tells Dustin, the strapping young man who served all the wine and apologized for its mediocrity even though that mediocrity was not his fault. "I'll go broke before I drink bad wine," she declared, and I was entirely in agreement. I wanted nothing more than for Madonna to offer her opinions on wine for the rest of the evening. Dustin promptly brought us the good wine, served in a crystal decanter. I drank it, and it was, indeed, good.

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In the days leading up to our conversation, I kept wondering what I could possibly ask Madonna that she hadn't already been asked. She has been a figure in popular culture for more than 30 years. There was plenty I was curious about. I mean, I grew up on her music. As a good Catholic girl, I was obsessed with "Like a Prayer" and how she blended transubstantiation and eroticism. I listened to The Immaculate Collection nonstop. I coveted her book Sex, which came out just as I turned 18. I've been intrigued by her personal life. I've admired her stamina and artistic evolution. But I didn't want to ask silly questions. I didn't want to pry even though my job was, of course, to pry.

"I don't believe there's a certain age where you can't say and feel and be who you want to be."

Over the course of an hour, we talked about a great many things, but we started with her upcoming movie project, Loved, an adaptation of Andrew Sean Greer's novel The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells. On her coffee table, there were binders filled with research for the project-potential settings, costumes, and so on. Madonna is thorough. In fact, she co-wrote the screenplay and will be directing the film. The novel follows the title character as she moves through time and negotiates three different lives she could have lived. The story also focuses on Greta's relationship with her gay twin brother, Felix, in those different lives. "It touches on a lot of really important topics I've always been invested in or championed-fighting for women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, always fighting for the underdog," Madonna says. "I've always felt oppressed. I know a lot of people would go, 'Oh, that's ridiculous for you to say that. You're a successful white, wealthy pop star,' but I've had the shit kicked out of me for my entire career, and a large part of that is because I'm female and also because I refuse to live a conventional life. I've created a very unconventional family. I have lovers who are three decades younger than me. This makes people very uncomfortable. I feel like everything I do makes people feel really uncomfortable. Why does this book appeal to me? Why did I want to adapt it into a screenplay? Because it touches me on so many levels and it deals with so many important topics. Right now, more than ever, it's an extremely timely story to tell."

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Roxane Gay: As an artist, whether it's in film or music or writing, do you think your work is political?

Madonna: Completely.

RG: How so?

M: Because I'm political. I believe in freedom of expression, I don't believe in censorship. I believe in equal rights for all people. And I believe women should own their sexuality and sexual expression. I don't believe there's a certain age where you can't say and feel and be who you want to be. All you have to do is look at my career-from my Sex book to the songs I've written, kissing a black saint in my "Like a Prayer" video, the themes I explored on my Erotica album. As I get older and I get better at writing and expressing myself, then you get into my American Life era, and I start talking about politics and government and how fucked our country's politics are, and the illusion of fame and Hollywood and the beautiful people.

RG: It's been almost two weeks since the election. How did you feel in the wake of Donald Trump being elected president of the United States? Were you surprised?

M: On election night I was sitting at a table with my agent, who is also one of my very best friends, and we were truly praying. We were praying. She was on her computer. She's friends with someone who was working on Hillary [Clinton]'s campaign and was getting blow-by-blow reports, and at one point she was like, "It's not looking good." It was just like watching a horror show. And then she was reading from the Quran, and I was reading from the Zohar. We were doing everything: lighting candles, meditating, praying, offering our lives to God forever, if only. I went to sleep, and since that night, I wake up every morning and it's like when you break up with somebody who has really broken your heart. You wake up and for a second you're just you, and then you go, "Oh, the person I love more than anything has just broken my heart, and I'm devastated and I'm broken and I have nothing. I'm lost." That's how I feel every morning. I wake up and I go, "Wait a second. Donald Trump is the president. It's not a bad dream. It really happened." It's like being dumped by a lover and also being stuck in a nightmare.

"I wake up and I go, 'Wait a second. Donald Trump is the president. It's not a bad dream. It really happened.'"

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RG: What do we do now?

M: I feel like I'm already doing it to a certain degree anyway and have been doing it. But I have to get way more vocal and become a little bit less mysterious. What I find really astonishing is how quiet everybody is in my industry. I mean, nobody in the entertainment business except for maybe a handful of people ever speak out about what's going on. Nobody takes a political stance or expresses an opinion.

RG: Why do you think that is?

M: They want to maintain a neutral position so they can maintain their popularity. I mean, if you have an opinion and people disagree with you, you might not get a job. You might be blacklisted. You might have fewer followers on Instagram. There are any number of things that would be detrimental to your career. Everyone's really afraid. Because it doesn't affect their daily life yet, no one's doing anything about it.

RG: How do you stay motivated after accomplishing so much?

M: Art keeps me alive. I've obviously been devastated or heartbroken all my life, since my mother's death. I've had so many challenges throughout my career, however successful people perceive me to be. The only way I've been able to survive the betrayal of lovers, family members, and society is to be able to create as an artist.

RG: What beyond art gives you that kind of drive to keep doing what you do?

M: Wanting to inspire people. Wanting to touch people's hearts to get them to look at life in a different way. To be a part of evolution, because, for me, it's either you're part of creation or you're part of destruction. It's inexplicable; it's like breathing, and I can't imagine not doing it. That is one of the arguments I would get into with my ex-husband, who used to say to me, "But why do you have to do this again? Why do you have to make another record? Why do you have to go on tour? Why do you have to make a movie?" And I'm like, "Why do I have to explain myself?" I feel like that's a very sexist thing to say.

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RG: Yes. Because nobody asks men that.

M: Does somebody ask Steven Spielberg why he's still making movies? Hasn't he had enough success? Hasn't he made enough money? Hasn't he made a name for himself? Did somebody go to Pablo Picasso and say, "Okay, you're 80 years old. Haven't you painted enough paintings?" No. I'm so tired of that question. I just don't understand it. I'll stop doing everything that I do when I don't want to do it anymore. I'll stop when I run out of ideas. I'll stop when you fucking kill me. How about that?

RG: Do you still feel the same rush when you accomplish some new milestone? Or does it become commonplace?

M: No. When I made secretprojectrevolution [the 2013 short film that Madonna directed with the photographer Steven Klein, which dealt with the subject of artistic freedom], that was really exciting because it was a very political statement. And whenever I do my live shows, I feel artistically inspired and excited because I get to do and say a lot of things that I can't if I just make a record. A lot of times it's the only way people are going to hear my music because you don't get to have your music played on Top 40 if you're above the age of 35. It's always exciting for me to perform. I'm liking the idea more and more of just standing up with a microphone and talking. I like talking; I like playing with the audience. That's what I've started to do with "Tears of a Clown" [Madonna's most recent stage show, which combines music and storytelling]. I'm obsessed with clowns and what they represent and the idea that clowns are supposed to make you laugh, but inevitably they're hiding something. That's how I look at my life. I keep telling Amy Schumer and Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock that I'm going to do stand-up and they'd better watch out. I'm coming. I'm coming right behind them.

RG: What are you reading right now?

M: I'm reading several books. I cheat on my books a lot, which is not a good thing because it's good to stick with one book and get to the end of it, but I'm a book philanderer. I'm reading The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman, and before that I was reading All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. I was also reading Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, even though it's not a new book.

RG: My editor at Harper's Bazaar told me that you read an excerpt from The Beautiful and Damned for a video that you did for the magazine. I was curious as to why you chose that book.

"I refuse to live a conventional life. I've created a very unconventional family. I have lovers who are three decades younger than me. This makes people very uncomfortable."

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M: I worship F. Scott Fitzgerald and I love his writing, and I felt like what we were shooting, that somehow there was some kind of connection to his stories and the decadence of that time, but also to the lack of expression. Or the inability of women to express themselves really. They were beautiful and damned.

RG: I have one last question: What do you like most about the art that you make?

M: I think it depends on what I'm making. I like pushing the envelope. But I don't like to do it just for the sake of doing it. I don't like to be provocative for the sake of being provocative. I like to be provocative. I like to make people think. I like to touch people's hearts. And if I can do all three of those things in one fell swoop, then I feel like I've really accomplished something.
See a behind-the-scenes look at Madonna's cover shoot here: And watch the pop icon read an excerpt from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Beautiful and Damned' here:
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This article originally appeared in the February issue of Harper's BAZAAR, available on newsstands January 17. Lead image: Alberta Ferretti gown; Erickson Beamon necklace; From left: Yeprem rings, Gucci, Sylva & Cie rings, and House of Emmanuele rings; New York Vintage headband (worn as bracelet); Carine Gilson garter belt; Madonna's own spike bracelets and stockings Photographs by Luigi & Iango; Hair: Andy LeCompte for Wella Professionals; Makeup: Aaron Henrikson; Manicure: Naomi Yasuda for Dior Vernis; Production: Beth Klein Productions; Set Design: Philipp Haemmerle. Special thanks to Diamond Horseshoe, New York. .

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Introducing Madonna As Our February Cover Star

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Madonna has no patience for bad wine. I learned this while sitting in a well-appointed living room at her New York City home, with Nina Simone playing softly in the background. I must tell you, Madonna's house smells amazing-something delicious, maybe roasted chicken, was cooking in a kitchen elsewhere in the manse, and there was a gentle fragrance in the air, jasmine, perhaps.

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It would be fair to say Theresa May and Frida Kahlo occupy opposing ideological positions. While Theresa May is the leader of the Conservative Party, Kahlo was a fervent communist.

But this stark political dissonance did not stop the British Prime Minister from choosing to wear a gigantic Frida Kahlo bracelet to her crucial Conservative Party conference speech on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, viewers were quick to point out the irony in Ms May endorsing the radical Mexican painter who had an affair with Soviet politician and Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

Critics on social media argued the artist, who used her work to explore questions of postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society, would have spurned the British PM if she was alive.

Others quipped that Ms May's drawn-out bout of coughing, which saw the world leader forced to apologise after losing her voice, was the result of her Kahlo bracelet.

"Theresa May wears a bracelet of Marxist political icon Frida Kahlo and she nearly chokes to death. Coincidence? I think nat," joked Twitter user, Frankie Leach.

"Theresa May wearing Frida Kahlo bracelet - a disabled bisexual woman of colour and a Communist to boot. Sure they would have got along!" said another.

"Theresa-May-wearing-frida-bracelet is the smoothest distillation of the phenomenon that gave us 'Thatcher was a feminist icon' bulls***," said another.

"Why is Theresa May wearing a bracelet with Frida Kahlo, everyone's favourite Marxist artist, for her speech? Seems somewhat off-brand," questioned one more.

When the ghost of Frida Kahlo comes back to strangle you to death for abusing her image and everything she ever stood for. #CPC17 pic.twitter.com/jycxNYM9uf
- Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) October 4, 2017

Kahlo, who is the most popular and recognisable Mexican artist in the world, joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1927. There she met her husband and celebrated muralist Diego Rivera and was thrust headfirst into a tight-knit circle of activists and artists.

Kahlo, who is famed for her self-portraits, was known for decorating her corsets with hammer and sickles. She was even laid to rest under a Communist flag when she died.

In the wake of her death, she has become an icon for political movements and minority groups such as the LGBTQ community, feminism, and the Chicanos.

Ms May's keynote address at the Tory conference was not devoid of other controversies and also found itself interrupted by a prankster who handed her a P45 form - a tax document given to employees when they are sacked or resign. A close-up photo of the fake P45 showed it listed the "reason for termination" as "neither strong nor stable".

Greater Manchester Police confirmed that Simon Brodkin, a comedian who performs under the stage name Lee Nelson, was arrested for breach of the peace after the incident but released a short time later.

He was bundled into a security tent to protect him from the press before being cuffed and taken out of the Manchester conference centre. He made no comment to The Independent as security guards rushed him outside but earlier shouted: "Boris made me do it. He's left me in the lurch."

Around the same time he also tweeted: "Hi Boris Johnson, I gave Theresa her P45 just like you asked."

Reuse content

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Theresa May wore a Frida Kahlo bracelet and people are furious

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It would be fair to say Theresa May and Frida Kahlo occupy opposing ideological positions. While Theresa May is the leader of the Conservative Party, Kahlo was a fervent communist. But this stark political dissonance did not stop the British Prime Minister from choosing to wear a gigantic Frida Kahlo bracelet to her crucial Conservative Party conference speech on Wednesday.

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A new NME poll, to celebrate the magazibne's 60th birthday, asked readers to name the top 60 rock icons and 60,000 responded. Here are the top 10 but for details of the top 60 see http://www.nme.com.

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Movies about "aliens", beings from other worlds, are generally seen as good box office. Here, in complete reversal, this programme looks at the work of four quite diverse directors who dared to turn the camera on that sub-species of "fashion aliens" who exist within our own society.

Covering everything from high glamour to lowlife, and cult to couture, each film integrates into its storyline a completely different fashion strand of its day, whilst also clearly illustrating in retrospect how fashion in its extreme still sits uncomfortably in the real world.

Of the four films featured in this programme only Liquid Sky is pure science fiction, while the other three, Paris is Burning, The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield and True Stories, subtly explore worlds that could easily verge into the realms of science fiction. All four could also be categorised as parody, with each in its way setting about seducing the viewer into considering the unacceptable and maybe even believing the unbelievable.

These observations are most clearly depicted in True Stories (1986), a work of pure fiction yet firmly based in reality. Here, director David Byrne of Talking Heads fame, personally escorts us into the heartland of contemporary "Middle American" mall life, in the mythical Texas town of Virgil. Renowned for his deep love of irony, Byrne paints a picture of an idealistic, familiar place, where everyone conforms to regular society, but displays their own unique brand of individuality.

The movie - which in many ways is like a musical - has no real plot, but rather meanders through the streets of Virgil exploring the lives of the townsfolk as they prepare to celebrate "150 Years of Specialness." Along the way we meet the main character, shy bachelor Lewis Fyne played by John Goodman, and we follow his hysterical exploits as he goes in search of a wife. Ever fashion conscious, in his extensive range of co-coordinated polyester suits and caps, Lewis places an advert on TV and confesses that he just wants to be loved, but applicants must be prepared to accept his teddy-bear figure!

As the camera travels along the vast aisles of Vigil's shopping mall, we quickly get the impression that to be fashionable is very important here; it makes a statement about who we are and where we belong. Although by today's standards the styles we see in the film appear very dated, the costume designer - Byrne's wife - has carefully selected marvellous examples of fashionable leisurewear from previous decades to throw into the mix, giving the movie a somewhat timeless look. She has not styled her costumes on the wearer as some latest designer fad, in an ephemeral manner. Instead we get the impression they have evolved steadily over the years in a considered, acceptable way, like much mainstream American fashion.

However, we soon learn what differentiates this place from any other stereotypical US community; this town's inhabitants, although playing familiar roles, such as civic leaders, factory workers and shoppers, are a little strange. Many, like the 50 sets of twins, a lawnmower brigade and a chapter of Shriners, driving their miniature Corvettes, are quite eccentric. Some, such as the woman who stays in bed all day watching TV surrounded by automated contraptions, and the "lying woman", who among other things claims to have written the lyrics for Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", appear so disturbed they could even be aliens.

Here, True Stories raises the question: 'Is truth stranger than fiction?" It certainly could be the case in this part of America, and Byrne deliberately sets about testing our preconceptions of its society. Do these kinds of people really exist? Anyone who has spent time in the Midwest may testify that characters of this extremity are pretty prevalent in those parts. But what is unusual about this movie is that Byrne magnifies his character observations to the point of obsession, allowing nothing to be hidden; everyone's personal traits and eccentricities are examined and celebrated, in effect giving star treatment to the entire cast. "When I see a place for the first time, I notice everything - the color of the paper, the sky, the way people walk, doorknobs, every detail," says Byrne. Similarly, with the clothes, the camera often lingers so long on the acres of polyester that one can almost feel the static.

This bizarre scenario and vision of over-indulgence leaves the viewer sensing a slight air of unease, in much the same way as the films of David Lynch. But it's ok, because Byrne counter-balances the weirdness by playing up the humour with familiar feel-good themes, and before we know it, another comforting wave of self-assurance washes over us, persuading even the sceptics to smile through it all. So, when a surreal "family catalogue style" fashion show is thrown into the mix, we are well primed to accept that the mall audience, rather than be embarrassed, would happily go out and wear these outrageous creations. Throughout True Stories Byrne subtly delivers the point that people really want to "fit in" to this kind of community, and this is reaffirmed when Lewis, bursts into the song, "People Like Us".

Like True Stories, with The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968) a documentary, we have a highly visible celebrity guide and host. Mansfield, complete with her pet Chihuahua, personally introduces us to a darker, generally hidden side of humanity, taking us on a fantastical journey deep into the underbelly of the American and European sex trade. And, in a similar way to David Byrne in mall world, she appears totally at ease mingling with these various low-life communities.

One minute we are observing attractive young prostitutes of both sexes, practising openly on the streets of European cities - attracting their salubrious clientele by wearing the latest chic styles usually reserved for the fashion set - and the next, she takes us behind the closed doors of assorted sex parlours where a seedy glamorous dress style is the norm. Then, like True Stories, we are witness to a surreal fashion show, this time with the designer's bizarre creations displayed by semi-naked girls - one featured girl wears a tent complete with camping equipment and all its trappings, while another who is made up to resemble an oil painting, sports little more than a large gilt frame. Within the context of this environment, the costumes seem completely acceptable and well received by the audience. But, one questions, would anybody dare to wear such incredible garments outside of these four walls?

Also based in the underworld but some 14 years later on, Paris is Burning (1982) director Jennie Livingstone documents an infamous ensemble of African-American and Hispanic young men, who live out their high fashion female fantasies and obsessions by mimicking catwalk supermodels. These highly competitive rituals are carried out on the dance floor of Brooklyn nightclubs. Adopting the names of famous Parisian couture houses, these exotic creatures wear their own ostentatious creations mixed with bootleg fashions, and have created their own unique dance style called "voguing". Here again these spectacles are carried on in virtual exclusivity behind closed doors, far away from the prying eyes of the general public. One is left with the feeling that these young men are somehow victims of a blinkered society that excludes fashions that challenge and differentiate from the norm. It is therefore somewhat ironic that it took the female pop icon Madonna to later appropriate and popularize "voguing" as an acceptable genre.

With the cult feature film Liquid Sky (1982), we are presented with the only work that truly falls into the science fiction genre, so it is immediately labelled as make-believe. However, what director Slava Tsukerman has cleverly done here, is lend plausibility to his fictitious characters by basing their stylish futuristic outfits on a genuine fashion - labelled "New Wave" - that was prevalent in the New York underground scene at the time of making the film. He goes further with the film's storyline, by featuring a crowd of genuine Lower East Side fashionistas and exhibitionists in a nightclub and a spectacular fashion show, whilst also capturing the elitist mood, drug preferences, and sexual activities of that same hedonist scene.

As a genre, movies with contemporary fashion themes are virtually untouched by today's filmmakers, and as with this selection, generally left to the low-budget independents. It takes a rare breed of producer to bankroll a movie that ventures into this territory, unless the subject is used as pastiche. Film moguls now demand shelf life for their product and not something that will be dated even before its release.

Interestingly, when the films in this programme came out, each in its own way was quite influential in the fashion world, though none, in movie terms, were a financial success. However, what they did achieve was surely something every director secretly strives for - instant cult status - and thereby, ironically, an everlasting shelf life. Sadly, cult status can sometimes be the kiss of death, as none of these clearly talented directors have done anything as adventurous since!

© Roger K Burton 2006

View all essays from Between Stigma and Enigma

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new york’s museum of the moving image and tribeca grand

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Fashion in Film is an exhibition, research and education project based at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Since its foundation in 2005, the Fashion in Film Festival (FFF) has become a leading showcase for the common ground shared by fashion and film.

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Whether in reference to the students or the tutors, Central Saint Martins is "about the people that are there". That's the view of Alistair O'Neill, tutor of Fashion History and Theory, among myriad other roles, but ask anyone at 1 Granary, the magazine and the building, and it's a sentiment that holds.
You may not be familiar with the Fashion History and Theory pathway, with its academic leaning in a college celebrated for its applied arts, but you'll have no doubt seen Alistair's recent projects proliferate your Twitter feeds, followed by #BlowExhibition or #Valentino hash tags. Perhaps you've experienced them in person at London's Somerset House.

Valentino: Master of Couture and Fashion Galore, a celebration of the life and legacy of Isabella Blow, were exhibitions with Alistair at the helm and, uniquely, a Saint Martins presence in the opportunities he provided for his students, who contributed to each show. "I'm both a writer and curator", but beyond that, an engaging mentor, whose inconceivably vast knowledge of fashion, photography and film had us questioning as a class how you would even begin to acquire that sort of knowledge. So, in order to find out, we asked.

"I find fashion very, very rich material in which to try and understand recent history."

We will admit to searching online to try and find out more about you, but it's actually quite hard to find anything about your background before you started your MA at the Royal College of Art. What were you doing before that?
I did a foundation course in Art and Design at Kingston College, and I wanted to pursue fine art, so I went on to do quite an unusual course for its time at the University of Brighton. If you wanted to study fine art, you had four options; you could study painting, sculpture, print- making, or something which they then called Alternative Practice.

It's quite strange to think back on it now, and reflect that you had to do that kind of course if you wanted to do work which was installation-based, about both still and moving image, and sound, so it was quite an experimental course. A lot of my work was motivated by issues of taste and style, and also, in a funny way now that I think about it, articulations of history.

So what motivated you to move from something practical to the History of Design (MA) at the RCA?
By that point, I'd already become very disillusioned with the idea of wanting to become an artist... I met a very inspirational tutor called Alison Clarke, and she really helped me appreciate that there was a design discourse alongside an art one, and it's from there that I started to become interested in museums. One of my first roles was in acting as a student voice for the 20th century gallery at the V&A, and it's from there that I really got to learn about the MA course that they run with the RCA.
When did the focus of your studies shift onto fashion?
I've always been interested in fashion, I just never really found a focus for it, and then I suppose it just really developed in relation to what I was teaching, and the kinds of things I started to first write about.

"I think constraints are always creative if approached the right way."

Was teaching something that you'd considered as a career quite early on?
When I was at the RCA, I taught at Camberwell Art College on some of the part-time courses... but I never thought that I was going to have a career in it; I never thought that I would have a career as a researcher. I had interests, and I wanted to pursue them, and I suppose that that's what has defined my career to-date, that I've been honourable to the things that motivate me, and I'm still fascinated by them. I'm not tired of them yet.
What is it that keeps you fascinated?
I find fashion very, very rich material in which to try and understand recent history... and I think that the Isabella Blow project is a good example of how you can use an exhibition to call to question recent history. With 'Fashion Galore!' it's not just about one woman's wardrobe. It's about using the exhibition as an opportunity to actually examine and represent what that was about, and I find it fascinating that you can point to the contribution British fashion made to international fashion at that point through the effects of someone's wardrobe. And it's not just located in dress; a lot of my work has been about looking at representations of dress, particularly through photography, and seeing what that can tell us about sensibilities, and ideas of appearance and identity.

With there being such "rich material", whether photography or dress, how do you begin filtering that information, and deciding what's important to include?
First and foremost, it's about the material available to you - or not. That can sometimes be a filter, but... it always returns me to that thing that I used to do when I composed lectures, which was going to the slide library and pulling out slides, and then asking, how can you make a lecture out of twenty images? I tend to think visually first, and then I use that to structure what I want to say.

With an exhibition, it's not really that different, it's just that instead of them being slides, they might be objects, or they could be images, or there might be sound clips, etc. In terms of how you approach filtering contemporary fashion, and making judgements with which you can say, "that was important", it's much trickier. I think that the recent sessions I've done with the 2nd years about 21st- century chronology, and how you define the last thirteen years is a case in point.

"Curation is about being able to articulate a point of difference from what's been widely understood to-date about your subject matter."

That was difficult without there being much distance between then and now. How do you overcome constraints like that when someone asks you to curate an exhibition?
I think constraints are always creative if approached the right way. I also think curation is about being able to articulate a point of difference from what's been widely understood to-date about your subject matter. For instance, when it came to doing the Valentino exhibition, there had been a retrospective in Rome and in Paris, and essentially we were working with the same objects. We felt that if we were going to do that, we had to be able to articulate a point of difference. In that instance, it was about demonstrating how Italian couture differs from the French model, and the next part of that was actually trying to unpack what Italian couture techniques are. Some of the fundamental principles of why you are trying to do something from the outset are not necessarily that apparent in the final product, but I think what's interesting about exhibitions is that you always want to structure them so that a number of different kinds of visitors can come and take something from it.

The number of visitors seems to be growing, with people saying that fashion exhibitions have become a huge "draw card" for museums in the past five years. Why do you think that is?
I think an exhibition visitor wanting to see a show like Fashion Galore! is motivated by the fact that they can get closer to an industry that they're normally excluded from. They're motivated by what they see in broader popular culture about fashion, and they want to learn more about it.

I think one of the reasons why Savage Beauty [an exhibition of Alexander McQueen's work, held in 2011 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] was such a success in the States is that most American exhibition visitors had never seen anything like it before. It wasn't just about the power the clothes had, and their authority, it was about their craftsmanship; it was the fact that you could get up close and you could see it. They might well have seen these things as images, but they'd never seen it in the flesh before.
Do you think the growing popularity of the fashion exhibition might also be because of that - the amount of static, 2D imagery available to us online? That maybe going out and engaging with an exhibition can be seen as a point-of- difference from our everyday experience of fashion on the internet?
Fashion exhibitions are tangible, physical environments with things in, and so it's very different from reacting to something through a digital portal, and I think people really like that. It's also something that you can do by yourself, or with other people, and in that sense, it's a way of filling time, or spending your leisure time that's not that different from going to the cinema... I think that's what people are responding to.

There's whole swathes of VHS-led fashion journalism that's just not really around anymore, and I think that one of the problems with the net is that people think it's all out there, and it's all available, and it's not."

Has today's digital culture affected how you approach your own work, and the things you take into consideration?
Well, I suppose what's interesting about this exhibition, Fashion Galore! is the way in which a lot of the audio-visual material is analogue, so it's pre-digital, and it's amazing how little of it you can access through digital libraries and collections. It really surprised me that so much just wasn't there any more... there's whole swathes of VHS-led fashion journalism that's just not really around anymore, and I think that one of the problems with the net is that people think it's all out there, and it's all available, and it's not.
It's quite hard to find images of whole collections from before 2000/2001 online. Do you engage much with fashion online in your own time?
RSS feed has been my saviour. It's helped me de-clutter my inbox... So, I choose when I want to connect, rather than it reminding me of what I'm missing. I think the opportunities of what you can interact with out there are really wonderful, but the kind of sites that I really like are few and far between. For instance, there's a blog called Little Augury, which I love; The Cutting Class, I really like... and Garmento. I subscribe to The New York Times, as well as The Guardian. I obviously read academic journals too, so I'll look at those through our college e-library.
Do you think that there are other ways of engaging with digital that could change the way work is exhibited? The MA course for Creative Practice for Narrative Environments at the college has been looking at how 3D printing could shape the future of curation by enabling visitors to touch displayed objects, and also have them appear in different parts of the world at the same time. Do you think there is a future in that?
I think that the advent of 3D printing is going to have an unbelievable effect on the culture of exhibitions, and I think that we haven't even started to predict what that's going to be like. Fashion curation has been rather slow in responding to the possibilities of digital space. People could start to develop a critical space for fashion exhibitions online, because it does allow you to think through some of the challenges of curating a physical space; it allows you to rehearse it certainly. However, I think the price-point of 3D printing needs to come down a little bit more before it becomes really accessible.

"The advent of 3D printing is going to have an unbelievable effect on the culture of exhibitions."

How do you see your role as a tutor fit into the context of your own curatorial work and research?

I've always felt that it is important to use your work to reflect back on what it is that you're delivering to you students, and what I've been able to do more recently, and what I'm really pleased about, is to be able to involve my students to a certain extent in the projects I'm working on. I think that if you can offer those kinds of opportunities, it makes a big difference, and I think for students, it means that they see the subject as a live concern. It's not something that's purely studied and detached from its industrial sense.
Is there anything about being at Central Saint Martins in particular that affects how you approach your work?
Yes, absolutely. The reason why I enjoy being there is because it allows me to appreciate the relationship between theory and practice. So, for me, writing in an academic way about fashion has to be necessarily influenced by being in an environment where the practice of making it is all around you. You can't help but pick up on that. What I think is unique about the course in terms of being in Central Saint Martins, and the reason why I want to be there, is the people who are there.
Having taught and studied at some of London's best art and fashion colleges, and having written London: After a Fashion, you seem well placed to ask what makes this city unique in its contribution to the creative arts. It'd be reductive to ask someone to formally unpack what makes London exciting, but what makes London exciting for you?
Samuel Johnson said a very long time ago that "a man who is tired of London is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford". I really passionately believe in that, because there is an embarrassment of riches in London. It's amazing. I love the museums and galleries; the collections and the archives and libraries; its vibrant culture of exhibitions. I love its restaurant and food scene, and just walking in London, and the fact that it's a truly global city.

In terms of how you can think about fashion's contribution to the city, it's not just about catwalk fashion. I think street fashion is still very important to a history of London fashion, and that London's fashion education is really important from that art school tradition.

Also, I enjoy the kinds of sources that you're able to draw upon, whether Kerry Taylor, as a good example of how to be a great auctioneer of surviving dress, or amazing collections like the Clothworkers' Centre, or November Books, and Claire de Rouen Books. I find the richness of its offer really inspiring.
Interview by Sara McAlpine Photography by Hanna Moon Get a copy of Issue 2 here!

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Whether in reference to the students or the tutors, Central Saint Martins is "about the people that are there". That's the view of Alistair O'Neill, tutor of Fashion History and Theory, among myriad other roles, but ask anyone at 1 Granary, the magazine and the building, and it's a sentiment that holds.

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the culture of fashion: a new history of fashionable dress (studies in design and material culture)

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The Culture of Fashion: A New History of Fashionable Dress (Studies in Design and Material Culture)

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Buy The Culture of Fashion: A New History of Fashionable Dress (Studies in Design and Material Culture) UK ed. by Christopher Breward (ISBN: 9780719041259) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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a portrait of fashion: six centuries of dress at the national portrait gallery

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clothing and dress - great britain - history

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national portrait gallery (great britain)

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health & fitness/beauty & grooming - general

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photography / subjects & themes / fashion

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A Portrait of Fashion: Six Centuries of Dress at the National Portrait Gallery

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Costume, portraiture and the presentation of the individual have been intimately linked throughout the history of art. While the face of the person portrayed is often still directly accessible to us, the details and significance of their dress can be less easy to comprehend. Lavishly illustrated ...

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It's hard to believe that when she was growing up, Cindy Crawford-who stars in Vogue's latest "73 Questions" video series-was teased about the now-iconic dot above her left lip. Luckily, her mother talked her out of having it removed, and the rest is supermodel history: With the help of her million-dollar mole, the small-town beauty would soon find herself on the cover of Vogue, launching a legendary career that has spanned three decades and counting.

The inexplicable magnetism of a well-placed beauty mark, of course, has been a phenomenon throughout history. Long before a "Material Girl"-era Madonna paid homage to Marilyn Monroe with the help of her own exaggerated mark-or Edie Sedgwick confirmed the undeniable It-factor of drawn-on dots, it was Marie Antoinette who prompted legions of 18th-century courtiers to adorn their faces with moleskin or velvet mouches, which, depending on their location, conveyed anything from relationship status to a flirtatious personality.

These days, fashion favorites like Blake Lively and Kate Upton have revived the Old World glamour of the look, inspiring their fair share of followers to approximate the look with the help of an eye pencil. Here, a look at a few of the hottest spots of all time.
Cindy Crawford Sings George Michael and Tours Her Malibu Home

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The 9 Best Beauty Marks of All Time, From Cindy Crawford to Marilyn Monroe

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It's hard to believe that when she was growing up, Cindy Crawford-who stars in Vogue's latest "73 Questions" video series-was teased about the now-iconic dot above her left lip.

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Books

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Alistair O'Neill is Senior Research Fellow at Central Saint Martins and runs the Fashion History & Theory pathway of BA Fashion

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Believing fashion to be intrinsically political, from December 2007 through summer 2008 Nick Knight staged a multi-level film and essay project, encouraging creatives to use the medium of fashion to convey their political beliefs, agendas and thoughts. Contributors include Beth Ditto, Gareth Pugh, Naomi Campbell, Steven Klein, Vanessa Friedman and Vivienne Westwood.

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history / europe / great britain / general

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"London: After a Fashion" argues that fashion is central to the experience of modernity in late nineteenth and twentieth century London. Understanding fashionable consumption not only as a pleasurable aspect of metropolitan life, but as fundamental to the evolution of modern sensibilities, Alista...

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'If June Swann doesn't know what a shoe is, nobody does,' said Jill Spanner at the Museum of London's costume collection. 'She's the world's leading authority on historic shoes.'

I first heard of Ms Swann while visiting Erddig, the great, romantic country house in North Wales. Jeremy Cragg, the National Trust's head steward, was showing me a pair of flattened, exhausted black leather shoes he had found walled up in a chimney there. Did the shoes belong to the master or a servant? When were they put there and what was a shoe doing in the chimney anyway? 'I must call June Swann,' he said. 'She's the doyenne of footwear.'

Five years ago Ms Swann retired as keeper of the shoe and boot collection at the Central Museum and Art Gallery in Northampton, a town known for its footwear industry. However, she is still extremely busy as a footwear detective. When I rang she had just returned from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she is cataloguing a shoe collection, and soon she will be heading for Toronto. Yes, she would be coming to London, but cases to solve at the V & A would take all her time. We arranged a meeting at her former perch in Northampton.

Ms Swann has the confidence of an expert. Within minutes of saying hello we were looking at what was on view out of the more than 4,000 items in the boot and shoe collection. Along two walls stood huge cast-iron examples of early shoe manufacturing machinery. A long, low casing contained one of the world's best collections of shoe buckles.

'One day in the Seventies I had this phone call,' Ms Swann recalled, standing in front of the rows of glittering buckles. 'It was from Mrs Hull Grundy. 'I'm dying,' she said. 'Would you like my shoe buckle collection?' '

In fact, it was eight years before Anne Hull Grundy, one of this country's most discerning collectors of jewellery, did die, but the buckles came to the Central Museum straight away.

Without having to consult a label or a note (though aware of every label that had vanished since she retired, every accessory that had disappeared, every boot incorrectly displayed), Ms Swann began talking about the amazing variety of shoes and boots that filled the tall, old-fashioned wood-framed cases.

'I think footwear gives more away about people's attitudes to society than clothes,' she said as she darted between the cases. I began to understand what she meant: social history, finance, craftsmanship, fashion, the politics of museum financing, superstition, trade secrets, sexual politics and patriotism all found their way into her conversation. It was clear that by focusing on shoes she had seen into a rich world.

Asked about the shoes I had been shown at Erddig, Mrs Swann said: 'It's a common superstition.' More than 900 examples of shoes that had been hidden away have been sent to Northampton for identification. 'Children's shoes were found walled up in Ely cathedral. Rather 'tarty' shoes in a chapel. There have been shoes found under the roofs in houses, in orphanages, schools. . . .

'By the 15th century this walling-in of shoes was used as a protection. The shoe stands in for the person, so it guards all the entry points - the doors, windows, chimneys, roof.'

But why shoes? Why not, say, a shirt, or a scarf? 'The shoe is the only garment you wear that retains your shape and your personality,' Ms Swann explained. 'You take off your clothes, they're just a heap of rags on the floor. But the shoe is moulded to your foot. It's got the essence of the wearer in it. You catch sight of your shoes in the distance, it can give you a nasty shock.'

Though most of the shoes on view are English, there is one case of foreign specimens. A floppy item looking more like a crude hairnet than a shoe was particularly unnerving. This Australian aboriginal specimen was in fact made of emu feathers and hair - human hair, possibly mixed with human blood. It played a part in revenge killing. 'You can't tell which way the footprints are going,' Ms Swann pointed out, 'so the wearer can't be followed.'

The same case holds several fine examples of North American moccasins. 'Don't let anyone tell you that the American Indians were savages,' Ms Swann declared. 'That embroidery is as exquisite as anything being done in Europe at the time.'

She added: 'My anthropologist friends over there tell me that the Indians never ever copied European styles, but they bloody well did.'

The Indians even sold the uppers to European women, who had them made up into shoes in London and Paris.

Making moccasins was squaws' work. But it is not only in the tepee that women have played their part in shoe-making. To this day it is women who stitch the uppers in shoe factories. Traditionally, they have earned less than the men, who stitch the lowers - the tougher material on the rest of the shoe.

We looked at delicate shoes covered in star-studded silks, petit point and softest kid. The flat, beribboned white slippers worn by Queen Victoria on her wedding day are on view in a royal display. 'English women were notorious for their plain, sensible shoes,' Ms Swann noted. But not by the Roaring Nineties: these glace kid tasselled boots have 6 1/2 in heels.

'This is the period when the gentleman always gives you his arm,' Ms Swann observed, 'and your parasol is very tall. I'm sure that's the only way you stood up in these things.'

Being big-footed myself, I noted that there had been others of my ilk in the 19th century. 'Yes, they get big in the 1880s and 1890s. We're talking about votes for women,' Ms Swann explained. 'Some of them are extremely big in the 1790s, too,' she continued. 'Liberty, equality, big feet.'

When freedom for their gender and their limbs was not in fashion, women stuffed their feet into shoes too small for them. Or worse. 'Round about 1867, when anaesthetics were first developed,' Ms Swann said, 'fashionable women would have the odd toe or two amputated.'

(This grisly marriage of masochism and vanity continues. Not long ago I met an otherwise canny businesswoman who had had her toes 'shortened' so she could wear prettier shoes.)

One of the most beautiful shoes in the collection was also one of the plainest: flat, soft black leather with a square toe and an elasticised gusset. The workmanship was superb: both the hand-sewn soles and uppers have 44 stitches to the inch.

'It was made by a lad in 1830,' Ms Swann said. He lived not far from where we were standing and had just completed his apprenticeship. This 'occasioning' shoe had been made to show manufacturers the very best he could produce. 'It's the only one that I know for certain has survived,' Ms Swann said. 'And it's got the earliest surviving use of latex I know of.'

Two hours had passed and we were only part way through the collection. We decided to break for lunch.

Was it an Imelda Marcos-like passion for shoes that had led Ms Swann to her life's work? No, not at all, she said. It was chance. And necessity. When she left college as a geography graduate in 1949 she couldn't find a job. 'I was getting desperate,' she recalled. When she heard there was an opening at the museum, she applied. 'I thought, 'Oh well, it will do to be going on with.' '

She started work in 1950 and stayed for 38 years. Ms Swann was hooked.

'One of the first jobs I did was reorganising the stores and starting to catalogue the shoes. I realised none of the books in print were any use.'

Ms Swann began studying paintings and novels, every source she could think of that would give her insight and information about shoes and boots. When in the late Sixties Christie's began its costume auctions she started buying historic shoes for the museum. Her knowledge and the collection's importance developed in tandem. 'I eventually realised I was working with what had become the world's best collection of footwear. There's nowhere else you can go,' she observed ruefully.

Though she is enormously proud of the achievements of Northampton's shoemakers and manufacturers, she notes that the town's shoe collection has struggled without the financial support she believes it deserves as 'a national treasure'. For 36 of the years June Swann laboured at the museum, she had to do what she called 'an impossible job' of conservation, acquisition, cataloguing and display.

Corporate sponsorship was not a possibility. Northampton's shoe industry has not exactly flourished in the second half of the 20th century. 'I didn't have the heart to ask,' Ms Swann said.

Now there are signs that the collection is deteriorating. Items are missing from shoes and boots, labels are gone and the room itself is windowless and unattractive. There had been two other rooms as well. One was set up in 1913 as a model of a workplace by four men who had used the shoe-making machines on view. 'It looked absolutely beautiful,' she said. 'It was full of

atmosphere.'

Ms Swann has written a book, Shoes, and is now at work on a dictionary of 700 words connected with shoes and shoe-making. 'I'm trying to find the history of each word. Some go back to Saxon times and change their meaning as the object they describe changes its shape.'

She is including contemporary quotations and illustrations. Some of her references predate any in the OED. 'I learn something new about shoes every day,' said Ms Swann.

'Shoes' by June Swann is published by B T Batsford at pounds 14.95.

(Photograph omitted)

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You are what you wear on your feet: For June Swann, a boot is a clue

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'If June Swann doesn't know what a shoe is, nobody does,' said Jill Spanner at the Museum of London's costume collection. 'She's the world's leading authority on historic shoes.' I first heard of Ms Swann while visiting Erddig, the great, romantic country house in North Wales.

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Abstract

In the wake of modernity, women's sexuality was positioned in a way that created a beauty/narcissism double bind that is still with us today. My concern in this article is that the subject position of "fashion model" serves as a constant reminder of this split, which is directed at all women and weakens the generalized woman's political agency. Fashion models themselves experience harassment and humiliation as well as pleasure and desire in their work as fashion models. However, the small portion of feminist work that has engaged explicitly with the fashion-model business sees it mainly as an enterprise that is alienating and hostile to women. Although I do not entirely disagree with this analysis, it neglects the meaning of beauty and what beauty does to us with regard to creativity and pleasure. I wish to explore how some of the work experience of fashion models intersects with and challenges the beauty/narcissism double bind. I suggest that rather than grounding our understanding of the subject position "fashion model" and the fashion business solely in their reinforcement of the beauty/narcissism double bind, we should pay attention to the importance of what beauty and aspects of narcissism may mean.

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A Dangerous Subject: The Fashion Model and the Beauty/Narcissism Double Bind

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In the wake of modernity, women's sexuality was positioned in a way that created a beauty/narcissism double bind that is still with us today. My concern in this article is that the subject position of "fashion model" serves as a constant reminder of this split, which is directed at all women and weakens the generalized woman's political agency.

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I have a private theory, too. Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue and the most powerful woman - or thing - in fashion, is ageing, too. At the age of 60, she is more than capable of stroking a mirror and saying: "The next big thing is me..."

Even so, this inclusiveness enchants me, even though applauding fashion for being inclusive is like applauding water for being wet - for me, at least, that is its job; because age-equals-beauty makes me ponder my grandmother, who is still the only person I have ever seen who could wear a mink coat and a turban and not look like a heart-broken transvestite. She is my argument that the old can look wonderful and, had you met her, you would realise I need no other. She once wore an armless red satin cheongsam at 70, like the Empress Wu transported to Croydon. Wherever she walked, was a catwalk.

Which brings me to an influential blog called Advanced Style, which has more than a million followers. Its creator, the New York photographer and artist Ari Seth Cohen, 28, strolls around the fashion capitals of the world with a camera, taking pictures of older men and women, and posting them online for his armies of young, fashion-munching devotees. He is the most visible of a gaggle of internet artists who celebrate the beauty of age.

I looked at Advanced Style this morning and found a 98-year-old woman in a grey trouser suit and golden gipsy earrings walking down Madison Avenue with a stick. She looked very cool, as if she was about to hit toddlers. Then came an old man dressed in an orange suit and cowboy boots, laughing and holding a pocket watch, even though I sensed time is not something he cares about. Then there was a woman in a wondrous sort of hat, which looked like a jewelled colander with blue ears. The final woman, in fur and leather breastplate, looked like a follower of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon, but slightly more ruthless.

I stared at the photographs and wondered why these people do not look ridiculous, as very styled people often do. And I decided - it is because they are not models. Models, in one of the many paradoxes of fashion that I note but do not really understand, do not actually look that good in the clothes, because they do not look very human in them. They look neither easy nor joyous. This is partly because looking contemptuous and unreachable is part of the model manifesto - like hostages, models must never smile. It is also because all models, when not on the catwalk, wear T-shirts and shorts. In their heads, it seems, they are always in Ibiza.

Cohen moved to New York from Seattle and one day, he says, he saw a documentary about an actress called Mimi Weddell, who died last year. She was addicted to wearing hats, and her style credentials were so shimmering she even appeared as a homophobic grandmother in Sex and the City. "She was so stylish and elegant in her early nineties," Cohen says. "She had a sense of personal style and freedom."

The word freedom, I sense, is the key. "Older people wear their clothes with confidence because they no longer have anyone to impress," he says. "I see more beauty in them. These pictures are not just images. Each one tells a story." I agree with him. No one, for me, looks more like a woman than an old woman. Cohen's images have appeared in British Grazia, Italian Elle, and on the walls of that temple to the cult of being 16, Selfridges.

So, could it be that fashion is becoming human, even loveable? I speak to Brenda Polan, director of programmes at the London College of Fashion. Why, I ask, is the older woman becoming a style icon? Polan giggles gently and then points out that some designers - Issey Miyake and Vivienne Westwood, for instance - have always sent older women down the catwalk. "In the 1980s, Bodymap used to send their mums on," she says, "usually with a fag hanging out of their mouths."

But mainstream fashion will always worship the young, she says, because it believes that the young are sexy, and sexy sells product. "There is a public relations element to using older models, to bucking the trend," she says. "With Tom Ford's New York Fashion Week show, there was an element of 'Yes, let's grab the headlines'.

"But Ford also really does admire women with character," Polan concedes, "and there are advantages to maturity. It is not just wrinkles and a bit of sag. Your mind gets more interesting and it shows in the face. But fashion needs novelty. So fashion likes gimmicks."

So, is this a proper change, this cult of age? "No," she says, and laughs again. "But it will come around again."

And I laugh, too.

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London Fashion Week: On trend... after a fashion

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I have a private theory, too. Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue and the most powerful woman - or thing - in fashion, is ageing, too. At the age of 60, she is more than capable of stroking a mirror and saying: "The next big thing is me..."

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With her long, platinum-blonde hair, pouting lips, seductive lisp, awe-inspiring 41-inch breasts and 18-inch waist, the young Sabrina was hailed as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.

In her early appearances on TV and film as a classic dumb blonde, she remained exactly that - dumb - rarely uttering a single word.

And yet, she vividly captured the public imagination, swiftly becoming one of the best-known and most popular personalities of the Fifties and Sixties, with a bust famously insured for £100,000.

But Sabrina, whose death aged 80 has just been announced, was also a refreshing realist and the first to admit that she had none of the talent of the iconic sex symbols with whom she was compared.

Many decades later, when asked about her fame, she said: 'It made me a sex symbol, which I'm not. And it made me a household name, like Tide, which I am - a clean girl from the sticks.

'People seem to forget that I was, at one time, the junior breaststroke champion of Manchester.'

Indeed, she was.

Norma Ann Sykes - her real name - was born in a modest terrace house in Heaviley, Stockport, on May 19, 1936, the daughter of a factory mechanic, Walter Sykes, and his wife, Annie, a seamstress.

She proved herself a talented schoolgirl swimmer with ambitions to swim the Channel, and by the age of nine, she was swimming a mile a day at the local YWCA, beating girls of 15.

But her dreams were thwarted when, at 14, she contracted rheumatic fever and polio and spent two years in and out of hospitals. An operation on her leg almost led to amputation, leaving her with a scarred ankle and a dependency on calipers, at times, to walk.

Doctors prescribed exercises to develop her leg muscles during her convalescence, and she would spend hours each day swimming in a heated pool, and then working through body-building sequences. It was to these strenuous workouts that her prodigious bust was attributed.

At the age of 16, and realising that her incredible 41-18-36 figure was her best asset,

Sabrina left Blackpool where her mother was running a hotel and moved to London, where she worked as a waitress and housemaid, before turning to 'glamour modelling', posing nude for pictures used on the backs of playing cards, and for various magazines.

The turning point in her life came in 1955 at the age of 18.

The comedian Arthur Askey, casting around for a gimmick for his BBC television series, Before Your Very Eyes, claimed to have had a nightmare following a late supper of cold roast beef and pickled onions in which the 5ft 2in tall comic saw himself confronted by a pair of huge bosoms.

With the launch of the commercial channel ITV imminent, Askey's producer, Bill Ward, saw the publicity potential of his star's 'vision'.

In these politically correct times, it seems incredible, but a nationwide hunt was launched and thousands of photographs of well-endowed young beauties sent in to the BBC - but none could rival the shot of Norma Sykes sent in by a modelling agent.

Even then, Askey had his doubts. 'She had a lovely face and figure,' he later recalled, 'but could not act, sing, dance, or even walk properly . . . Anyway, she was exactly what we wanted.' Askey and Ward renamed her Sabrina, after the 1954 film Sabrina Fair starring Audrey Hepburn, and an elocution coach was hired to work on eradicating her Lancashire accent.

'You will have to take my word that I did not engage her on the size of her bust,' Askey wrote in his autobiography. 'I knew she was "well built", but had no idea how big she really was until the BBC wardrobe mistress told me she couldn't get Sabrina into a medieval costume on account of her enormous chest. I realised then that I had unknowingly struck "gold in them thar hills"!'

The BBC had also struck gold. The reaction of viewers to her first appearance was so enthusiastic that she was moved centre-stage for the next episode. Within months, she was receiving 1,000 fan letters a week and was hugely in demand for shop openings and personal appearances.

Often, her public activities descended into near-riots. A crowd of 4,000 turned up to watch her opening a shop in Sheffield, for which her fee was £100 - at a time when the average weekly wage was £7.50.

Her clothing was regularly torn off by fans, and everything she did was photographed, including being politely ejected from the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.

She had entered without a ticket and with a plunging cleavage that was deemed 'inappropriate' in front of the Queen and Queen Mother.

After her sensational debut with Askey, she featured in another BBC TV series, Fast And Loose, with Bob Monkhouse and June Whitfield, followed by her first film, Stock Car, in which she had a few lines - although they appeared to have been dubbed by a Cockney actress.

In her second film, Ramsbottom Rides Again (alongside Askey, comedians Sid James and Frankie Vaughan), she uttered barely a word, and in Blue Murder At St Trinian's, in which she shared star billing with Alastair Sim and Terry-Thomas, she was seen in bed with a book and never spoke.

Sabrina then took to the stage in a West End revue, Plaisirs De Paris, billed as 'The Fabulous Sabrina'.

To other West End divas, Sabrina and her assets were less than fabulous. Appearing in an all-star gala, she fell foul of top-of-the-bill singer Dorothy Squires, then married to Roger Moore.

Squires, never one to mince her words, lambasted her, yelling: 'Don't you know anything at all about this f***ing business, you big-titted twit?'

Sabrina's earning power by now was considerable and she was represented by a Svengali-type agent, Joe Matthews, who insured her breasts (she was entitled to £2,500 for every inch of deflation, but Lloyd's of London excluded claims occasioned by civil war, invasion or nationalisation), and bought her a yellow and white Chevrolet with the registration number S41 (her bust measurement).

Matthews also drummed up press interest in her romance with an American film star, Steve Cochran, and speculation about whether she would meet him on his arrival at Heathrow Airport once relegated a mining disaster from the front pages.

She was also romanced by the singer David Whitfield and circus playboy Billy Smart.

In 1958, after being awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Leeds, Sabrina took her cabaret act first to Australia and then headed to Hollywood, where she told a journalist: 'I've got eight minks. They cost me three years' work and I paid for them all myself.'

Known as the 'British Bosom Lady', her film work in America was less than distinguished.

In the 1962 sexploitation movie Satan In High Heels, she sang two songs, but it was refused a licence by the British censors.

This was followed by House Of The Black Death, a farrago about warlocks, witches and a horned Satanist with a cloven hoof, in which she played a blonde belly dancer. It was so dire that its release in the U.S. was delayed by 34 years until 1999.

She appeared in the TV series Tarzan, alongside Broadway legend Ethel Merman, while one of her last films was The Ice House, which had been intended for Jayne Mansfield, but who had meanwhile died in a car accident.

Sabrina had, to some extent, blighted her U.S. career by visiting Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro's new revolutionary government, something for which the American press never forgave her.

In 1967, she gave up on showbusiness and married an affluent LA gynaecologist, Dr Harold Melsheimer. They set up home in a mansion in the exclusive Woodland Hills (where her Doberman Pinscher had its own bedroom and bathroom), and partied with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Dick Van Dyke. Sabrina had her own 40ft yacht and went shopping with Lucille Ball.

When the marriage ended in divorce in 1977, her decline into obscurity, ill-health and hardship began. She moved to a small, shabby house in North Hollywood, where she became a virtual recluse and a paraplegic, ill for long periods as a result of unsuccessful back surgery, for which she sued her surgeon.

In 1990, her elderly mother moved from the UK to care for her, but died five years later.

In recent years, she depended on a live-in lodger. She died, as she had been born, in obscurity - in November 2016 from respiratory failure, but her death has only just been announced.

The unexpected fame of the girl from Stockport did not seem to bring her happiness.

A journalist once described her sitting forlornly at a white baby grand at 3am in her barely furnished apartment near Sunset Boulevard when her career was dwindling.

'You know, when I finally do go back to London, I'm going back big,' she told him. 'I'll make those people who laughed at me laugh on the other side of their faces. For a long time I didn't know what it was I wanted. Now I know . . . Just a little respect. It goes a long way. Respect.'

Sadly, you can't but feel it's the one thing she never achieved.

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Sabrina, Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe

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With her long, platinum-blonde hair, pouting lips, seductive lisp, awe-inspiring 41-inch breasts and 18-inch waist, the young Sabrina was hailed as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. In her early appearances on TV and film as a classic dumb blonde, she remained exactly that - dumb - rarely uttering a single word.

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From Jean-Paul Gaultier corsets to Prada tea dresses, VOGUE.COM charts the many fashion faces of Madonna

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If you've never heard of Maripol, you will definitely have seen her work. The stylist, who also counts herself as a photographer, designer and film producer, was responsible for creating Madonna's look during her bangle-tastic bridesmaid Like a Virgin era. She also influenced the style of Grace Jones, Debbie Harry and Cher, as well as being art director for the Italian fashion brand Fiorucci in the early 1980s.

Now, Dundee Contemporary Arts is showing the first major UK exhibition of her work, from a selection of the thousands of Polaroids that document her life to her fashion designs, including her rubber bracelets and jumpsuits. "It's a very small-scale retrospective," the 60-year-old says from her home in New York, where she moved from her native France in the 1970s. After moving downtown with her boyfriend, the photographer Edo Bertoglio (whom she had moved from Paris to be with), the pair found a run-down loft space and started to throw parties and photograph friends there. Maripol would style them with jewellery she had designed herself because she was unable to find anything she liked. These friends included Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and, of course, Madonna, whom she met on a night out at Roxy - Madonna had admired her bra.

It sounds blissful, a too-good-to-be-true time when a creative couple could have a studio in the centre of a city and hang out with art stars. How does it make her feel that New York and London, once the creative capitals of the world, are now too expensive for young artists? "I am so glad you've brought this up. It makes me mad. Kids today are being pushed further and further from the city - artists are being made to move out of areas they've regenerated."

As someone who has influenced popular culture immensely, but without their own name becoming mainstream, it is clearly a topic close to her heart. So how does she feel now that underground ideas can turn mainstream in a matter of moments? She laughs. "Andy Warhol said that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, but with social media, everyone is famous all of the time. Especially on Instagram!" Is she on it? "I resisted for many years," she sighs, "but my son convinced me to go on it. Then he shouts at me for putting up too many pictures and says that's for Facebook. But I am not going to let anyone dictate what my life is about."

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Grace Jones, photographed in New York, 1985. Photograph: Maripol

Maripol practically invented the selfie, using her Polaroid camera. "I would take Polaroid selfies to express myself: my sorrows, my joys, my sexiness, my love. I didn't scan them for 30 years. No one ever saw them for that long." Most recently, her Polaroids have been referenced on the cover of Taylor Swift's 1989 album, released last year - although Swift used a modern photograph edited to look like a Polaroid. Polaroid film can be hard to find, and although Maripol has her own source, "the colours and the emulsions aren't the same".

Does she still take photographs as actively as ever? "In 2000, I did a series of portraits, maybe 160. They have never been shown. All black and white - I called in my address book. Debbie Harry came back, 20 years after the first time I shot her. People gathered in my studio, people who hadn't seen each other for years. No hair, no makeup, there was just a pile of clothes in case someone needed something."

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Debbie Harry in the loft, 1980. Photograph: Maripol

She is probably best known for working with Madonna, and some say she discovered her. "She wouldn't like that! Let's put it like this: she discovered me," she laughs. "She would come over when she was doing Desperately Seeking Susan and say she didn't like the costumes. I would say: 'You're a singer! You have to look like you.' I insisted she keep her jewellery, the crosses and stuff. That's what she was projecting as an image at that moment." They stopped working together after her Like A Virgin look.

After a brief bankruptcy spell, she started to work with Cher, who had come to her loft to buy some jewellery. She was the art director on the video for Cher's 1995 hit, Walking In Memphis. So which discipline does she prefer - jewellery, styling or photography? "That's such an existential question. I went back to jewellery a few years ago - I like doing things where my intellect meets my hand, something manual. But I love taking Polaroids and I like making films. I made one a few years ago called The Message about Keith Haring - I love going back and interviewing people."

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Taylor Swift's 1989 cover, thought to be influenced by Maripol's work. Photograph: AP

In the 1980s she produced Downtown 81, documenting the downtown scene, and particularly focusing on Basquiat. It was written by Warhol Factory member and founding editor of Interview magazine Glenn O'Brien, and, due to money issues, was only released in 2001. "It's becoming a cult film, you know, so many kids want to know about the generations before them. When I was growing up in the 1970s, I wanted to know about the 1960s. The 1960s were important; they brought the TV into everyone's homes. You had the first music videos, and all these amazing women: Cher, Tina Turner and Diana Ross."

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The Maripolitan gallery store in 1984. Photograph: Maripol

As someone who has inspired and shaped the creative identity of so many women over the past 30 years, how does she feel about today's identikit pop stars? "Everything is homogenised," she complains. "Neighbourhoods, music, styling. Everything is sterilised. That's not what we had. We didn't have fancy fashion houses, Chanel didn't have Karl Lagerfeld, Gucci and Chanel were for rich old women on Madison Avenue. We did with what we had."

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Maripol: 'Did I discover Madonna? She discovered me!'

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If you've never heard of Maripol, you will definitely have seen her work. The stylist, who also counts herself as a photographer, designer and film producer, was responsible for creating Madonna's look during her bangle-tastic bridesmaid Like a Virgin era.

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While the fashion industry continues to introduce us to new styles every season, the industry would not be where it is today without the help of influential fashion icons. Nowadays, celebrities are able to take pictures of their outfit and share it with friends, family, and fans on social media. However, many of the women who invented these iconic styles didn't have the same influential opportunities, so the fact that we still consider them fashion icons means they must have known what they were doing!

Although today's celebrities are criticized for what they wear on the red carpet, to the grocery store, and out to dinner, this wasn't the case for previous generations of stars. Instead, these celebrities whatever they wanted, which is why so many unique trends surfaced during this time. The following 10 fashion icons not only had successful careers, but they also used their keen fashion senses to catapult them into stardom. Here are some of the most influential fashionistas and the trends they made famous:
1. Audrey Hepburn: The Little Black Dress
Some could argue that Audrey Hepburn is the reason for fashion's obsession with the Little Black Dress. Her classic Holly Golightly look from Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of the most iconic 'Old Hollywood' photos out there. The simple Givenchy column gown, 3-strand pearl necklace, large tortoiseshell sunglasses, sleek updo, diamond earrings, and long cigarette holder will forever be known as an Audrey Hepburn-inspired look!
2. Diana Ross: Maximalist
Although Diana Ross' style changed over the course of her career, Motown would not be what it is today without her influence. From extravagant wigs to embellished gowns, Diana shed a positive light on the term 'diva' and blurred the line between costume and everyday wear.
3. Elizabeth Taylor: Queen of Diamonds
Elizabeth Taylor's fashion sense can only be described as fearless. She gave off a hint of glamour everywhere she went with her plunging necklines, fur wraps, feather boas, and eye-catching headpieces that would likely be considered over-the-top next to today's styles. Still, Elizabeth Taylor's love for glitz and glam resonated with her at all times, and her impact on the fashion industry is still evident.
4. Grace Kelly: The Preppy Princess
Grace Kelly's classic, sophisticated style was always impeccable. Her iconic feminine dresses and tailored ensembles made her one of the most influential fashion icons of her time. In fact, Hermès renamed one of their purse designs, the Kelly Bag, after the actress was spotted toting one on numerous occasions.
5. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Chic Simple
Jackie Kennedy grabbed the public's attention with her chic, yet simple fashion sense. From boxy Chanel suits to Halston pillbox hats, she reshaped fashion's view of conservative clothes and left a noteworthy fashion legacy behind.
6. Katharine Hepburn: The First Lady of Menswear
Katharine Hepburn was one of the most idolized actresses of her generation. On-screen, Katharine fashioned her very own personal style that embodied the American look, whereas her off screen wardrobe favored sportswear. Still, the costumes she wore for her movies are what shaped the Hepburn look into what it is today.
7. Lauren Bacall: Princess of Prints
Lauren Bacall's seductiveness in combination with her effortless glamour is what makes her one of fashion's most iconic actresses. From silk blouses, to blazers, to pencil skirts, and even to pleated trousers, Lauren transformed professional attire into a simplistically glamourous style.
8. Madonna: Costume Couture
Madonna is the pop diva of fashion. Although she originally adopted a casual tomboy look in the 80s, she quickly evolved into one of the most influential fashion gurus in the industry. In fact, concerts wouldn't be as extravagant as they are today if it weren't for Madonna's on-stage fashion choices that changed the way people view artists.
9. Marilyn Monroe: Dangerous Curves
Marilyn Monroe introduced sex appeal into the fashion industry. From high waisted bikinis to her classic The Seven Year Itch look, Marilyn paved the way for Hollywood luxurious trends and created a legacy that continues to be impersonated on a regular basis.
10. Twiggy: The Mod Model
Twiggy quickly rose to stardom after being photographed with drawn-on lashes, which was a trend that had yet to be explored. Once she had established herself as an 'it' girl, she became a notable fashion icon known for her daring and trendsetting 60s styles!

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10 Fashion Icons and the Trends They Made Famous

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While the fashion industry continues to introduce us to new styles every season, the industry would not be where it is today without the help of influential fashion icons. Nowadays, celebrities are able to take pictures of their outfit and share it with friends, family, and fans on social media.

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From Jean-Paul Gaultier corsets to Prada tea dresses, VOGUE.COM charts the many fashion faces of Madonna

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Scrapes with capes aside, Madonna - the long-reigning queen of reinvention and image-driven pop - has a well-documented history of stealing the limelight, as somebody who's always had an innate understanding of the marketing power of character dressing. No-one who grew up in the '80s can have failed to observe the atomic impact each new incarnation had on youth culture, as the singer's attire (and attitude) fearlessly challenged long-held conventions regarding sexuality, gender, religion and, of late, age-appropriateness.

As a child, Madonna wanted to be either a film star or a nun when she grew up. She's extensively explored both roles through clothes ever since, with both Marilyn Monroe and Catholic iconography being key inspirations behind her expansive back catalogue of looks, from 1950s glamour girl (Material Girl) to penitent sinner (Like a Prayer) and spiritual entity (Ray of Light). The most defining image of her career arguably remains the wedding dress worn on the cover of second album Like a Virgin, with its white bustier, long lace gloves, crucifix jewellery and Boy Toy belt. Madonna's long-time personal stylist, Arianne Phillips, described the bright-white bridal juxtaposition as "one of the most shocking, liberating and influential moments in pop culture/fashion history", adding that "fashion has never been the same".

Madonna Louise Ciccone saw clothes as a tool of rebellion from early on. The impact of losing her mother to breast cancer when she was only five years old is well-known; in an interview with Vanity Fair she once described her younger self as a "lonely girl who was searching for something". In Madonna: A Biography, author Mary Cross describes how the eldest daughter in a brood of eight refused to wear the identical outfits in which housekeeper-turned-stepmother Joan Gustafson liked to dress the Ciccone girls, so she "deliberately wore mismatched socks and clothes". Of her teenage phase, she insists "I wasn't rebellious in a certain way. I cared about being good at something. I didn't shave my underarms and I didn't wear make-up like normal girls do. But I studied and I got good grades... I wanted to be somebody." As a dance major at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in the 1970s, the Bay City native showed up for class wearing torn tights held together with safety pins and "cultivated that deliberate déshabillé look", according to Cross.

Combining crop-tops, mini-skirts over Capri pants, punk-rock studded cuffs and belts with fishnets, the young Madonna formulated a street-meets-flea market vibe with now iconic, then edgy accessories like lace gloves, tangles of pearls and rosary beads, stacked rubber bracelets and crucifix jewellery by cult NYC-based French designer, stylist and artist Maripol. (In an interview with The New York Times, the singer's publicist Liz Rosenberg recalled Madonna first walking into her office in 1983, an unknown singer and 'dance artist' from the Lower East Side club scene who'd been signed by Warner Brothers for two singles, in "a black outfit with a hundred rubber bracelets on each wrist".) Crowning the deceptively complex look were ribbons tied in roughly bleached blonde hair and strong make-up: bushy eyebrows, heavily defined eyes, a Marilyn-style beauty mark and a bold lip shade.
Agent provocateur
When it comes to her image, Madonna has always been well supported, with fellow provocateur Jean Paul Gaultier the brains behind the bras on her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour. "The quintessential rock star-fashion designer relationship is Madonna and Jean Paul Gaultier... a mutually beneficial connection, I think they understood each other brilliantly," said Tim Blanks, Editor at Large of Style.com, in a video about the singer's turn on Gaultier's Spring 1995 catwalk, pushing a puppy in a pram. "He gave her a look which people will always associate with her and she gave him a profile which he's never ever lost. When you think about the '90s, Madonna in her Gaultier cone bra is one of the most unforgettable images of the entire decade." Gaultier was also behind the Memoirs of a Geisha-inspired kimono costumes featured in the Nothing Really Matters video and Drowned World tour, and worn by the singer at the 1999 Grammys, where Ray of Light won four awards.

Red-carpet theatrics are a popular sport for Madonna, who likes to part the sea of ubiquitous mermaid gowns with attention-grabbing ensembles. She wore a sari with bare feet to collect the first ever Versace Award at the VH1 Fashion Awards in 1998. "She's outrageous, she's provocative, she's inscrutable and over the years we've all been witness to her evolution from street-smart kid sister to virgin bride, from a sex goddess to yogini," said Sting, who co-presented the award with Donatella Versace. "Her mind is as celebrated as her body, she's as feared as she is desired. She leads while others follow." The most recent Grammy Awards saw her sporting thigh boots and a matador-inspired Givenchy Couture bodysuit, cheekily flipping its jet-encrusted skirt to bare her fishnetted derriere to the paps. "Be perfectly content to be who you are, someone unique and rare and fearless," she announced before her performance of new single Living For Love.
Rebel heart
Despite now being in her sixth decade, the provocateur queen of pop - whose latest album, Rebel Heart, is released this month, its cover showing Madonna's face lashed with S&M-style black cords - hasn't kicked her habit of exposing body parts. She first posed nude as an unknown, then in her all-star Sex book and on Gaultier's catwalk in 1992. The button-pushing performer showed a nipple during a concert in Istanbul on her 2012 MDNA world tour, days later flashing her bottom at a concert in Rome. Commentators have thus become more concerned with the age-appropriateness of her actions and garb than any political correctness. "She looks like she's done 10th grade 48 times," quipped the late Joan Rivers apropos her cheerleader-style Super Bowl half-time show outfit on a 2012 episode of Fashion Police. "(Her ever-youthful style has always been fodder for comics, with Jennifer Saunders notably spoofing the singer's Hung Up combination of retro leotard and Farrah Fawcett hair flicks.)

"Is there a rule? Are people just supposed to die when they're 40?" she asked in a 1992 interview with Jonathan Ross at the tender age of 34. In a recent Q&A with Rolling Stone, for whose cover she struck a Marilyn pin-up pose, she takes on ageism in pop culture and beyond. "It's still the one area where you can totally discriminate against somebody," she notes. "[Regarding] my age - anybody and everybody would say something degrading to me. And I always think to myself, why is that accepted? What's the difference between that and racism, or any discrimination? They're judging me by my age. I don't understand. I'm trying to get my head around it. Because women, generally, when they reach a certain age, have accepted that they're not allowed to behave a certain way. But I don't follow the rules. I never did, and I'm not going to start."

"When I did my Sex book, it wasn't the average," she adds. "When I performed Like a Virgin on the MTV Awards and my dress went up and my ass was showing, it was considered a total scandal. It was never the average, and now it's the average. When I did Truth or Dare [aka In Bed with Madonna] and the cameras followed me around, it was not the average. So if I have to be the person who opens the door for women to believe and understand and embrace the idea that they can be sexual and look good and be as relevant in their fifties or their sixties or whatever as they were in their twenties, then so be it."

Yet for all her own rule-flouting, she's surprisingly conservative when it comes to her elder daughter's outfits. "I always have two reactions when Lola comes into my room with an outfit on. One is, 'Oh my god, she looks amazing, what incredible style' and then my second reaction is, 'She's dressed completely inappropriately for school'," she said during a presentation of her Material Girl line for Macy's. "I have to think with two brains. I usually tell her to take off her three-inch or six-inch platforms and pull her skirt down just a little bit, and take off some of the black eye make-up from around her eyes... I am the typical mother where I say, 'Oh my god, you can't go to school dressed like that'."

But Lola (born Lourdes in 1996) gives as good as she gets. During a Rebel Heart special, Madonna tells Jonathan Ross that "If no-one's around she will definitely give me the once over and say, 'Oh, mum, you are not leaving the house like that!'" And as for the Grammy flash? "She did take a picture of my butt sticking out and sent it back to me and said, 'Mom, really?' and I said 'It was a wardrobe malfunction. I swear'." It wasn't her first and it's hard to believe it'll be her last.
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Scrapes with capes aside, Madonna - the long-reigning queen of reinvention and image-driven pop - has a well-documented history of stealing the limelight, as somebody who's always had an innate understanding of the marketing power of character dressing.

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She is pushing sixty.

But Madonna still knows how to rock lingerie, as she proved once again on Friday.

The singer shared a series of raunchy shots on Instagram to promote her new skincare line.

'If Friday is giving you a headache... massage temples with leather gloves!' she joked of one close-up shot of her doing just that.

'Then put on your favorite lingerie... and indulge yourself with my luxurious new skin care line @mdnaskin,' she captioned a sexy second snap, as she reclined on a couch in leather lingerie and suspenders.

In a third pic, she slipped into a corset and lacy briefs, donning a veil to pose beside a crucified Jesus.

'And don't forget to say your prayers!' she added.

The Like A Virgin singer is enjoying being a new European, having moved to Portugal over the summer.

The mom-of-six upped sticks made the decision to up sticks after her 12-year-old son David Banda, who she adopted from Malawi in 2006, joined the Benfica club team.

The soccer mom bought a house in Sintra for $8million, which she then had renovated.

As David she raises daughter Lourdes, 20, with ex Carlos Leon, 51, son Rocco, 17, with ex-husband Guy Ritchie, 49, and daughter Mercy, 11, who she also adopted from Malawi.

In March, the singer confirmed she had adopted another two children from Malawi, twins Stella and Esther, five.

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Madonna, 59, dons lingerie to hawk her new skincare line

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She is pushing sixty. But Madonna still knows how to rock lingerie, as she proved once again on Friday. The singer shared a series of raunchy shots on Instagram to promote her new skincare line. 'If Friday is giving you a headache... massage temples with leather gloves!'

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When Joan Collins was 21, Marilyn Monroe poured out a cautionary tale of sexual harassment she and other actresses endured from 'the wolves in this town'

Just days after Marilyn's warning, the actress was propositioned by Darryl Zanuck, the vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox

The meteoric descent of Harvey Weinstein has brought back memories for her

Shortly after arriving in Hollywood aged 21, under contract to 20th Century Fox, I attended a party at Gene Kelly's house.

The star of An American In Paris and Singin' In The Rain hosted a weekly gathering for an eclectic group of movie industry power-brokers, A-list actors and actresses, intellectuals and his friends. It was where I first met Marilyn Monroe.

At first I didn't recognise the blonde sitting alone at the bar until she turned to me and said rather ruefully: 'They wanted me for the lead in Red Velvet Swing, but I'm too old.'

The part of Evelyn Nesbit in The Girl In The Red Velvet Swing was one of my first lead roles in Hollywood, but I knew it had originally been intended for Monroe.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that the woman in front of me was the legendary figure herself.

We started chatting and after a couple of martinis, Marilyn poured out a cautionary tale of sexual harassment she and other actresses endured from 'the wolves in this town'.

I replied that I was well used to 'wolves' after a few years in the British film industry.

As a 17-year-old straight out of RADA and playing my first leading role, I'd experienced a torrent of sexual harassment and the kind of behaviour that today is classed as abuse.

When I confided in an older actress on set at Ealing Studios, she told me to 'like it or get out of the business'.

'That's the way it is. I know they didn't teach you about it at drama school but you'll just have to put up with it, I'm afraid . . .'

I decided it definitely wasn't something I'd put up with. I told Marilyn I was well prepared to deal with men patting my bottom, leering down my cleavage and whatever else.

She shook her head. 'There's nothing like the power of the studio bosses here, honey. If they don't get what they want, they'll drop you. It's happened to lots of gals.

'Specially watch out for Zanuck. If he doesn't get what he wants, honey, he'll drop your contract.'

It was a timely warning, because days later, Darryl Zanuck, vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox, pounced.

Breathing cigar fumes over me, he hissed: 'You haven't had anyone until you've had me, baby. I'm the biggest and the best and I can go all night.' I was so shocked I couldn't speak, so I just wriggled free of his groping hands and ran back to the set.

Later, I was glad that I'd said nothing. I heard that a starlet he'd tried to seduce had recently been fired because when he began his spiel with: 'Baby, I'm the biggest in the business . . .' etc, she'd fired back saying: 'You better be, honey, 'cause you're only five foot-two!'

And I can confirm that it wasn't just the stuff of legend that he had a golden replica of his manhood on his desk as a paperweight. I saw it - ugh!

Now the events of the past week - the meteoric descent of Harvey Weinstein from the pinnacle of power in Tinseltown to his humiliating exile into rehab for his so-called 'sex addiction' - has brought back these memories.

Then, as now, a conspiracy of silence hung over the casting couch, and the bullying and sexual assaults young actresses were routinely subjected to. Speak out and your career was often over before it had begun.

My first encounter with the casting couch was in the early Fifties.

I had been signed by the Rank Organisation and was testing for a juvenile lead role in a film called I Believe In You.

I dodged one producer's advances by hiding in a wardrobe in the costume department, helped by sympathetic dressers, and waiting until he left the studio before taking the bus and Tube home. But after my third test he trapped me and persuaded me to get a lift home in his flashy car.

On the way, he grabbed my hand and put it on his open fly. I screamed in horror and yanked my hand away. I'd never seen a naked man before, let alone touched one.

'What's the matter? Don't you want the part?' he leered.

'Not this much,' I said, then burst into tears as I realised I'd ruined my chances. Luckily, he was overruled by the director, so I got the role despite the threats.

However, he continued to pursue me, and when I told him I wasn't interested and was still a virgin, he called me a 'frigid little b****'.

And when I went to the U.S. I discovered that it was just as Marilyn had warned me.

Hollywood studio bosses considered it their due to b*** all the good-looking women who came their way and were notorious for it. Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures, for example, had no qualms about firing any starlet who rejected him. He was totally amoral.

When his leading contractee, Kim Novak, had an affair with Sammy Davis Jr. - who had recently lost an eye in a car crash - Cohn threatened to have 'the other eye taken out' if he didn't stop seeing her. Cohn was so powerful that Sammy did stop and hurriedly married someone else.

At Warner Brothers, the president of the studios, Jack Warner, fancied himself an attractive bon vivant. A snappy dresser and massive flirt, he threw glittering parties where one night he propositioned me, openly bragging about his conquests, which seemed to include every actress on the Warner lot and many from MGM, too. He was amazed when I didn't submit.

When I was in New York, my agent secured me an interview with a famous producer for a role I really wanted.

I dutifully went to his office at 6pm, and as I arrived, his secretary was just leaving. 'He's in there,' she pointed to a back room. 'He's waiting for you.'

I found myself in a bedroom, then a voice called: 'Come on in,' from another room. I walked in and there he was in the bath without even bubbles to cover his embarrassment - with which he was tinkering. 'Sit down,' he commanded, gesturing to the end of the bath.

'Oh, I'm OK, I'll stand,' I replied.

'Come on in,' he grinned. 'The water's fine.'

'Oh, ah, no thanks,' I replied weakly. I tried not to shudder and tried not to notice what he was doing to himself.

After a few minutes' chat about the role, which I argued was right for me as she was an English girl, he agreed I would be perfect.

Then he again insisted I share his bath. 'I must go - I've got a date with my boyfriend,' I stammered, aware there was no way I'd get the part now. 'Who's your boyfriend?' he asked.

'You wouldn't know him. He's a young actor - Warren Beatty.'

'What are you doing wasting your time with unknown actors for?' he said irritably.

'I'm an important man, we can have some fun. By the way, how old are you?' 'Twenty-five,' I muttered. 'Twenty-five, huh? That's not young in this business any more, sweetie.' I stared at his ugly 55-year-old face, turned and left.

He called after me: 'You won't get much further in this business, kid, if you're going to be so high-hat!'

Another role I coveted was that of Cleopatra. The head of 20th Century Fox at the time, Buddy Adler, and the chairman of the board - a Greek gentleman old enough to be my grandfather - bombarded me with propositions and promises that the role was mine if I would be 'nice' to them.

It was a euphemism prevalent in Hollywood. I couldn't and I wouldn't - the very thought of these old men was utterly repugnant. So, I dodged and I dived, and hid from them around the lot and made excuses while undergoing endless screen tests for the role of Egypt's Queen.

At one point, Mr Adler told me at a party that I would have 'the pick of the scripts' after Cleopatra and he would set me up in an apartment he would pay for as long as he could come to visit me three or four times a week.

Running out of excuses, I blurted out: 'Mr Adler, I came here with my agent, Jay Kanter. Why don't we discuss the deal with him?'

'Honey, you have quite a sense of humour,' he spluttered.

'And a sense of humour is all you'll ever get from me,' I murmured as I left. In due course, Elizabeth Taylor got the role.

But it wasn't just studio bosses and producers who were predatory. Many actors I worked with considered it their divine right to have sex with their leading lady.

During my early days in Hollywood, I repeatedly said 'no' to the handsome, if short, Irish-born actor Richard Todd.

One night he followed my car and when I stopped at the studio exit gate, he shouted at the top of his lungs: 'You stupid cow - you'll be washed up by the time you're 23!" I ignored him. I was under contract and on a good salary, so I felt reasonably safe until I hit 27 - widely deemed by studio bosses to be the age when women lost their sexual attraction.

Richard Burton was another actor with designs on his female co-stars. While on location in Jamaica together for the 1957 film Sea Wife, Richard told me that if I didn't go to bed with him, I would 'break his record'.

"What's that?" I asked.

'I've slept with all my leading ladies,' he bragged.

'Well, I'm not going to be another notch on your well-punched belt, so I guess I'm going to break your record!' He barely spoke to me for the rest of filming.

George Peppard, who had starred with Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany's, dished out similar treatment. In 1969 we were making the spy thriller, The Executioner, and after attending a party to celebrate the start of filming he offered to drop me home - then tried to grab me at my front door.

When I pushed him away, telling him I was married and had two small children, he accused me of being 'totally square'.

Like Burton before him, he didn't speak to me for the rest of the movie, and since I had to do a couple of topless scenes with him, it was embarrassing to say the least.

Another actor whose ego out-paced his talent was Gene Barry, who had starred in The War Of The Worlds. In one kissing scene, he tried the old tongue routine, which I wouldn't permit.

'Are you frigid?' he hissed.

It wasn't the first time I had been called that by men who thought that because they were rich and powerful, women were just their playthings. I've also been called a c**k-teaser, a shameless flirt and a cold, heartless b****.

Anyone naive enough to believe the era of the casting couch had been consigned to history will have been shocked by the Weinstein scandal and the predatory institutional sexism of Hollywood power brokers it has revealed.

But it's not just the film industry that's been complicit in sanctioning this appalling behaviour, and it's not just actresses subjected to it. It may occur in any business dominated by powerful, ruthless and misogynistic men, and it's women (sometimes men) in subservient positions who are unfortunate enough to have to deal with them.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As my late sister, Jackie, a Hollywood observer and insider, once said: 'Most men in this town have their brains in their d***s.'

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Joan Collins: Why I lost my part as Cleopatra to Liz Taylor

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When Joan Collins was 21, Marilyn Monroe poured out a cautionary tale of sexual harassment she and other actresses endured from 'the wolves in this town' Just days after Marilyn's warning, the actress was propositioned by Darryl Zanuck, the vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox The meteoric descent of Harvey Weinstein has brought back memories for her Shortly after arriving in Hollywood aged 21, under contract to 20th Century Fox, I attended a party at Gene Kelly's house.

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David Abraham - who earns almost £1m a year - remarked on presenter's shoes

Miss Newman, 43, shot back that her footwear came from Zara and cost £19.99

Staff who attended the meeting accused chief executive Mr Abraham of sexism

The boss of Channel 4 told news anchor Cathy Newman she must be paid well - because she had nice shoes.

As part of a discussion that included the gender pay gap, David Abraham - who earns almost £1million a year - told the presenter: 'Look at the shoes, they're not cheap.'

Miss Newman, 43, shot back that her footwear came from the high street fashion retailer Zara. Her elegant four-inch heels, in petrol blue velvet, cost just £19.99.

Staff who attended the meeting later accused chief executive Mr Abraham of sexism - especially at a time when the TV industry's yawning gender pay gap has become such a contentious issue.

A source said: 'It's totally inappropriate. Channel 4 goes on about boosting diversity, but then he goes and does something like that. It makes it sound like women only need money for fripperies.'

Mr Abraham's remarks were particularly tactless given he is paid so much himself, insiders added.

The 54-year-old has one of the biggest pay packets in the public sector - including a £256,000 bonus in 2016, on top of his £560,000 salary and £140,000 in pension contributions.

At that rate, he earned twice the amount the boss of the BBC took home, and more than six times the salary of the prime minister.

The incident took place in front of Channel 4 staff during a 45-minute 'exit interview' between Miss Newman and Mr Abraham, who is leaving the broadcaster next month.

When Miss Newman asked him whether Channel 4 had been right to pay a reported £75million for three series of The Great British Bake Off, Mr Abraham defended the move - saying the financial rewards from the hit baking series would help 'to pay for Channel 4 News'. Miss Newman responded: 'Very well spent. That's worth every penny.'

At that point, Mr Abraham indicated that the audience should look at Miss Newman's footwear, saying: 'And look at the shoes. They're not cheap.'

Later in the session, she asked Mr Abraham to reveal Channel 4's gender pay gap.

The Channel 4 boss declined to do so until next year, when the broadcaster will be forced to do so along with all large companies.

The figure is unlikely to be flattering. Channel 4 has a higher proportion of female staff than any other major British broadcaster - with women accounting for 59 per cent of the workforce.

However, they tend to occupy lower-paid positions. Just 36 per cent of Channel 4's senior executives are women, putting the organisation behind the BBC, ITV and Channel 5's owner Viacom. Only Sky's record is poorer.

But Channel 4's numbers will get a boost next year by the appointment of Alex Mahon, who is set to replace Mr Abraham as chief executive next month. She is expected to get a similar pay package to Mr Abraham's.

Mr Abraham - who used to work in advertising - is leaving to set up a new, undisclosed company of his own. A Channel 4 spokesman said last night: 'This was a clearly light-hearted exchange.'

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Katherine Rushton, Media And Technology Editor For The Daily Mail

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Cathy Newman and a sexism row over her £19.99 Zara heels

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David Abraham - who earns almost £1m a year - remarked on presenter's shoes Miss Newman, 43, shot back that her footwear came from Zara and cost £19.99 Staff who attended the meeting accused chief executive Mr Abraham of sexism The boss of Channel 4 told news anchor Cathy Newman she must be paid well - because she had nice shoes.

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Nick is Associate Style Editor of British GQ

When it comes to clothing, there's a fundamental difference between "fashion" and "style" - and the key to dressing in your 40s is to favour the latter. In short, it's time to finesse everything you've learned over the past two decades (and filter out some of the more questionable purchases).

What's important this decade to to pay real attention to fit. Unless you're hitting the gym every day, you're probably going to have to relax your fits slightly from those drainpipe shapes you wore in your 20s and 30s. That said, don't immediately assume a bigger size is what's necessary (remember how good Steve Carrell's baggy, 40-something character looked when Ryan Gosling's character dressed him up right in Crazy Stupid Love?). There's no need to go overboard when you go shopping; simply make it your default to go to straight leg jeans instead of the slim ones - and for god's sake don't buy stonewash rinses.

Also make sure you really invest in the details this decade. As your style settles down and you find yourself wearing more of a uniform both causally and professionally, it's your accessories that will really add personality. Choose a palette of colours that work for you and keep it in mind when you're shopping.

And while you might not be able to bust out the full-on print shirts without looking a little try-hard, don't be afraid of deploying patterns in small bursts with your ties, pocket squares and scarves. Also think of the accessories you might have had little need to spend money on in younger years: really good leather gloves, a selection of smart hats, jewellery, and matching luggage that doesn't fall apart when it gets thrown in the hold.

Finally, if you haven't done so yet, now's the time to start that watch collection.

You've spent your 30s getting to where you are; this new decade is all about celebrating that success - and what better place to start than with your wardrobe? Here's GQ's pointers for how to dress in your 40s...
Read all our guides on how to dress your age (at any age).
Well-dressed British men in their 40s

Idris Elba, 42

Daniel Craig, 47

Patrick Grant, 43

Jude Law, 42

David Beckham, 40

How to dress in your 40s: 5 golden rules
1) Edit (and upgrade) your wardrobe
You have spent 20 years building up a solid armoury of attire, so it's understandable if some of those items have fallen out of regular rotation. If you haven't worn something for a few years, give it to a charity shop. If you find you wear one item a lot, perhaps invest in a couple of alternatives for it so it gets a rest once in a while. And take stock of any gaps that might need plugging. Also take the opportunity to upgrade not only the items in your wardrobe, but also the wardrobe itself. Buy a wardrobe that's big enough to store all your things so they don't crumple up against each other and, if you haven't done so already, invest in wooden coat hangers, fabric suit bags and plastic boxes for your shoes ( Muji make very good ones).
2) Don't assume you need a bigger size (but DO adjust your fits)
You're not 20 anymore (thank God), so chances are those clothes you used to wear when you were 20 are not appropriate any longer.

However, don't assume that means you should start going for the next size up! Usually this will only mean that the seams of your suits need letting out ever so slightly (a minor alteration that can make all the difference), or that you need to choose a straight leg selvedge rather than a slim fit (no bootcut, please).
3) Approach sportswear with caution
Sportswear is dominating menswear right now - and while injecting a dose of it into your wardrobe can freshen up your downtime attire, investing in this look too heavily in your 40s can end up giving off a bit of a PE teacher vibe. If you want to do it right, eschew the baseball hats and backpacks and invest in cool designer trainers from the likes of Valentino, Lanvin or Mr Hare in pared-down colours, worn with a loopback or cashmere jumper and indigo jeans on the weekend.
4) Perfect your wrist action
You might have one or two watches in your repertoire, but now's the time to take it to the next level. If you haven't done so already, your 40th birthday is a great time to treat yourself to your first high-end watch - and by that we mean the sort that you can pass down to your son one day (see some superb examples in the GQ Watch Guide 2015). Also invest in jewellery that complements it, whatever you're into - whether that be a ring or a small stack of bracelets that you can wear on your downtime which feature subtle stones or highly-polished beads and metals.
5) Settle on your haircut
No more mohawks - the days of experimenting are behind you. When it comes to your haircut, decide on what works best for your hair type and face shape, and find a barber who gets it right every time. That's one less thing to worry about.

Style Shrink says...

"You no longer need to be adventurous and now is the time to look the same every day, not different, so pick a colour that works for you and stick to it." Robert Johnston,GQ Style Director

Items you should buy in your 40s
Formal trousers
You've spent most of your life so far in jeans, and while we're not suggesting phrasing them out of your wardrobe completely, it's worth investing in some grown-up alternatives. While corduroy is a young man's material these days (in your 40s it can get a bit GCSE Geography teacher), get a wide array of trim chinos in your repertoire. Beige and navy blue are great starter colours, but it's also worth investing in a couple of colours that will match nicely with a blue blazer or grey jumper on the weekend, such as dark red or forest green.

GQ recommends:

A true man of the world looks on-point whatever mode of transport he's taking - and a key starting point for this is getting your luggage game up to scratch. It's time to finally get rid of that beaten-up bag you bought on your gap year, find a quality luggage-maker that produces a shape you like and invest in a slick set that looks just as good together as it does apart. A good start would be a wheelie, cabin-sized carry-on, a larger suitcase for a week away and a smart tote bag for hand luggage. Extras include a leather suit-carrier or a mid-size wheeled weekend bag.

GQ recommends:

If your 40s are about celebrating your success in the workplace, why not buy yourself something that you can wear there? When it comes to suiting, Savile Row is the pinnacle in bespoke tailoring - and you'll never have a suit that fits you better every time you slip it on (or gets you more compliments). Plus you've got a tailor for life, should you need any adjustments over the coming years.

GQ recommends:

You could get away with heavily-logoed boxer shorts in your 20s, but now it's time to upgrade your after-hours attire. If you're more traditional go for matching pyjamas, or for something sleeker buy yourself a selection of soft, white T-shirts in both long and short sleeves and wear with light lounge trousers or thigh-length shorts. And make sure you have a decent dressing gown for the morning after (one in towelling or jersey for the winter and one in cotton for the summer).

GQ recommends:

Workout gear that actually looks good

Those rugby socks and ripped T-shirts are no longer acceptable in your 40s. Whatever sporting activity you're into, look good doing it with an army of separates that match - as well as fresh trainers and compression garments that encourage blood flow. Also, if you tend to spend time in the gym, invest in your headphones - your session is gruelling enough without poor sound quality compounding it.

GQ recommends:

You already started using your anti-ageing moisturiser in your 30s, now's the time to throw an eye cream into your grooming routine to ensure any bags or crows feet don't take root. A helpful hint if you're new to eye cream: dab it on until it is absorbed, don't rub it in like you would with a moisturiser.
Read the GQ guide to how to dress your age in your 20s. Read the GQ guide to how to dress your age in your 30s.
[i]Read the GQ guide to how to dress your age in your 50s.[/i]

[i][i][i][i][i]Read the GQ guide to how to dress your age in your 60s and beyond.[/i][/i][/i]

[/i][/i]

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Nick is Associate Style Editor of British GQ When it comes to clothing, there's a fundamental difference between "fashion" and "style" - and the key to dressing in your 40s is to favour the latter. In short, it's time to finesse everything you've learned over the past two decades (and filter out some of the more questionable purchases).

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Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were the power political couple of the 1980s.

He was a skilled communicator and a celebrity, she was strong-willed and shared his disdain for big government.

Now a similar pairing is emerging three decades later in President Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May, who are sdcheduled to meet at the White House on Friday.

Read more: Holyrood will have vote on Great Repeal Bill for Brexit, says Mundell

Mrs May arrives in Washington as the first foreign leader to meet Trump as president. Before their sitdown, she will have the rare privilege of addressing congressional Republicans in Philadelphia on Thursday.

The two leaders are expected to discuss terrorism, ending Syria's civil war, relations with Russia, NATO cooperation and a bilateral trade deal once the United Kingdomleaves the European Union, probably by 2019. Trade between the two countries is worth about $187 billion (£148bn), and the United States is the largest single investor in the U.K.

For the British Government, the symbolism of the visit matters more than the substance because of the UK's long-standing "special relationship" with its former colony.

Trump spoke to nine other world leaders in the 24-hours after his election before conversing with May. The trip helps put to rest concerns within Mrs May's Conservative Party that former Ukip leader Nigel Farage could get in the way of a strong relationship between the Prime Minister and Trump.

Read more: Labour tell Nicola Sturgeon: end the games on independence

Trump had suggested shortly after his election that the anti-establishment, anti-immigration Farage should become Britain's US ambassador, an idea quickly rejected by Mrs May.

More recently, Trump and Mrs May have vowed to revive the closeness of their countries during the Reagan-Thatcher years.

"We have always had a strong relationship with the United States, but under the last president (Barack Obama) there's been a sense over here that it wasn't as strong as it could be," said Iain Duncan Smith.

"Obama appeared to spend the first four years in office forging relationships with everyone else. Now we have an opportunity to reinstate what we once had," he added.

Read more: Theresa May trying to 'muzzle' MPs by rushing Brexit Bill through Commons, says Labour MP

Reagan and Thatcher were ideologically and personally closer than any U.S. and British leaders since Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during the Second World War.

They were free-market, anti-Communist skeptics of government bureaucracies with good chemistry when dealing with the issues ranging from the Soviet Union to Northern Ireland.

Anthony Scaramucci, a senior adviser to Trump, said he expected the president and Mrs May to "get along very well."

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Are Donald Trump and Theresa May the 2017 version of 80s power couple Reagan and Thatcher?

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Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were the power political couple of the 1980s. He was a skilled communicator and a celebrity, she was strong-willed and shared his disdain for big government. Now a similar pairing is emerging three decades later in President Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May, who are sdcheduled to meet at the White House on Friday.

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architecture & photography / photography

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photography / subjects & themes / portraits & selfies

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photography / individual photographers / monographs

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photography/subjects & themes - portraits & selfies

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Taken in the streets, clubs, basements and bars of London between 1978 and 1987, this new book brings together an incredible series of images from the British photographer Derek Ridgers. People dressing up and going out have always been central to Derek's work from the first days of punk through ...

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the bag i'm in: underground music and fashion in britain 1960-1990

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social science/popular culture - general

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The Bag I'm In: Underground Music and Fashion in Britain 1960-1990

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Youth subculture in 20th Century Britain is a unique phenomenon. Throughout the decades, young people sought to define themselves sartorially, reflecting their identity in terms of regionalism, class and crucially, musical taste, through their clothes. This book is a comprehensive survey of over ...

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untypical girls: a visual survey of women in independent rock

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social science / feminism & feminist theory

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social science/feminism & feminist theory

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social science/popular culture - general

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Untypical Girls: A visual survey of women in independent rock

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Buy Untypical Girls: A visual survey of women in independent rock by Sam Knee (ISBN: 9781908714459) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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To anyone who started out in politics supporting Margaret Thatcher against irresponsible union leaders, Russian aggression and a Labour leader barely distinguishable from a Marxist, the end of 2016 has a horribly familiar feel to it. It would not have been remotely surprising to wake up in 1981 to the news that rail workers were on yet another strike, Moscow was backing parties friendly to it in a French election, and that the Leader of the Opposition believed we should do away with our nuclear deterrent.

Growing up in South Yorkshire, I remember well the nakedly political purpose behind Arthur Scargill's manoeuvres. In the absence of much hope for the election of a Labour government, the talk in the local pubs was of how the power of the miners would halt the Thatcher government in its tracks. The comments of the president of the RMT, reported at the weekend, that his union's objective...

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Just like in the 1980s, Theresa May faces chaos from militant unions. And just like Margaret Thatcher, she must not flinch

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To anyone who started out in politics supporting Margaret Thatcher against irresponsible union leaders, Russian aggression and a Labour leader barely distinguishable from a Marxist, the end of 2016 has a horribly familiar feel to it.

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Theresa May: A Political Life In Pictures

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In the week that the prime minister appears on television with Jeremy Paxman for the live debate, we chart the political life of Theresa May in pictures.

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SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

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Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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The old advice to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, may have roots in more than simply how others perceive you-many studies show that the clothes you wear can affect your mental and physical performance. Although such findings about so-called enclothed cognition are mostly from small studies in the laboratory that have not yet been replicated or investigated in the real world, a growing body of research suggests that there is something biological happening when we put on a snazzy outfit and feel like a new person.

If you want to be a big-ideas person at work, suit up. A paper in August 2015 in Social Psychological and Personality Science asked subjects to change into formal or casual clothing before cognitive tests. Wearing formal business attire increased abstract thinking-an important aspect of creativity and long-term strategizing. The experiments suggest the effect is related to feelings of power.

Informal clothing may hurt in negotiations. In a study reported in December 2014 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, male subjects wore their usual duds or were placed in a suit or in sweats. Then they engaged in a game that involved negotiating with a partner. Those who dressed up obtained more profitable deals than the other two groups, and those who dressed down had lower testosterone levels.

For better focus, get decked out like a doctor. In research published in July 2012 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, subjects made half as many mistakes on an attention-demanding task when wearing a white lab coat. On another attention task, those told their lab coat was a doctor's coat performed better than either those who were told it was a painter's smock or those who merely saw a doctor's coat on display. - Matthew Hutson

Inspired by findings that winning combat fighters in the 2004 Olympics had worn red more often than blue, researchers investigated the physiological effects of wearing these colors. As reported in February 2013 in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, they paired 28 male athletes of similar age and size, who competed against one another once while wearing a red jersey and again while wearing blue. Compared with fighters in blue, those wearing red were able to lift a heavier weight before the match and had higher heart rates during the match-but they were not more likely to be victorious. - Tori Rodriguez

Trying too hard to look sharp can backfire. When women donned expensive sunglasses and were told the specs were counterfeit, as opposed to when they thought they were real, they cheated more often on lab experiments with cash payouts. Fake sunglasses also seemed to make women see others' behavior as suspect. Authors of the study, published in May 2010 in Psychological Science, theorize that counterfeit glasses increase unethical behavior by making their wearers feel less authentic. - M.H.

The Red Sneakers Effect

It's not news to anyone that we judge others based on their clothes. In general, studies that investigate these judgments find that people prefer clothing that matches expectations-surgeons in scrubs, little boys in blue-with one notable exception. A series of studies published in an article in June 2014 in the Journal of Consumer Research explored observers' reactions to people who broke established norms only slightly. In one scenario, a man at a black-tie affair was viewed as having higher status and competence when wearing a red bow tie. The researchers also found that valuing uniqueness increased audience members' ratings of the status and competence of a professor who wore red Converse sneakers while giving a lecture.

The results suggest that people judge these slight deviations from the norm as positive because they suggest that the individual is powerful enough to risk the social costs of such behaviors. - T.R.

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Dress for Success: How Clothes Influence Our Performance

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What you wear can influence your thinking and negotiating skills, and even hormone levels and heart rate

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Comportment, demeanor, dress, grooming and overall appearance constitute the first levels of information about ourselves that we offer to the observing world. They may not be the most important, but they are the first. In my opinion, that makes them worthy of effort and attention.

That said, the information that can be gleaned by examining clothing choices is minimal. You can see which items a person chose to wear, how she combined those items and how those items interact with her figure and with each other. But that's just part of the story. What you cannot see is her emotional state, recent personal history, financial situation, housing situation, love life, family relationships, personal tastes and overall health. You can see the clothes, but you cannot see what led to the purchase and wear of those clothes.

We live in a world of fashion dos and donts, in which lampooning unusual dressing choices is encouraged and rewarded. Entire television shows, websites and magazine columns exist based on these concepts, feeding the collective desire to lump style choices into "good" and "bad." Experts and laypeople alike shake their heads and level judgment, saying, "Ooh, shouldn't have worn that," feeding the artificially constructed sartorial hierarchy, the notion that there is one right way to be stylish.

Delineating what others should or should not do is a very loaded action. It implies that what they are currently doing is wrong, bad, inherently destructive or negative. It implies that they aren't smart enough to figure that out on their own. And therefore, it implies that the person leveling judgment is superior, since she was able to draw the conclusion herself.

Saying that a woman "shouldn't" wear a top that loose or pants that tight, that she "shouldn't" expose her upper arms or style her hair a certain way, is saying that you know better. That your opinion carries more weight, that you are more informed, that you are enlightened, while she is ignorant. Declaring what another woman shouldn't wear is akin to assuming you know what's best for her when, in fact, you have no idea how her choices were made, what factors motivated them, what is going on in her life, what her resources and constraints may be. You may be Anna Wintour or Tim Gunn or Rachel Zoe and have all the expertise, history and influence in the world on your side, but you're still not psychic. What you see in any given outfit is the tiniest sliver of a person's big picture.

The next time you feel yourself judging someone based on dressing choices alone, pause. Consider how much information you're using to form your opinion, and what you're gaining by scorning or praising that person. Even silently. Just because someone has made a choice that you, yourself, would never have made doesn't mean that choice is inherently wrong. Many people strive to project their best selves through their dressing choices. Many others are working within invisible confines and doing their best with the resources at hand. Neither group can fully control how their appearances will be interpreted by observers, and neither will achieve sartorial perfection every day. So focus on your own dressing goals and choices, and try to avoid judging others for theirs.

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Why Fashion-Related Judgment Is Damaging and Unnecessary

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Comportment, demeanor, dress, grooming and overall appearance constitute the first levels of information about ourselves that we offer to the observing world. They may not be the most important, but they are the first. In my opinion, that makes them worthy of effort and attention.

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"One is never over-dressed or under-dressed with a Little Black Dress." - Karl Lagerfeld

"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." - Miuccia Prada

"Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory." - Coco Chanel

"I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world." - Bette Midler

"I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity." - Diana Vreeland

"A woman's dress should be a like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view." - Sophia Loren

"I like my money right where I can see it...hanging in my closet." - Carrie Bradshaw

"I can't concentrate in flats!" - Victoria Beckham

"You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it." -Edith Head

"Walk like you have three men walking behind you." - Oscar de la Renta

"Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life." - Bill Cunningham

"When in doubt, wear red." - Bill Blass

"I don't design clothes. I design dreams." - Ralph Lauren

"Fashions fade, style is eternal." - Yves Saint Laurent

"Anyone can get dressed up and glamorous, but it is how people dress in their days off that are the most intriguing." - Alexander Wang

"How can you live the high life if you do not wear the high heels?" - Sonia Rykiel

"Don't be into trends. Don't make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live." - Gianni Versace

"In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous." - Elsa Schiaparelli

"Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them." -Marc Jacobs

"Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well." - Vivienne Westwood

"You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are unimportant, but the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet." - Christian Dior

"Fashion is what you're offered four times a year by designers. And style is what you choose." - Lauren Hutton

"The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress." - Hubert de Givenchy

"Trendy is the last stage before tacky." - Karl Lagerfeld

"A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future." - Coco Chanel

"People will stare. Make it worth their while." - Harry Winston

"I think there is beauty in everything. What 'normal' people perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it."- Alexander McQueen

"Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress." ― Karl Lagerfeld

"And now, I'm just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time." - Lady Gaga

"My look is attainable. Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large sunglasses, and the little sleeveless dresses." - Audrey Hepburn

"A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste-it's hearty, it's healthy, it's physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I'm against." - Diana Vreeland

"Elegance is elimination." - Cristóbal Balenciaga

"Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak." -Rachel Zoe

"Men tell me that I've saved their marriages. It costs them a fortune in shoes, but it's cheaper than a divorce. So I'm still useful, you see" - Manolo Blahnik

"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." - Coco Chanel

"Attitude is everything." - Diane von Furstenberg

"We must never confuse elegance with snobbery." - Yves Saint Laurent

"Playing dress-up begins at age five and never truly ends." - Kate Spade

"Elegance is not standing out, but being remembered." - Giorgio Armani

"Your dresses should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to show you're a lady." - Edith Head

"The hardest thing in fashion is not to be known for a logo, but to be known for a silhouette." - Giambattista Valli

"I don't approach fashion. Fashion approaches me!" - Daphne Guinness

"I don't do fashion. I am fashion." -Coco Chanel

"We have this saying, Christy and I. We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day." - Linda Evangelista

"My look is a cocktail. I'm not as nicely turned out as the french, but I don't care like the English." - Jane Birkin

"More is more and less is a bore." - Iris Apfel

"Clothes are like a good meal, a good movie, great pieces of music." - Michael Kors

"I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity-all I hope for in my clothes. - Yves Saint Laurent

"Whoever said that money can't buy happiness, simply didn't know where to go shopping." - Bo Derek

"Big girls need big diamonds." - Elizabeth Taylor

"The joy of dressing is an art." - John Galliano

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The 50 Greatest Fashion Quotes of All Time

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"One is never over-dressed or under-dressed with a Little Black Dress." - Karl Lagerfeld "What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." - Miuccia Prada "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory."

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To all the women and men continuing the fight for feminism in 2017, get inspired by the words of the trailblazing women who've said it best. From Hillary Clinton to Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, Rihanna and all the unapologetic, courageous women in-between, these are the uplifting quotes to live by.

1) "To all the little girls who are watching, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams." - Hillary Clinton in her 2016 concession speech

2)"I raise up my voice-not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back." ― Malala Yousafzai

3)"If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman." - Margaret Thatcher

4) "I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay." ― Madonna

5) "It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent." - Madeleine Albright

6) "Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in."― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

7) "Feminism isn't about making women strong. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength." - G.D. Anderson

8) "Women are always saying,'We can do anything that men can do' but men should be saying,'We can do anything that women can do.'"‬ - Gloria Steinem

9) "I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass." - Maya Angelou

10) "I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that's me." ― Maya Angelou

11) "Women belong in all places where decisions are being made... It shouldn't be that women are the exception." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

12) "You don't have to be pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female.'" - Erin McKean

13) "A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman." - Melinda Gates

14) "A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men." ― Gloria Steinem

15) "There's something so special about a woman who dominates in a man's world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer." - Rihanna in the March 2017 issue of Harper's BAZAAR.

16) "There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish." - Michelle Obama

17) "When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch."― Bette Davis

18) "I always wanted to be a femme fatale. Even when I was a young girl, I never really wanted to be a girl. I wanted to be a woman." - Diane von Furstenberg

19) "I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." - Audre Lorde

20) "When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit. So let's keep going - let's keep going until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves to have." - Hillary Clinton

21) "Feminism is for everybody" ― bell hooks

22) "Women are leaders everywhere you look-from the CEO who runs a Fortune 500 company to the housewife who raises her children and heads her household. Our country was built by strong women, and we will continue to break down walls and defy stereotypes." - Nancy Pelosi

23) "The more I have spoken about feminism, the more I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop." - Emma Watson

23) "Words have power. TV has power. My pen has power." - Shonda Rhimes

24) "We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women's voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored." - Sheryl Sandberg

25) "Whether I am meant to or not, I challenge assumptions about women. I do make some people uncomfortable, which I'm well aware of, but that's just part of coming to grips with what I believe is still one of the most important pieces of unfinished business in human history-empowering women to be able to stand up for themselves." - Hillary Clinton

26) "We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead."- Beyoncé

27)"A woman is like a tea bag-you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." - Eleanor Roosevelt

28) "I think the best role models for women are people who are fruitfully and confidently themselves, who bring light into the world." - Meryl Streep

29) "No woman should be told she can't make decisions about her own body. When women's rights are under attack, we fight back." - Kamala Harris

30) "Women will be hidden no more. We will not remain hidden figures. We have names...It was woman that gave you Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was woman that gave you Malcolm X. And according to the Bible, it was a woman that gave you Jesus. Don't you ever forget it." - Janelle Monáe

31) "I am a woman with thoughts and questions and shit to say. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story-I will." - Amy Schumer

32) "For I conclude that the enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself; we deserve lipstick, if we want it, AND free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious - or whatever we please. We are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution. -Naomi Wolf

33) "Women are the real architects of society."- Harriet Beecher Stowe

34) "In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders."- Sheryl Sandberg

35) "Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all." - Hillary Clinton

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35 Empowering Feminist Quotes from Inspiring Women

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To all the women and men continuing the fight for feminism in 2017, get inspired by the words of the trailblazing women who've said it best. From Hillary Clinton to Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, Rihanna and all the unapologetic, courageous women in-between, these are the uplifting quotes to live by.

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Dancing Backwards in High Heels: Women Leadership and Power

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Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get them in front of Issuu's millions of monthly readers.

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Tucking into this glossy confection, one can't help thinking that when Diana Vreeland issued her characteristically imperious fashion dictat, "Too much good taste can be boring", she hadn't bargained for Gwen Stefani. A century of celebrity fashion is going to take in a range of sartorial options, but does an adult woman clad in a bra, lace bib and velvet Alice band really deserve the title of style icon?

Elsewhere, though, Fashionista bulges with delights, from Vivienne Westwood in a woolly sweater and grubby brogues to a glowering Grace Jones, half-smothered by what appears to be a panther lolling around her neck. Jones is categorised alongside Björk as an "eccentric"; for more wearable concoctions, the reader might wish to turn to the "classic" (Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn), the "diva" (Marlene Dietrich, looking appealingly undiva-ish in slouchy pants and an unknotted tie) and the "it-girl". Though they don't have their own category, royals are also well represented, among them Princess Diana and Gloria, Princess of Thurn und Taxis, with whom I had not previously been acquainted.

One of the real pleasures here is to encounter the lesser-known icons of ages past, particularly the jet-set duo Slim Keith and Babe Paley, two glamorous socialites immortalised in Truman Capote's last novel. And if this formidable display of elegance unnerves the reader, it is worth remembering Capote's catty take on the latter: "Babe Paley had only one flaw: she was perfect. Other than that, she was perfect." Quite right. True style, like Westwood's shoes, should never be too polished.
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Tucking into this glossy confection, one can't help thinking that when Diana Vreeland issued her characteristically imperious fashion dictat, "Too much good taste can be boring", she hadn't bargained for Gwen Stefani.

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As Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon is constantly in the spotlight and as her political stature has grown so has her flair for dressing the part.

While at the start of her political career she blended in amongst her male counterparts in neutral colours and boxy suits, now she dresses in bold hues in tailored silhouettes that flatter her petite frame.

Bright colours such as the hot pink dress she wore for the leaders debate live on STV in early April ensure she stands out at the podium, and she also uses her high profile to champion Scottish designers.

For the launch of the Scottish Government's White Paper in November 2013 the then Deputy First Minister wore a jacket by Judy R Clark who was named Scottish Womenswear Designer of the Year 2013.

The black Harris Tweed jacket, which she teamed with a pillarbox red dress, had cuffs of Ayrshire lace.

Ms Sturgeon has also built up a relationship with Edinburgh based design company Totty Rocks, wearing their creations for many key events.

She wore the label's red bow pencil dress on the day she became First Minister in November 2014, also choosing to wear it in her official portrait which was unveiled in March.

The politician wore a pink Totty Rocks jacket, paired with a black dress, to meet the Queen in December, while the dress she wore for the STV debate also came from the range.

The label, which is designed and produced in Scotland, has counted Kate Moss, America Ferrera, Sandi Thom and Gok Wan among its celebrity clients.

Holly Mitchell, who designs the range along with Lynsey Blackburn, said it was wonderful to have the First Minister's support.

She said: "It's absolutely fantastic for us. We really admire her as a person. We followed the referendum so it has meant a lot to us to be dressing her.

"Her PA got in touch just before she was getting sworn into parliament because she wanted to showcase a Scottish designer with what she was wearing. She is using it as a platform to support local businesses so it was really driven by her. Since then she has really seemed to like the styles and has ordered a lot of others.

"I think it's fantastic she is showcasing Scottish design. It is a great thing that she has done. So many people just have the choice of Harvey Nichols and the high street or high end high street with amazing designers from across the world but she has chosen to use us so that she is putting her money where her mouth is. She wants to support local businesses and that's what she's doing."

Speaking about her relationship with the label in a recent STV documentary, Ms Sturgeon said: "I thought if people were going to talk about what I wear, wouldn't it be good if they were talking about who designed it, who made it and if that's a Scottish company, so teaming up with Totty Rocks has been fantastic."

She added: "It still annoys me when I read really derogatory things about how a woman looks because you would usually not read these things about a man, and that still has the potential to put women off public life, and that's a real shame.''

While some of Ms Sturgeon Totty Rocks clothes are off the peg, the pink dress for the leaders debate was bespoke as the designers offer both ready-made and made-to-measure.

The SNP leader also uses fashion to bring a Scottish flavour to events, wearing a tartan jacket for her meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron at Holyrood in January this year and tartan heels at the annual party conference last November.

Clothes from the high street also feature in her wardrobe, such as the green Hobbs dress she wore on the campaign trail early in April, while for less formal events such as a charity football match in 2008 she teamed jeans with a simple white shirt for a crisp yet casual look.

As the election campaign intensifies, Ms Sturgeon has ensured that her wardrobe is one thing she doesn't have to worry about.

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In pictures: Nicola Sturgeon's style evolution

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As Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon is constantly in the spotlight and as her political stature has grown so has her flair for dressing the part. While at the start of her political career she blended in amongst her male counterparts in neutral colours and boxy suits, now she dresses in bold hues in tailored silhouettes that flatter her petite frame.

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(Image: Daily Mirror/Getty)

Theresa May wore her favourite tartan Vivienne Westwood trouser suit to deliver her key note Brexit speech at Lancaster House today.

No great surprises here. This suit has been doing the rounds since 2013 and is clearly a favourite. It's the Prime Minister's 'go to' look for the days she needs to pull a particularly powerful political punch.

Bold without being flashy, it's business like, functional and clearly shows who's wearing the trousers.

And today was all about looking (and feeling) confident. A word that was used in abundance in her speech. So she needed something that would make her feel on top of her game, and that wouldn't detract from her speech. So out came the VW.

This wasn't the day to wheel out something new. You know how dizzy we get when Theresa appears to have been on a spending spree in Russell & Bromley . Today's footwear was on the slightly less jazzy side for Theresa, she opted for a pair of her favourite R&B patent brogues with a diamante heel. So not completely out of character.

A good choice, Theresa in leopard print shoes might have tipped us over the edge today, although some fancy footwork might be just what she needs to navigate her way out of Europe.

However, on a day when her rhetoric was all about 'keeping the union together', adding a touch of tartan just might have had a deeper subliminal message. I'm not Scottish, but today of all days, I might have appreciated the gesture.

It could of course, just have been the only thing that was back from the dry cleaners on time.

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The Brexit message behind Theresa May's favourite tartan Vivienne Westwood suit

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Theresa May wore her favourite tartan Vivienne Westwood trouser suit to deliver her key note Brexit speech at Lancaster House today. No great surprises here. This suit has been doing the rounds since 2013 and is clearly a favourite. It's the Prime Minister's 'go to' look for the days she needs to pull a particularly powerful political punch.

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At last! Britain is heaving a sigh of relief today after the trauma and political bloodbath which has followed the Brexit referendum. We actually have a prime minister, and she is a woman. Theresa May, the 59-year-old former home secretary, has the long-service reputation of being a solid, discreet, and trustworthy stateswoman. Amongst all the dreaded economic and socially divisive uncertainty surrounding the impending exit from the European Union, this positive can be salvaged: A serious woman is in charge. And, raising a hope that her policies will back the British fashion industry, this is also a woman who seriously likes clothes.

Making her first speech to the nation outside 10 Downing Street this afternoon, Mrs. May stood in her favorite kitten-heel L.K.Bennett leopard-spot shoes, long a signature of hers, and a navy and lime coat by Amanda Wakeley. When she made her pitch to contest the Conservative Party leadership-her best line was "I am Theresa May"-she delivered it wearing a Vivienne Westwood black watch tartan trouser suit, as well cut as her words.

This is some consolation for the loss of Samantha Cameron, who-whether you agreed with her husband David Cameron's politics or not- has been British fashion's most staunch ally in 10 Downing Street history. Since her husband was named Prime Minister in 2010 "Sam Cam," as she came to be known, stepped up to the plate of promoting British fashion as Michelle Obama did for the American industry. That represented a cultural and generational breakthrough in British establishment attitudes toward designer fashion, long regarded as no-go territory for political wives.

She fulfilled her role as an ambassador for the British Fashion Council to the hilt, regularly hosting London Fashion Week receptions at 10 Downing Street for international buyers and press to meet and mingle with designers from the youngest emerging talents to the most established. Looking back, her bright, diplomatic wearing of so many designers' work- Erdem, Peter Pilotto, Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, Emilia Wickstead, Alessandra Rich, Burberry, Christopher Kane, Nicholas Kirkwood, and Jonathan Saunders amongst them-will be seen as her contribution to an era during which London fashion has climbed to unprecedented success.

Creativity, clothes, and international credibility have all worked together to produce a flourishing generation of designers who add to British employment and exports and pay taxes to support the country's economy. Many of them, it should be noted, are European nationals, who studied in the U.K. and have stayed as an invaluable asset to businesses in Britain. Samantha Cameron did her bit when those rules were unquestioned. Now the baton passes to Mrs. May to use her much greater power to make sure her country's fashion future is secure. Perhaps she gets it. After all, when asked on the popular radio show Desert Island Discs what one luxury she'd take with her, our new prime minister chose, " A lifetime subscription to Vogue."

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Britain Has a New Prime Minister-And She Likes Fashion

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At last! Britain is heaving a sigh of relief today after the trauma and political bloodbath which has followed the Brexit referendum. We actually have a prime minister, and she is a woman. Theresa May, the 59-year-old former home secretary, has the long-service reputation of being a solid, discreet, and trustworthy stateswoman.

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I know we're all sick of hearing about Brexit. We have been bombarded by it all for months and most of us are thinking for goodness sake, just get on with it! Anyway ... amidst it all you may have seen Theresa May's Brexit speech in her Vivienne Westwood Black Watch Modern tartan suit and you may have also heard words uttered such as ' Bay City Rollers' and ' Uncle Bulgaria'. When we saw a comment comparing Theresa May's suit to our very own Doddie Weir, we had to step in and say something! Here at ScotlandShop we love the tartan suit and we would like to take it back and defend it as a stylish addition to any woman's wardrobe, when worn correctly.

Theresa May's suit is not stylish or flattering. Whether you love tartan or not the issue here is wide lapels on a lady with narrow shoulders and wide legged trousers that need super long legs and a spikey heel or a chunky flatform to carry them off. The unstructured, loose fit does not look 'business' enough for a Prime Minister who has the eyes of the world upon her. Maybe Theresa May should have taken some fashion tips from Rita Ora:

Rita Ora donned a Stewart Royal 3 piece suit at the Rimmel 180 year anniversary party. Designed by Moschino the slim cut/ skinny trousers are bang on trend and we like the masculine style femininely tailored and worn with some platform heels. Smart and stylish. We even love the bow tie. Nice touch Rita!

Now this is only our opinion but we think Theresa May needs to go for a more feminine style, celebrate her trim physique, ditch the unflattering, wide legged cut of her suit and choose something more tailored. We're not expecting bow ties and platform heels but maybe a little more slim cut and fitted. We want a smarter, more decisive look from Theresa May. Power dressed and ready to run a country.

Ladies, if you are looking to rock the 3 piece or 2 piece get on to ScotlandShop.com! Over 500 different tartans to choose from our suits are tailor made to your measurements and style preference and you don't need to fork out the hefty £1,190 that Theresa paid for hers.

How would you style your suit? Or do you have any fashion tips for Theresa May please let us know!

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Theresa May's Tartan Suit does not suit - Tartan Blog

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I know we're all sick of hearing about Brexit. We have been bombarded by it all for months and most of us are thinking for goodness sake, just get on with it! Anyway ...

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Entering Fluidity's elegantly understated interior you can see straightaway why it might have become May's favourite. The shop spans two floors, selling an 'individual edit' of designer dresses, upmarket denim, Chinti and Parker jumpers, swimwear, shoes and underwear. There's even a men's department should Mr May wish to try some stylish shorts while his wife is busy in the changing room.

On a soggy Tuesday morning it's not busy - aside from me, there's only one other customer, a young mum with three bored boys in tow - but its website boasts of "the ultimate personal shopping experience, drawing a wide range of loyal clientele" from Marlow, Maidenhead and beyond.

The prices are not for the fainthearted - as Henley-based author Emma Clark Lam notes, "It's for high-end, special purchases, but the sale prices are very good. The staff give you great advice, even if you're not a regular they make you feel like an old friend. And the stock isn't dowdy, it's quite cutting edge. Great for Theresa May who dresses well, she's a breath of fashion fresh air for female politicians."

It's true, there's not a bright boxy jacket - as favoured by Merkel and Sturgeon - nor a drab Clinton-esque 'pant suit' in sight. Instead the rails are hung with Roland Mouret and Maxmara shift dresses, gorgeous Amanda Wakeley gowns and brightly-patterned knee-length coats of the kind that Mrs May favours. There's a deliciously soft Escada cashmere coat in baby blue - she has a similar one - for £1,950.

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Inside the Henley boutique that dresses Theresa May for Downing Street

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Entering Fluidity's elegantly understated interior you can see straightaway why it might have become May's favourite. The shop spans two floors, selling an 'individual edit' of designer dresses, upmarket denim, Chinti and Parker jumpers, swimwear, shoes and underwear. There's even a men's department should Mr May wish to try some stylish shorts while his wife is busy in the changing room.

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Theresa May is the trendsetter who can bring some class back to British politics

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Theresa May: Building A Strong And Stable Wardrobe

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Theresa May is building a strong and stable wardrobe to get her political message across in the General Election 2017. Vogue analyses the key power props

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Any list of revolutionary women in music can't help but fall spectacularly short, so take this one - published to celebrate International Women's Day - as just a suggestion, or an argument, and please tell us who you think we've missed. Nina Simone and Dolly Parton, perhaps? Taylor Swift? We'd love to hear your choices, and your reasons why.

Our criteria was not to collate a list of the most successful female musicians in history, although many here were/are extremely successful, but to think of women who have had a profound effect on the history of music - even if, in the case of the top two on this list, it's taken musicologists hundreds of years to realise it.

1. Kassia of Constantinople

Correctly or not, Kassia - born around 805 - is often called "the first female composer of the Occident" (the Western world) and her place in Byzantine folkore was sealed even before we knew of her music. She was from a wealthy family and dissed Emperor Theophilos at a "bride show" after he used the story of Eve from the Book of Genesis to suggest that women were responsible for much evil.

"And through a woman [came forth] the better [things]," she replied, annoyed. The Emperor decided to marry Theodora, who became empress, and Kassia adopted the monastic life. About 50 of her magical hymns survive, although authorship of some has been debated, as well as hundreds of her non-liturgical verses, including this zinging epigram: "I hate the rich man moaning as if he were poor."

In his book The Story of Music, Howard Goodall credits Kassia with "mixing the parallel organum style with the drone style", adding that her music "gracefully refutes the assumption that the development of early music is exclusively the handiwork of men".

2. Hildegard of Bingen

In 2014, Howard Goodall and Suzy Klein made a case for Hildegard of Bingen's Ave, generosa being one of 50 pieces that changed the course of music history. In an In Our Time episode broadcast in the same year, Melvyn Bragg said: "Little known until 30 years ago, the music of Hildegard is now regarded among the best of the Middle Ages, but remarkably her music is only a small aspect of her overall achievement. Hildegard was a 12th century nun and a scholar of impressive breadth. Sometimes known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, she wrote a series of works documenting prophetic visions she had experienced, she was an accomplished theologian and also wrote about science, medicine and the natural world."

Hildegard has become a feminist icon with champions in the non-classical world, too, including Canadian art-pop artist Grimes, American singer-songwriter Julia Holter, and Cerys Matthews, who said she felt that "she could hear the tumble weed rolling through the listeners' houses" when she played Hildegard's music on her 6 Music show. Listen to Cerys discussing Hildegard of Bingen on Radio 4's Great Lives:

3. Clara Schumann

We're now moving on 700 years to the great German pianist and composer Clara Schumann - a jump that says much about the pressures on women not to compose music throughout history, as Schumann knew all too well. "I once believed that I had creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not wish to compose - there never was one able to do it," she said later in her life. "Am I to be the one? It would be arrogant to believe that."

But her achievements were huge. She had a distinguished 61-year career as a concert pianist, during which time she normalised playing from memory, rewrote the rule book on what kinds of pieces could and should be played at recitals (thereby changing the public's tastes) and was an influential teacher. She was also instrumental in drawing attention to the equally huge talents of her husband, Robert, as well as their friend Brahms, whose music she was the first to play. And her own compositions are finally getting the recognition they deserve too, particularly her 1846 Piano Trio in G minor, different recordings of which are discussed above.

4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe

We have in Sister Rosetta Tharpe a singer, songwriter and guitarist who had a considerable influence on spiritual and popular music in her hey-days of the 1930s and 1940s, and also left a lasting legacy. Often called 'The Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll', she inspired Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Chuck Berry and is perhaps more revered now, 44 years after her death, than she was in her lifetime.

"Nobody - not Chuck Berry, not Scotty Moore, not James Burton, not Keith Richards - played wilder or more primal rock 'n' roll guitar than this woman who gave her life to God and would have celebrated her 100th birthday on 20 March," wrote Richard Williams in the Guardian in 2015. "With a Gibson SG in her hands, Sister Rosetta could raise the dead. And that was before she started to sing."

Here's her 1948 self-penned hit, Up Above My Head:

5. Delia Derbyshire

Above, former BBC Radiophonic Workshop employee Brian Hodgson explains how the bare bones of the Doctor Who theme were written by Australian composer Ron Grainer and taken to the Workshop to be reimagined in a structures sonore ('sonorous sculptures') style. The job was handed to Delia Derbyshire, who worked with sound engineer Dick Mills. Grainer was so surprised by the final track he said, "Jeez Delia, did I write that!?"

The 1963 song is one of the most recognisable pieces of music ever written: a legendary TV signature tune, but also an historically significant recording - perhaps the most influential electronic music track ever composed. But there was far more to Derbyshire's work than the Doctor Who theme. Two years after it was completed, Tomorrow's World visited her at the Workshop (below) to discover how she made such seemingly alien music. She demonstrated a process that was surprisingly human and organic, but also revolutionary. Did Derbyshire inadvertently invent British techno music in the course of her work at the BBC? Some of her once-lost recordings certainly sound astonishingly modern.

6. Carole King

The 1960s and 70s witnessed a boom in female singer-songwriters, from Joni Mitchell, to Dolly Parton and Carly Simon, and they all owe much to Carole King, the most successful female songwriter of the second half of the 20th century in both the US and UK.

King started out in the very late 1950s as a performer and writer and made her name with Will You Love Me Tomorrow in 1960, which she wrote for The Shirelles with lyricist Gerry Goffin, her first husband. It became the first No. 1 in history for an African-American girl group and kick-started King's extraordinary career. By the 70s, she broke out as a recording and performing star in her own right, particularly with her smash 1971 album Tapestry, and in 2013 became the first ever female recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

7. Aretha Franklin

In this clip from BBC Radio Scotland's The Jazz House, which starts with Aretha singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman - a Carole King/Gerry Goffin song - presenter Stephen Duffy says: "Aretha Franklin has one of the most individual voices in all of music and I don't mean that in a purely vocal sense; she is a complete musician."

And she didn't budge an inch on her journey to become perhaps the most fêted soul singer of all time - female or male. She had a string of crossover hits on Atlantic Records between 1967 and 1980 without ever diluting her sound or message. She was the spirit of the age and with her reimagining of Otis Redding's Respect, in particular, she laid down an anthem for civil and gender rights that's as potent today as it was 50 years ago.

Aretha's 1985 album Who's Zoomin' Who? was her first to go platinum and two years later she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her soul, sass and mastery of music live on in contemporary superstars like Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige and Adele.

8. Patti Smith

With Patti Smith, as with every artist on this list, it helps to think what came before, and what happened after. There were of course female rock stars before Smith - Suzi Quatro, especially - but she was a new kind of artist in music, and in her wake came punk, grunge, riot grrrl, alternative rock and indie. So many of the key figures of those genres - from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Kurt Cobain, Bikini Kill, R.E.M., The Smiths - cite Smith as an influence and, in turn, their music has fed back into hers.

Smith's 1975 debut album Horses, which she once called "three-chord rock merged with the power of the word" was ahead of its time, foreseeing an explosion in DIY music-making and also the targeting of songs to the disenfranchised. Horses, Smith also said, was an attempt "to make a record that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different..."

As well as being a musician, Smith is a poet, writer, visual artist, photographer and activist. Who else was going to introduce, and sing happy birthday to, the Dalai Lama at Glastonbury in 2015?

9. Sylvia Robinson

Sylvia Robinson was a true pioneer. The first hip hop hit - 1979's Rapper's Delight - was recorded by a group, The Sugarhill Gang, put together by Robinson and released on Sugar Hill Records, the label she founded with her husband, Joe. She went on to sign Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who released The Message in 1982, a legendary track that introduced social commentary to hip hop, paving the way for groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A.

But there was far more to Robinson than just hip hop. Long before Rapper's Delight - in the late 60s - she was one of the few women producing records, and she was a killer songwriter, singer and performer herself. Check out Pillow Talk from 1973, a track Robinson penned for Al Green. He turned it down because it was too steamy, so she recorded it and had a hit - in the US, where it went to No. 3, and here. A Hollywood biopic is coming soon.

10. Björk

It felt like the announcement that Björk had won best International Female Solo Artist at the 2016 Brits was almost met with a shrug, like, "Of course Björk is the best, and she always has been." And we're finishing our list with her and not someone like Madonna or Taylor Swift - revolutionary in their own ways - because Björk is the consummate modern musician; the artist that, more than anyone else working in the pop field, sees the giant changes in technology and commerce over the last 20 or so years as an artistic opportunity, not a hindrance.

People now listen to music through tiny, computer speakers? Great, thought Björk, I'll make an album (2001's Vespertine) that sounds perfect at those sound frequencies. And after Wired magazine claimed in 2010 that The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet (predicting a future of "getting", not "searching" - apps, in short), she rose to the challenge again with her so-called 'app' album Biophilia, but it was far more than a gimmick. Conceived during the Icelandic financial crisis, it was a statement - of music and art, but also politics and economics. Here's an example of how Iceland could be run from now on, she was saying - by investing in small companies based around local cooperation, which is exactly what she did to make Biophilia.

Related links

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Are these the 10 most revolutionary women in music?

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Any list of revolutionary women in music can't help but fall spectacularly short, so take this one - published to celebrate International Women's Day - as just a suggestion, or an argument, and please tell us who you think we've missed. Nina Simone and Dolly Parton, perhaps? Taylor Swift?

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Clare Doyle, from www. socialistworld.net, website of the committee for a workers' international
International Women's Day (8th March) is being celebrated with special enthusiasm this year by members of the parties and organisations affiliated to the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI). It is a hundred years since women workers of Petrograd chose this day to take the action which sparked the historic Russian revolution. It is also the day on which millions world-wide will be on the streets to denounce the reactionary views of the newly elected president of the United States, especially towards women.
Petrograd
Exactly 100 years ago - on February 23 according to the old (Julian) calendar - the women textile workers of Petrograd walked out of their factories demanding 'bread and peace' and appealing to other workers to do the same. Within five days of mass demonstrations, general strike action, street battles and appeals to the troops, the Tsarist state machine crumbled and the rule of the hated Romanov autocracy was over.

Power was in the streets for the workers to take hold of and organise. It began to seem as if their dreams could come true: an end to war and starvation, a new life for working men and women and for the millions of poverty-stricken peasants across the vast disintegrating Russian Empire.

Workers in the factories of the Vyborg district of Petrograd had long been discussing revolutionary action; the women simply opened the sluice gate! They were desperate for an end to the slaughter of millions at the war front and for food to feed their families.

All the main conditions for revolution, understood by Marxists, had matured - the crisis at the top of society, the turmoil and disaffection in the middle layers, the workers on the move and ready for a fight to the finish and the readiness of the forces of the state to come over to the side of the workers. The missing, vital element was mass support for a revolutionary party that could point a clear line towards workers taking power into their own hands and achieving their objectives.

Many revolutionary leaders - including Lenin and Trotsky - were still in exile and striving to get back to Russia. They rejoiced at the flood of human energy released on the streets of Petrograd but recognized that it needed to be channeled into further struggles to finish with capitalism and landlordism and spread the revolution to other stronger economies in Europe or the USA.

But in these early days of 1917, the Bolsheviks were relatively weak with limited support in the councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies (soviets). The other parties - the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who held sway - were not prepared to put forward a programme to end the war and oust the capitalists and landlords from their positions in society. While the workers and peasants wanted nothing more than an end to the war, further experience would show the need to carry the revolution through to completion. For now, the war dragged on and more and more peasants and workers in uniform were slaughtered.

It would be another eight months before, with majority support for the Bolshevik Party in the soviets, they could complete the process of revolution - this time with hardly a drop of blood being spilt. In October (by the old calendar) a workers' socialist government was established.

Its first declarations were on the vital issues of peace, land, the 8-hour day and women's rights. Women would thenceforth have the full right to vote, equality of pay and hours, the right to civil marriage and divorce, as well as free family planning and abortion, if necessary. Big plans were drawn up for the provision of nurseries and child care, communal eating arrangements, laundries, libraries, sports and entertainment facilities. A famous revolutionary poster shows a young Bolshevik woman opening a window with the slogan: 'Down with kitchen slavery! Give us the new life! '.
Reforms stall
Tragically, with civil war, imperialist intervention and the failure of revolutionary movements elsewhere, the already weak economy was crippled. Huge efforts were continued to improve the lives of women in town and country, but dire shortages frustrated plans for the 'New Life'. The rise to power of Stalin and his clique saw the reversal of many of the gains that had been made for women. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s has seen capitalist, even feudal, 'values' restored in all their ugliest manifestations.

In the year of remembering the Russian Revolution, the propaganda of President Putin is to accept that getting rid of the Tsar was probably worth it but that everything went wrong when the capitalists and land-owners were swept aside! And this from a former member of the 'Communist Party' and member of the state security forces (KGB)! What worse indication could there be of the reactionary nature of Vladimir Putin's rule in Russia today than the virtual lifting of legal sanctions against domestic violence? How cruelly does this contrast with the sensitive approach of the original Bolsheviks to the problems that afflict women in class society?
International day of solidarity The idea for a special day to honour working women and their struggles was actually born in the US. In 1908, 15,000 women marched in New York demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. The next year, the Socialist Party of America called for women to observe a 'National Women's Day' across the country and, by 1910, the German socialist, Clara Zetkin, was proposing to an international conference in Copenhagen to make it a world-wide event. Less than a week after the women's marches of 1911, 140 female workers died in a New York factory fire. In the following years, the numbers of women workers marching to demand decent working conditions and labour legislation swelled. On International Women's Day, 1914, across Europe there were marches against the impending imperialist war and for a woman's right to vote. A century of change
Much has changed for the better in the century since the Russian Revolution. Huge advances have been made in the daily lives of women, often through strikes, struggles and campaigns that they have been involved in. But even in the context of vastly more developed technology and resources, around the world, women are still laboring long hours for lower pay than male workers. The austerity policies of recent years have reversed some of the advances, and the services that women and their families depend on are being savagely cut. In addition, as research confirms, they are also doing far more unpaid work in and outside the home than men, even in 'advanced' cultures!

Capitalist society continues to foster attitudes and practices which deny women equality of opportunity and free choice in relation to when and whether to have children.

In many parts of the world, little if anything has improved. Women and girls are still seen literally as the property, if not the slaves, of men. Millions are deprived even of elementary education and have no time for themselves. While in some neo-colonial countries considerable progress has been made on issues like contraception, female genital mutilation and deaths in childbirth, many aspects of life - even the availability of food and clean water - have worsened.

Wars and famine mean that tens of millions of women are on the move and homeless as refugees. Across the world, they suffer sexual exploitation, rape, violence and murder, from people they know. as well from strangers.

A book newly re-published by the Socialist Party in England and Wales, 'It Doesn't Have to Be Like This', by Christine Thomas, explains in detail the problems to which women have been subjected throughout the existence of class societies, especially capitalism. It points to successful campaigns on housing, on health facilities and on the nightmare of domestic violence that have made a difference and won reforms. But the book concludes with the words of Friedrich Engels, the friend and collaborator of Karl Marx, which are as valid today as they were when he wrote them in the 19th century. He says that the basis for solving the problems that women face remains, "The transfer of the means of production into common ownership".

As socialists, we see capitalism as a rotten system that inflicts untold misery, wars and starvation on humanity. Eight people own more than half the world's population! One per cent lives from the exploitation of the other 99%.

It really doesn't have to be like this! The coinciding of the anniversary of the Russian revolution and the mounting anger against Trump and his billionaire rule, offers an ideal opportunity to shout from the roof-tops about a socialist approach to women's rights and transforming the society in which we live.
Revolution
It is no exaggeration to say that, in reaction to the election of Donald Trump last November, a kind of 'revolution' has been happening around the world. Even the word itself, along with 'socialism', has become popular in the US! This is partly due to the earlier campaign of Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic nominee for the presidential elections and his "Political Revolution".

But the election of the misogynist and sexist Donald Trump, to the position of president of the United States, saw an immediate explosion of anger, particularly amongst women - young and old. In the US, just the day after the result was announced, more than 40,000 people were on the streets in protest, largely on the initiative of Socialist Alternative, the co-thinkers of the CWI in the US. This undoubtedly helped spark the huge protests that followed. On 21 January, the day after the inauguration, nearly 600 'Women's marches' took place across the US with more than four million participants - not only women. On the same day, a hundred similar protests took place around the world. The idea that action internationally can change the course of history is a powerful one whose time is coming!

Millions of women and men have been taking to the streets for the first time in their lives to protest against Trump's racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-environmentalist stances. There is also a feeling that a 'coming out' into the streets can change the course of history. It is a revolutionary step taken by people who may never have had a revolutionary or socialist thought in their heads!
March 8th 2017
Around the world, millions of people will be coming out on 8th March in what may be the biggest ever celebration of International Women's Day. The real history that links this day with working women's struggles against the bosses and their system has faded. Only in a few countries - Pakistan and Turkey among them - have demonstrations regularly taken place on International Women's Day.

But this year, thanks in part to Donald Trump, March 8th is being revived as a day for genuinely expressing international solidarity on issues affecting women and not merely offering them sweets or flowers! It is a day for condemning all the injustices, insults and discrimination that women have to suffer embodied in the attitude of the incumbent of the White House in Washington. His threats to health provision and abortion rights alone are enough to bring a mass of angry men and women onto the streets.

Of course, there is a world of difference between the Russian Revolution and what is happening this year. In today's very disturbed world, in which the capitalists have no long term solutions for their crisis-ridden system, there is a huge political vacuum. Demagogues of the right attempt to fill it. What is needed is the building of an independent movement that can fight for real solutions to the numerous daily problems which blight the lives of the 99% in society and particularly those of women.

Those who argue only for reforming capitalism do not have the answer. The bosses' system has not recovered from the crisis of 2008 and is heading for further disaster. The mass international 'coming out' onto the streets of the US and across the world marks a new stage in world politics.

In the hothouse of struggle, workers' parties can grow very rapidly.
'Strike!'
The idea of some kind of 'strike' action on March 8 th has been brewing since the autumn of last year. On October 19, a million women in Argentina responded to a call for action from the movement called 'Ni una menos' ('Not one fewer'). It has branches all over Latin America and campaigns on the horrific levels of violence against women. In Poland, action called a 'strike' by women and other workers, forced the government to back down on its reactionary proposal for a complete ban on abortion. (There will be demonstrations in no less than fifty Polish towns and cities this March 8 th.) At the end of October last year, there was also a form of women's 'strike' in Iceland - against wage discrimination and in honour of an important women's strike there in 1975.

In Italy, where last November 200,000 marched in protests against violence against women in Rome, the movement of 'Not one Less' ('Non una di meno') appealed to unions to organise strike action. March 8 th is called a "women's strike" but it would not be only women participating (in the same way that it has not just been women participating on the anti-Trump marches worldwide). Also there will not only be strikes. Male workers are being asked to down tools and go to go to demonstrations, to take some kind of action that brings attention to the huge problems for working women that persist. A call has been made on-line in France for work stoppages at 15.40 on March 8 th, in this way depriving employers of the unpaid labour time they usually get because of the wage difference between men and women!

In Trump's own country, Socialist Alternative writes: "In the face of record-breaking, historic resistance, Trump is not stepping back. He is actually speeding up the attacks. We cannot wait until the next election. We need to step up our protests now!" They call for everybody to support the idea of action, including stopping work, "where it is possible to do so without risking your job or other retaliation". They also call for women's organisations and trade unions to use the day as a springboard for bigger action on May Day, the day of international workers' solidarity.

The school students' union in Spain, 'Sindicato de Estudiantes' (led predominantly by young women members of Izquierda Revolucionaria) has made a call for students to walk out of their classes from 12pm to 1pm on March 8 th. They suggest gathering in the grounds of the schools and campuses. Their message is: "We've had enough of sexist violence! We fight to defend women's rights! Down with Donald Trump and any government that fosters sexism and oppression!"

In Brazil, protests on International Women's Day are being organised around two main slogans: 'No to pension reform!' which hits women hardest and 'No to femicide!' a slogan of the 'Not one Less' movement that is fighting the escalating violence against women. Strike action is expected amongst teachers in Sao Paulo.

A call has been made in Ireland to 'Strike 4 Repeal'. School and college students, as well as some workers, will walk out to demand an immediate referendum on lifting the country's ban on abortion. A march on parliament is planned for the evening. Socialist Party members, many of whom are active in ROSA - the socialist feminist campaign - will join in these events. ROSA is also organising a "Bus 4 Repeal" - touring the main towns and cities of the country, providing information and access to safe early abortion with pills through the doctor-led Dutch organisation, WomenOnWeb.org. In Sweden the Socialist Justice Party (RS) is planning a strike at one school in Stockholm and a few other protests at workplaces and intervening in demonstrations.

The CWI welcomes all the calls for action around the globe on 8 March. A 'global strike' or even action will not happen in every major country, but where the idea of action is being put forward, we encourage the maximum possible participation of men, as well as women, rejecting the idea that only women should be fighting on 'women's issues'. We need to highlight the importance of a programme of women's rights to be taken up by the whole movement in the course of the broader struggle for socialism.
CWI
Internationally, the CWI has been to the fore in many struggles that directly affect and involve women. Not least is the campaign of our co-thinkers in the US, headed by the Socialist Alternative Seattle City Councillor, Kshama Sawant, for the $15 minimum wage. Our approach in every campaign is to link immediate demands to the struggle to change society along socialist lines, but never to say that no rights can be won before the transformation of society!

We have never had the approach of saying that women should wait and not fight for changes in the world they live in. Also, everyone involved in a movement like ours needs to be sensitive and aware of the needs of others.

In the CWI we support initiatives to conduct campaigns and struggles on issues that particularly affect women. At the same time we argue for linking them up with the broader workers' movement and for the maximum unity between men and women workers. This is aimed at strengthening these struggles and pointing towards the need for a broader political force to struggle for a socialist society.

We welcome the widespread attention presently being given to the particular challenges which women face in capitalist society and the protests that are being organised around the world. We want to see the maximum unity and solidarity on the 8th March amongst all those internationally who are fighting sexism and the inequality, exploitation and hardship that are rife under capitalism. Join us in the struggle for socialism!

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International Women's Day 2017: A century on from the Russian Revolution

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Clare Doyle, from www. socialistworld.net, website of the committee for a workers' international International Women's Day (8th March) is being celebrated with special enthusiasm this year by members of the parties and organisations affiliated to the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI).

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In 1990, Madonna was as astronomically popular as a boundary-bulldozing, unapologetically bacchanalian performance artist could get. Drawing from Harlem drag balls, "Vogue" went Number One nearly worldwide. The tour showcasing it, Blond Ambition, mixed spectacle with social commentary so sharply that it reinvented the pop concert and yielded the smash documentary Truth or Dare. And that year's The Immaculate Collection, her first greatest-hits set, would eventually rank among the world's biggest-ever albums, despite MTV banning its gender-blurring and cinematically exquisite "Justify My Love" video.

Some loathed this classically trained dancer/DIY provocateur - a megastar peer of Prince and Michael Jackson since her 1984 blockbuster Like a Virgin - with a venom reserved for successful women forging their own path. But for her vast audience, she was nothing less than liberating, and her uninterrupted string of hits defined pop for a decade. What some considered violations of taste made her more commanding: Even the way she toyed with ordinarily unflappable talk show hosts like David Letterman was more rock & roll than actual rock stars.

Nearly everything changed two years later with Erotica and Sex. Released respectively on October 20th and 21st, 1992, the first fruits of her multimedia Maverick entertainment company weren't flops; her fifth studio album, Erotica racked up six million sales worldwide and yielded several hits, while Sex - an elaborate coffee table book created with fashion photographer Steven Meisel and Fabien Baron of Harper's Bazaar - sold out its limited 1.5 million printing in a few days, an unparalleled success for a $50 photography folio bound in metal and sealed in a Mylar bag to evoke condoms. It remains one of the most in-demand out-of-print publications of all time.

But both record and book, despite a few positive reviews, inspired widespread vitriol. "There's nothing erotic about it, unless one finds the idea of a singing death mask sexy." That was Entertainment Weekly's take on Erotica's rendition of "Fever," but it summed up many assessments of the entire album. Others appreciated Sex's forthright presentation of LGBTQ sexuality and S&M even less. "Of course, some of us actually like the opposite sex; some of us believe it is possible to have great sex without whips, third parties or domestic pets," groused not some reactionary macho windbag, but a female film critic for The New York Times.

Why did projects Madonna intended to open minds shut so many down?

As her stardom snowballed through the Eighties and early Nineties, AIDS decimated the scene that helped birth Madonna. Taking music and fashion cues from lower Manhattan's punk rebelliousness and midtown's disco hedonism, pre-stardom Madonna was a fixture in the bohemian underground chronicled by photographer Nan Goldin in her autobiographical The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, a likely Sex influence, along with the severe stylization of Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Robert Mapplethorpe. By 1992, AIDS claimed Goldin's subjects, Mapplethorpe himself, much of the art world (including Madonna's friend Keith Haring), and a growing chunk of Madonna's audience. It also killed and would go on to kill her cohorts, including Blond Ambition dancer Gabriel Trupin. Just as racism and the Black Lives Matter movement shaped Beyoncé's Lemonade, AIDS and ACT UP - the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the direct action advocacy and educational group whose motto was "Silence = Death" - yielded Erotica and Sex.

Madonna previewed both works with the lead single and video for "Erotica," which boldly picked up where "Justify My Love" left off, and is narrated by Mistress Dita, her Sex dominatrix alter ego. "Give it up, do as I say," she growls over gritty funk that combines the clatter of R&B's New Jack Swing with house music's heavy bottom. "Give it up and let me have my way."

But in much of what follows on the LP, the woman behind the vixen doesn't get what she wants: Her relationships fall apart as she awakens from spells cast by deceptive lovers ("Bye Bye Baby," "Waiting," "Words"). Booze, chain-smoking, and anonymous sexcan't numb the pain ("Bad Girl"), and a friend steals her man ("Thief of Hearts"). Meanwhile, comrades die ("In This Life") while kindred outcasts struggle ("Why's It So Hard"). "I'm not happy this way," she sings in "Bad Girl." Sensuality was merely part of the picture: Erotica is Madonna's concept album about love and intimacy under the shadow of plague.

In excerpts from his studio diary, Erotica's co-producer/songwriter Shep Pettibone - a skilled remixer who helped Eighties dance grooves evolve from disco to house music - archived the singer's feedback on the album's early slick mixes. "I hate them," she said. "If I had wanted the album to sound like that, I'd have worked with [earlier collaborator] Patrick Leonard in L.A." Instead, Madonna demanded rawness, "as if it were recorded in an alley at 123rd Street in Harlem."

And so her "Vogue" collaborator reverted to the rhythm-intensive immediacy of his remixes as he reworked much of the album until it boomed, banged and sizzled like his increasingly popular remixes: Pettibone's version of "Express Yourself" was the one heard in Madonna's massive video. Instead of composing a radio-targeted album later reshaped for the clubs, Pettibone, together with Madonna, and André Betts - a newcomer who co-produced "Justify My Love" with Lenny Kravitz - made Erotica resemble an alternately party-minded and private collection of 12-inch singles. Even ballads like "Bad Girl" take arrangement cues from club music; in this case, a somber, slo-mo slant on Black Box's piano-pounding house anthems.

Unlike Erotica, which contrasts moods and tempos but maintains a deep and yearning sonic continuity, Sex is varied in style and content. Some shots are straightforward, such as the introductory snaps of Madonna cavorting with two tattooed and pierced lesbian skinheads. The authenticity of her playmates accentuates the fastidiousness of her makeup and the newness of her fetish-wear, which makes Madonna look like a tourist. There's little less sexy than that.

Other photos are open to interpretation: One features four masculine figures standing at urinals with Madonna superimposed in pink. The clash of iconography and grain of the image means it takes some staring to notice one has a hand on another's ass - and even more scrutiny to realize these two apparent dudes are actually women; probably the same butches in the earlier tableau. Here Madonna looks like she's visited that same seedy men's room, and the double exposure insinuates it's on her mind. She's not alone: When bigots obsess over transgender folk in public restrooms, this is what they're imagining. They'd deny the compositional beauty of the image, but there it plainly is, contrasted and highlighted by the sleaze.

Clearly she intended to instigate more than that era's version of the far right: One of the most realistic photos depicts her in a gymnasium under a basketball hoop with books tossed about and a school uniform half off. One guy holds her between his legs, and another guy's hand is poised to explore her naked crotch. There's more than a suggestion of struggle: Only her strained smile signifies consent.

Penned by Madonna, the text also varies in tone. Sometimes she's acting out scenarios likely avoided in real life. Elsewhere she's clearly speaking her own mind, yet with the disclaimer, "Nothing in this book is true," which, to follow her logic, might be a lie. So when she wrote, "The women who are doing [porn] want to do it: No one is holding a gun to their head," critics lambasted the musician. Given that Madonna posed nude in 1978 when she was broke and couldn't stop Penthouse and Playboy from publishing the results in 1985, this statement comes across as atypically naïve.

Because Sex and Erotica launched Maverick and her renegotiated $60 million contract with Time Warner, speculation over the Material Girl's earnings framed nearly every critical analysis. But Madonna's moxie has never been just about profit and fame. As her charities and donations have attested for decades, she also aims to make the world a better place: She just opened a pediatric hospital in Malawi. Back then, she taught soft-core sex ed.

"I think the problem is that everybody's so uptight about [sex] that they make it into something bad when it isn't, and if people could talk about it freely, we would have people practicing more safe sex," she told Vanity Fair at the time. "We wouldn't have people sexually abusing each other, because they wouldn't be so uptight to say what they really want, what they really feel." Maybe that's a little simplistic, but it's genuinely humanitarian. At a time when the straight media essentially characterized all sex as dangerous, Madonna tried to illustrate that it could be safe and stimulating, particularly if we open our minds, free our bodies, and try something besides standard intercourse.

Nowadays, S&M and explicit LGBTQ imagery is never more than a few clicks away, but the internet was in its infancy in 1992: Photos of sexual activity were exclusive to specialty bookstores until Robert Mapplethorpe's headline-grabbing 1989 retrospective The Perfect Moment, which placed S&M and interracial gay sexuality onto museum walls. The resulting controversy - inflamed by North Carolina's obstructionist Senator Jesse Helms and his attempt to prevent the National Endowment for the Arts from funding "obscenity" - engaged viewers in a moral debate. Accordingly, Sex was never about pretty pictures.

Twenty-five years after publication, it's easier to differentiate between Sex's weaknesses and strengths. The sequence with pop rapper Vanilla Ice - Madonna's then-boyfriend - was always tacky, and the section in which she sandwiches herself between hip-hop's Big Daddy Kane and supermodel Naomi Campbell is more stilted than ever. Actress Isabella Rossellini - who appears in a man's suit caressing Madonna and her female friends with an emotional intimacy missing from those celebrity shots - nailed the book's major limitation when she told The Huffington Post in 2014, "Madonna was almost too beautiful, too perfect ... to have that vulnerability or the sense of shock that a regular, more normal, not-so-professional fitted body could convey." No matter how many personas the icon tries on like a pop-art Cindy Sherman, Madonna is Madonna when she takes off her clothes - maybe even more so.

Berliner Studio/BEI/REX/Shutterstock

And yet I recognize her intentions. Madonna and I are of the same generation, and before she was a star, we'd party at the same NYC clubs like Danceteria, where her career began. I lost my dad to cancer when I was young just as she lost her mom at age five, and so I know all too well how grieving reactivates that original deprivation, like when my very first lover died of AIDS 30 years ago. After that went co-workers, mentors and friends until the mid-Nineties, when combinations of antiviral medicines slowed and then ultimately stopped HIV's progression for many patients who followed their medication regimen with military precision.

But until then, if you lived in a major city and were gay or an intravenous drug user, sex worker or among their intimates, you were an endangered species. There was no cure, and our government was indifferent. Breaking their silence was essential to our survival and sanity. So when Madonna launched her business with Sex and Erotica, LGBTQ people knew she wasn't exploitative: She was trying to save our lives by politicizing her anger. The frustration of Erotica that critics of the era bemoaned, we applauded because it was our own. Sure, she borrowed some of our fabulousness, but she also gave back plenty.

Accordingly, Erotica is also filled with love. The album's steamiest - and funniest - cut, "Where Life Begins," celebrates cunnilingus with cheeky wordplay, but also sweetness and warmth: Crooning over Andre Betts' hip-hop ballad beats, she beckons the listener, "Go down where I cannot hide," as if to suggest her womanhood is this chameleon's constant truth.

The album's most driving dance track, the hit "Deeper and Deeper," revels in romantic surrender. But LGBTQ people interpret it more specifically about embracing same-sex attraction. "This feeling inside, I can't explain/But my love is alive, and I'm never gonna hide it again," Madonna belts in the concluding verse, hitting that declaration harder than anything in her catalog. Set in a pansexual nightclub much like Danceteria, its video pays tribute to Andy Warhol, here represented by actor Udo Kier - a Warhol graduate who also plays Sex's dungeon master. But it also tips a hat to Madonna's late mentor Christopher Flynn, who introduced the straight-A student and cheerleader to the gay discos of Detroit.

"I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't fit in anywhere," she told director Gus Van Zant in Interview in 2010. "But when he took me to that club, he brought me to a place where I finally felt at home."

Her elegiac "In This Life" offers gratitude to Flynn and her late roommate Martin Burgoyne while addressing AIDS head-on. "He was only 23/Gone before he had his time," she sings of Burgoyne; "He was like a father to me ... taught me to respect myself," she croons about Flynn. Like "This Used to Be My Playground," the similarly mournful League of Their Own chart-topper released four months before Erotica but written and recorded midway through the album, this lament reveals the wounded child concealed behind her workaholism. Her fragility makes the singing stronger.

This sincerity spills into "Rain," the sunny single that revived sales eight months after the album's release, and the final track, "Secret Garden." Madonna ponders her feminine essence as a hidden paradise of pleasure, a Garden of Eden, and she reveals insecurities ordinarily concealed, hoping they'll blossom into self-knowledge. "I wonder if I'll ever know/where my place is, where my face is/I know it's in here somewhere," she whispers over a thrusting bass line, a gyrating breakbeat and breezy jazz piano that wanders with her thoughts. When she does sing on the chorus, she's not the ballsy belter of her hits, but an aching, affectation-free spirit waiting for "a place that I can be born," as if the true Madonna hadn't yet arrived.

REX

A quarter century after Sex and Erotica, the era's lingering image of the superstar is the shot of her fully naked - tresses teased and face painted like a Fifties starlet, a cigarette in her lips, and her feet in stilettos - thumbing a ride on a bucolic Florida street. Her nude femininity is perfectly sculpted, yet she exudes the assurance of a suited male bureaucrat. It's the book's most transgressive image, for it presents a woman self-objectifying, calling the shots instead of following them, sharing her amorous dreams with the pluck usually reserved for straight white men. There's no submissiveness; instead, its carnal opposite, flaunted while politicians and religious leaders preached abstinence as the only civilized response to a virus spreading throughout the world and claiming millions of lives. Instead, Madonna cast herself as Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Bunny.

This defiance flipped out men and women alike.

"I divide my career from before and after the Sex book," she told Spin four years later. " Sex was my fantasy, and I made money off of it. That is a no-no."

Her bravado lingered through Body of Evidence, a BDSM-charged thriller, and the Maverick-produced, straight-to-video drama Dangerous Game. Both were widely panned, as well as her 1994 Late Show appearance in which she asked David Letterman to smell her panties, smoked a cigar and said, "fuck" 14 times. In between, she staged her Erotica- centric Girlie Show World Tour, which furthered Blond Ambition's fearless exuberance, but only played three U.S. cities.

Madonna's sound and image then softened substantially with Evita, motherhood and wistful serenades like "Take a Bow" (her longest-running U.S. Number One) before she regained her audacity via 1998's soul-searching Ray of Light and 2000's experimental Music. And although some of her subsequent output has followed trends rather than setting them,she still puts on a rarely rivaled live show by foregrounding her body as the primary site of her art. That was daring in her Erotica/ Sex period. Doing that today, as a 59-year-old woman, makes Madonna even more radical. Watch her fiery acceptance speech last December at Billboard's Women in Music shindig if you think she's lost her edge.

"I was called a whore and a witch," she recalled of that epoch. "One headline compared me to Satan. I said, 'Wait a minute, isn't Prince running around with fishnets and high heels and lipstick with his butt hanging out?' Yes, he was. But he was a man. This was the first time I truly understood women do not have the same freedom as men. ...I [felt] like the most hated woman in the world."

Today, Erotica's melancholy desire is all over the boldest substantial pop from Lana Del Rey and Father John Misty to Frank Ocean and Beyoncé, and its dirty house grooves animate chart divas from Katy Perry on "Swish Swish" to underground rappers such as Zebra Katz on "Ima Read." Let's not forget that Grace Jones and Debbie Harry made Madonna possible. But there's an even more direct line between Madonna's unrepentant and emphatically female sensuality - particularly in this incendiary phase - and what followed from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, Tove Lo and now Cardi B. Without Madonna, modern pop as we know it would be unimaginable. Meanwhile, Sex's provocations have permeated advertising, which was hardly the point. (Meisel's wood-paneled 1995 campaign for Calvin Klein evoked teen porn so brazenly that the Justice Department got involved and CK pulled the ads.)

However, popular music and art are no longer thoroughly defined by a straight white masculine perspective. Nearly everything is more sexualized, and that's not entirely positive, but alpha male artists and submissive female subjects don't dominate as much as they've done for centuries. We've finally hit a tipping point when popular culture is offering more viewpoints and voices: That's why there's a rise in fascism to suppress them. Sex and Erotica's greatest contribution remains their embrace of the Other, which in this case means queerness, blackness, third-wave feminism, exhibitionism and kink. Madonna took what was marginalized at the worst of the AIDS epidemic, placed it in an emancipated context, and shoved it into the mainstream for all to see and hear.

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Why Madonna's Masterpiece 'Erotica,' Defiant 'Sex' Book Still Matter

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In 1990, Madonna was as astronomically popular as a boundary-bulldozing, unapologetically bacchanalian performance artist could get. Drawing from Harlem drag balls, "Vogue" went Number One nearly worldwide. The tour showcasing it, Blond Ambition, mixed spectacle with social commentary so sharply that it reinvented the pop concert and yielded the smash documentary Truth or Dare.

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Thirty years ago this past week, Sire Records released Madonna's debut album. Although it only created one pop icon, Madonna the album was the culmination of months of effort by diverse artists, photographers, executives and musicians. "The first new wave disco music," as one of her friends described it, carried plenty in its DNA: bouncy R&B grooves; traces of the last gasps of the pre-AIDS Downtown NYC culture; and, of course, the force of personality of the future Queen of Pop.

In early 1982, Madonna was 23 years old. In the four years since leaving Detroit for New York City, she'd earned her starving-artist bona fides, working at a Dunkin Donuts, sleeping in an abandoned Queens synagogue and rocking studded bracelets, ripped jeans and bleached, cropped hair. She'd traveled as a backup dancer for French disco singer Patrick Hernandez and auditioned for Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. She'd also gone into a Times Square studio with her ex-bandmate (and ex-boyfriend) Steven Bray and recorded a demo of four songs. With her music, she hoped to capture the attention of "the kind of people who might like Grace Jones." It was that hope, and that demo, that she brought with her one Saturday night to the Danceteria nightclub.
The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time: 'Madonna'
Seymour Stein, founder, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins was the best DJ in New York. I followed him to various clubs - I didn't dance, but I liked the way he spun. He could mix Portuguse and Indian music with whatever was going on in England at the time. I gave him some work to remix some things for me. One day he said, "I want to be a producer. Let me work with one of your new artists." I said, "I can't do that, Mark. You don't have a track record." But I said, "Why don't you bring me an artist. Then the artist is indebted to you." I gave him $18,000 to record demos for six artists.

Michael Rosenblatt, A&R, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins told me there was this girl who had a demo and was trying to get him to play it over the dance floor. And he was going to have none of that - he didn't play any demos. But he said she looked amazing, so I was trying to keep an eye peeled for her.

A friend of mine had just signed a group called Wham! They were about to put out their first single, but before they put it out, my friend wanted them to see the New York club scene. So I was taking them to clubs on a Saturday night - I'm at the Danceteria second-floor bar with George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, and I see this girl walk across the dance floor and up to the DJ booth to talk to Mark. I figured she had to be the girl with the demo. So I walked up and introduced myself as an A&R guy, and we started talking.

She came by on that Monday and played me that demo. It wasn't amazing. But this girl sitting in my office was just radiating star power. I asked her, "What are you looking for in this?" I always ask that, and the wrong answer is "I want to get my art out," because this is a business. And Madonna's answer was, "I want to rule the world." The next step was getting her signed. I had to play [her demo] for Seymour Stein.

Seymour Stein:
I was in the hospital, hooked up to a penicillin drip. I said, "Send it over, please." I listened to "Everybody" - it was the early days of the Sony Walkman - and I loved it.

When Madonna came by, I was caught with dirty pajamas with a slit up the back of my gown. I needed a shave and a shower. But I got it together to meet with her. When she walked in the room, I could tell she wouldn't have cared if I was like Sarah Bernhardt lying in a coffin. All she cared about was that one of my arms moved, that I could sign a contract. What I saw there was even more important than the one song I heard. I saw a young woman who was so determined to be a star.

I shook hands on the deal. It was a deal for three singles and an option for albums afterward. I would have gone down to the bank and withdrawn my own money to sign her if I had to.

Michael Rosenblatt:
It was Seymour that signed Madonna. It was simple. There was no bidding war. Nobody else wanted to sign her. Cut and dry, easy and cheap.

Seymour Stein:
I told her, "The first night out of the hospital, let's go out to dinner, you, me and Mark." But I forgot about it. I get back to the office, I get a call, it's Madonna. She says, "Where are we going tonight?" I said, "Oh my god, the Talking Heads are in town, I'm going to see them at Forest Hills." She said, "We'll go together!" I introduced them to Chris [Frantz], Tina [Weymouth], Jerry [Harrison] and David [Byrne]. David gave me a thumbs-up sign. He was impressed.

Fred Zarr, keyboardist:
Mark Kamins brought me in to redo all the keyboards on "Everybody." When she first walked in, I had my back to the door. I know this sounds corny, but I felt this swish of energy come into the room. I turned around, and . . . she had all the makings of a star. She had the style, the way she dressed, and she was very strong-willed.

Michael Rosenblatt:
You had this girl coming out of the new wave scene doing dance music. I thought if we were able to do it right, we'd be able to capture a lot of audiences. We'd get the new wave kids, we'd get the pop people, and the dance community. We'd be able to get everybody.

I didn't want her picture on the cover of the "Everybody" single, because I thought I could get a lot of R&B play on that record, because a lot of people thought she was black.

Lou Beach, designer, "Everybody" 12":
I'd never heard of Madonna before then, and I didn't get to listen to the music. Warner Brothers told me, "Do a scene of everyday people in the street." So I clipped images from magazines, and threw them together for the collage. I do remember being a little nervous about using the photo of the black-and-white dog from LIFE magazine, but finally I said, "Fuck it, it'll be fine."

Michael Rosenblatt:
Madonna needed somebody who could really help her with her vocals. Mark Kamin's strength was grooves, not working with a girl who's never been in the studio before. That's when I hired Reggie Lucas, with an eye to giving an R&B feel to this dance/new-wave artist. He was having a lot of success with Stephanie Mills and Roberta Flack.

Reggie Lucas:
When Warner Brothers called me about working with Madonna, I was the big score. It seems ridiculous in retrospect, but I was an established professional and she was a nobody. I met with her at a tiny little apartment she had in the Lower East Side. I thought she was vivacious and sexy and interesting, and had a lot of energy.

I signed on to do the record, and then "Everybody" came out and it made a little noise. It sold 100,000 copies, so I was like, "All right! This artist became a somebody before I even started on the album." So that was nice, that was encouraging.

Most of the people around Madonna at the corporate level did not get her and for the most part did not like her. You could see them recoil from her bohemianism. Everybody thought she was crazy and gross. I would never say she was a punk rocker, but she used to wear little boys' shorts, and white t-shirts with holes in them, and then she had little ring things in her ears. She wasn't the weirdest person I'd ever met, you know? I'd worked with Sun Ra! So after hanging out with the Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Madonna didn't seem particularly avant-garde.

Michael Rosenblatt:
While Reggie was making the record, nobody at Warner Brothers gave a shit at all. Madonna was just a little dance girl.

Reggie Lucas:
She was poor. She borrowed Jean-Michel Basquiat's apartment while he was in Paris, and so I spent a good hour and a half during the record meeting with her at Basquiat's place. He had his art up there, nobody knew who he was.

We had a fun experience. There was no committee rendering judgment from on high, because she was brand new and frankly nobody cared about her that much. And she had a sense of direction.

Michael Rosenblatt:
It was great - there wasn't any infighting or any of that kind of shit. Reggie wrote two of the songs, "Borderline" and "Physical Attraction." The rest were Madonna songs.

Reggie Lucas:
"Borderline" has a stylistic similarity to "Never Knew Love Like This Before" [the 1980 Grammy-winning Stephanie Mills song that Lucas co-wrote and co-produced], particularly in the front, with Dean Gant's electric piano introduction.

This was the first record I ever used a drum machine instead of a drummer. And the bass on "Borderline" is an ARP 2600 synthesizer, but the great Anthony Jackson - who did that intro on the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money" - is playing along on an electric bass guitar, and they're playing so tight you can't tell the difference.

Michael Rosenblatt:
I remember telling Seymour, when he was giving me grief for being in the studio every day, that Madonna was going to be the biggest act he ever worked with. He laughed and said, how big is she going to be? My line was "Seymour, she's going to be bigger than Olivia Newton-John!"

Seymour Stein:
I dared to believe this was going to be huge beyond belief, the biggest thing I'd ever had, after I heard "Borderline." The passion that she put into that song, I thought, there's no stopping this girl. All of her energy - my God, I never saw anybody work this hard in my life. And then make it look so easy.
100 Greatest Artists of All Time: Madonna
Michael Rosenblatt:
During the making of the album, we would walk down the street and people would just stop and gawk. This is before she was famous. She just had that look and that vibe; there was no stylist working with her. It was all her. We'd walk into a restaurant and people would stop eating and just stare.

Reggie Lucas:
There's no way to get around it, Madonna exudes a lot of sexuality. She would curse a lot, talk about sexual things a lot in a joking way. She was more liberated. So you picked up her energy when you were around her. You could tell this was somebody who was going to work with being a celebrity well if she was able to achieve it. That's what she wanted more than anything. She would always come into the studio with biographies of famous movie stars from the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. She spent time studying what she was thinking about doing.

She'd really put it out there in the studio, and not in a self-conscious way. It wasn't crude, it wasn't coarse, it didn't seem like she was just selling a little sex to sell a few more records. So working with her, you could play off that. She's a pretty good improviser, on the tags - you know, the ends of the records - and on "Burning Up" when she's like "I'm burning up, "Unh! Unh! Unh!" me and the engineer were like "This is great, man!" So we're just like, "Madonna, do it one more time!" So we kept making her do it over and over, just to get off on it. But you hear it on the record; it's a very erotic record.

We had this really fun guitar thing on "Lucky Star," and then she had a meltdown about guitarists - she related an experience where a rock guitarist she was sharing the stage with turned up his guitar, and upstaged her with volume. So we never completed that version.

Michael Rosenblatt:
We finished the album, and I wanted another song. Something much more uptempo. I needed to get more money to finish the record. So Seymour said, "Take her down to L.A., have her meet the executives at Warner Brothers."

Reggie Lucas:
At Warner Brothers, when they first met her - Mo Ostin, Michael Ostin, Lenny Waronker - they said, "She wants to sing black music, so just have her go promote her singles at the black radio stations." Which is what she did. But they didn't have a vision of, "Oh my god, she's going to be an enormous pop star." Because she expressed an interest in black music, they said, "Oh! Go sell it to the black people, then." That's how she was visualized.

Michael Rosenblatt:
But once she went out to L.A., everybody started buzzing. I said to Lenny Waronker, "I need an up-tempo song; will you give me 10 grand?" He said yes.

That trip to L.A., Madonna didn't have a manager. We decided to get somebody based in L.A. to deal with Warner Brothers. So we met with Freddy DeMann. At the time, Freddy was managing Michael Jackson. So we go into Freddy's office and we're having this great meeting, his assistant comes in, and says, "Freddy, you have a call. Can you take it?" He says, "You guys stay here, watch this video, let me know what you think. It's premiering on MTV in about two weeks." Freddy puts in a video, presses play, shuts the door. Madonna and I watch the "Beat It" video. As soon as the video ends, I say, "This guy's your fucking manager." She says, "Yeah."

So I went back to New York with the money in hand and went to Jellybean [Benitez] and Reggie Lucas and maybe two other guys, and said, "Whoever comes up with an up-tempo dance song gets to produce it." Literally three days later, Jellybean comes into the office and plays me a demo of "Holiday," and it's like, "You win."

Lisa Stevens, co-writer, "Holiday":
Curtis Hudson and I wrote "Holiday" for the group we were in, Pure Energy.

Curtis Hudson, co-writer, "Holiday":
Lisa was playing [sings opening chords], but she was playing it like a ballad. It wasn't even in the rhythm of "Holiday," but I heard something. The whole melody came together in my head over a couple days before I wrote anything down. Then it just poured out of me. We played it for everybody we knew, producers, artists - everybody was excited. Kool & the Gang were like, "Wow, that's a smash."

Lisa Stevens:
We went into Mix-O-Lydian Studios in New Jersey and cut "Holiday." Our record company said it wasn't a hit.

Curtis Hudson:
We already had songs that were doing well in the clubs, we just never did break as a pop act. We played the Funhouse, the Paradise Garage, Studio 54. Jellybean was DJing at the Funhouse, so we met Madonna through him. When I first saw her, she had all these rags tied around her dress and all these accessories. I was like "What is she wearing?"

Lisa Stevens:
Jellybean told us Madonna was looking for one more song for the album. He asked us if we had a song for her, and we said, here - we have "Holiday."

Curtis Hudson:
So we went into Sigma Sound in New York with Jellybean, and we had the demo tape in the studio, and matched everything to that. I played guitar on it, my brother played the bass, and we brought Bashiri Johnson in to do percussion.

Fred Zarr:
Jellybean hired me to put my own touch on it. I was using new equipment at the time. The Oberheim System, which was the OB-X synthesizer, the DMX drum machine, and the DSX sequencer. I was reading the manual while I was programming in the studio. It was very primitive, but it was state of the art at the time. It allowed me to sort of have 12 hands at one time - to program the drums and sync it to the OB-X and some other keyboards - a bass part on the Moog, some string sounds. Jellybean and Madonna came to my house, I pressed play, the computer played part of the track. They loved it. We went in the next day, and I overdubbed the piano solo. Madonna played the cowbell. A couple of days and it was done.

Curtis Hudson:
We weren't there when she did the vocal sessions, because she wanted privacy or whatever, so Jellybean said, "Would you guys mind?" We said, "No, if that's the way she likes to record." She didn't know us that well, so maybe with Lisa doing the vocal on the demo, Madonna didn't want to be influenced. When I first heard it, I was like, "Wow, okay, I've got to get used to hearing it without all the soulful riffs that Lisa did." But once I'd really listened to it, I realized it was going to be more universal. Since she was pretty much sticking to the melody, it was all about the song.

Michael Rosenblatt:
At that point the jig was up. Everyone knew she was a little Italian girl. We originally had a drawing of her. But it was a little too soft, so we decided to go with a photo shoot.

Carin Goldberg, art director:
When I heard the name Madonna, my eyes just sort of rolled back in my head. I thought, "Just what we need, another gimmicky one-name girl singer who will have one album."

We had a meeting, and she showed me her new loft. we talked a little bit. Even at that time, she was not warm and fuzzy, she was very focused, very clear about the parameters that this was business and not a friendship. There was no pretense or bullshit, and I really liked that. She knew what she wanted.

There was no discussion of what she would wear. On the day of the shoot, she showed up at the studio in her "Madonna outfit" and danced to her music while the photographer, Gary Heery, shot. I zeroed in on her bracelets, and borrowed more from Gary's girlfriend, added those to her wrists and told Gary to focus on them. They were clearly her unique trademark. The shoot took no time at all.

Michael Rosenblatt:
As soon as we saw the proofs, that it was it. It was just perfect.

Peter Noble/Redferns/Getty Images

Sire Records released 'Madonna' on July 27th, 1983. It entered the Billboard 200 chart at Number 190 over a month later. The album has since been certified five times platinum.

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How Madonna Became Madonna: An Oral History

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Thirty years ago this past week, Sire Records released Madonna's debut album. Although it only created one pop icon, Madonna the album was the culmination of months of effort by diverse artists, photographers, executives and musicians.

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Posts about Steven Meisel written by Jay

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Barthes, R. 2006. The Language of Fashion. Oxford, Berg.

Roland Barthes, widely regarded as one of the most subtle and perceptive critics of the 20th Century, was particularly fascinated by fashion and clothing. The Language of Fashion brings together all Barthes' untranslated writings on fashion. It presents a set of essays revealing the breadth and insight of Barthes' long engagement with the history of clothes. The essays range from closely argued essays laying down the foundations for a structural and semiological analysis of clothing to a critical analysis of the significance of gemstones and jewellery, from an exploration of how the contrasting styles of Courrges and Chanel replayed the clash between ancient and modern to a discussion of the meaning of hippy style in Morocco, and from the nature of desire to the role of the dandy and colour in fashion.

Breward, C. 1998. 'Cultures, identities, histories: fashioning a cultural approach to dress', Fashion Theory, 2(4), 301-313.

Part of a special issue on methodology. Research in historical dress was applied to art historical studies in British academia during the post war period. The dating of clothing and its representation in paintings was seen as a useful tool for authentication and general connoisseurship. The emphasis on creating linear chronologies and stylistic progressions has to some extent influenced the nature of fashion history writing since. Various approaches have been adopted since the late 1970s establishment of new art historical thinking, in which social and political contexts were prioritized over concerns of authorship and connoisseurial value. The arising debates undoubtedly challenged assumptions that had originally underpinned the serious study of fashion. Many of the defining aspects of new art historical approaches, which drew on ideas from Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis and structuralism or semiotics, encouraged debates incorporating problems of social identity, the body, gender and appearance/representation. Breward concludes that the cultural studies slant often makes dress historians defensive. It is a field full of disagreements, as it is so difficult to reach a consensus on what the study of culture actually entails. An interdisciplinary area where certain methods have converged, it allows us to understand cultural phenomena and social relationships that were not accessible through other disciplines, thus enriching our knowledge of fashion, which has always played a central role in cultural and social processes.

Breward, C. 2008. 'Between the museum and the academy: fashion research and its constituencies', Fashion Theory, 12(1), 83-93.

This article takes a personal perspective on the shifting relationship between fashion research generated in the British higher education sector and in the museum context over the past ten years. It identifies the impact of new interdisciplinary approaches and funding opportunities and argues for the positive benefits of collaboration between the two professional fields The article reflects on the author's experience of working on three distinct exhibition projects at different styles of institution and indicates how the curatorial process enriches and is enriched by a reflexive understanding of research.

Burman, B. and Turbin, C. eds. 2003. Material Strategies: Dress and Gender in Historical Perspective. London, Blackwell.

Gordenker, E. E. S. 1999. 'Is the history of dress marginal? Some thoughts on costume in seventeenth-century painting', Fashion Theory, 3(2), 219-240.

This article introduces some of the problems and challenges facing the historian of dress when looking at Dutch and Flemish art. It addresses three specific examples of seventeenth-century paintings in which the costume has been overlooked, misinterpreted or misunderstood: a servant's costume in The 'Kitchen Maid' by Joachim Wtewael, Anthony van Dyck's portrayal of male dress; the painter's attire in Johannes Vermeer's 'Art of Painting'. In each case, the discussion not only deals with surviving garments, but with their representation and an awareness of how they would have been worn. In doing so, the importance, as well as some of the pitfalls, of writing about past fashions emerge.

Jarvis, A. 2009. 'Reflections on the development of the study of dress history and of costume curatorship: a case study of Anne Buck OBE', Costume, 43, 127-137.

On 12 May 2007, almost exactly two years after her death, the Costume Society held an Anne Buck Memorial Study Day in London entitled 'Studying Four Hundred Years of Fashion'. This paper was written and delivered as the introduction to the Study Day. It attempted, through an examination of Anne Buck's work as curator of a costume collection, in particular as Keeper of the Gallery of English Costume, Manchester, from 1947 to 1972, to assess her outstanding contribution to the study of dress history and to the development and use of dress collections in museums; and to consider her legacy to historians and curators today, thirty-five years after her retirement.

McNeil, P. ed. 2008. Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources. Oxford Berg.

McNeil, P. 2008. ''We're not in the fashion business': fashion in the museum and the academy', Fashion Theory, 12(1), 65-81.

This article examines relationships between the museum fashion exhibit, viewing publics, and historians. It takes as a case study 'AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion', held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 3 - September 4 2006, as an example of a possibly new type of exhibition merging art-historical research with contemporary styling and viewing practices.

Palmer, A. 1997. 'New directions: fashion history studies and research in North America and England', Fashion Theory, 1(3), 297-312.

Voids in fashion scholarship can be partly explained by the fact that the study of dress often carries negative associations. The traditional study of dress history has been largely based on old art-historical methods of stylistic analysis, without integrating this with economic or social history. A contributing factor is that there is little formal academic training that addresses fashion or costume history; and fashion has to fight to gain recognition as a legitimate area of study. The article compares the teaching of fashion history in England and North America, and Palmer uses some sample case studies to illustrate the validity of employing a multidisciplinary methodology that is based on material culture. She concludes that material culture analysis has to be set within a broader academic framework and not just be for its own sake. Liaison with scholars in other areas should be encouraged, as it is through cross-disciplinary interaction that more dynamic research can be pursued.

Palmer, A. 2008. 'Untouchable: creating desire and knowledge in museum costume and textile exhibitions', Fashion Theory, 12(1), 31-63.

This article examines various intellectual and physical challenges of exhibiting costumes and textiles in European and North American museum settings where artifacts cannot be handled or physically experienced by visitors. It describes different museological and commercial solutions and suggests reasons for the various approaches taken to collections and on-going rotating displays. It also describes the author's own experiences with costume and textile displays in different institutions in the USA and Canada since the 1980s.

Rexford, N., Cunnington, P., et al. 1988. 'Forum: research and publication', Dress, 14, 68-82.

A panel discussion on research in costume history and its publication, at the Costume Society of America's meeting in Cincinnati, 1988.

Ribeiro, A. 1994. 'Antiquarian attitudes - some early studies in the history of dress', Costume, 28, 60-70.

Based on a paper, 'Antiquarians and the history of dress: from Randle Holme to J R Planché', given in September 1992 at the Anglo-Dutch conference on Textile History held at Tilburg, on 'Social Aspects of Textiles and Clothing'.

Ribeiro, A. 1998. 'Re-fashioning art: some visual approaches to the study of the history of dress', Fashion Theory, 2(4), 315-325.

Part of a special issue on methodology. This article argues that a study of art history is one of the key approaches to the study of dress history. A knowledge of art history provides an essential 'databank of images' through which we can access and visualize clothing. It is through art that we can best perceive the changes in dress and appearance that define fashion; this cannot be evidenced as easily in extant garments or written documents. There are close links between dress and art. Both are non-verbal languages and both are social and visual experiences, both private and public. They record and interpret aspects of human life, and provide valuable testimony to the culture, manners and vision of the times in which they exist.

Steele, V. 1998. 'A museum of fashion is more than a clothes-bag', Fashion Theory, 2(4), 327-335.

Part of a special issue on methodology. One of the most valuable methodologies used to study fashion history is the interpretation of objects, as it provides unique insights into the historic and aesthetic development of fashion. A specific methodology for this was devised by Jules Prown, and articulated in the Winterthur Portfolio. In this article Steele attempts to explain Prown's methodology which comprises three sequential stages: description, deduction, and speculation. She also describes E. McClung Fleming's model for artefact study as it supplements Prown's approach. Steele illustrates Prown's approach by describing how she used it to study a woman's dress in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. She then uses the methodological approaches to justify fashion museums. Steele concludes that the interpretation of objects, also called material culture methodology, can provide a powerful tool to address the problems that frequently beset fashion museum exhibitions - whether antiquarian or superficial.

Styles, J. 1998. 'Dress in history: reflections on a contested terrain', Fashion Theory, 2(4), 383-389.

Part of a special issue on methodology. This article is concerned with the difficulties, conceptual and methodological, of reinserting dress into history. The author reflects on the tensions between object-based and other modes of scholarship that have dogged the history of fashion and dress. These tensions are strong and intractable, most obviously because they often reflect professional divisions between those who study surviving garments and accessories (museums) and those who study dress through images and words (higher education). Styles concludes that what is required is a new self-consciousness about the range of issues that the history of dress now embraces. It is now a point of intersection for scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, and this is what underpins its respectability. Fashion requires a commitment to a mode of enquiry combining elements of both conceptual and empirical work - and a willingness to monitor and reflect on other approaches.

Tarrant, N. E. A. 1996. 'The portrait, the artist and the costume historian', Dress, 22, 69-77.

The author reflects on the use of portraits by the costume historian, with particular reference to Allan Ramsey's work.

Tarrant, N. E. A. 1999. 'The real thing: the study of original garments in Britain since 1947', Costume, 33, 12-22.

This is a revised version of the paper given in July 1997 at the Fiftieth Anniversary Conference for the opening of the Gallery of English Costume at Platt Hall, Manchester, in 1947. It is dedicated to the Gallery's first Keeper, Anne M Buck, in anticipation of her ninetieth birthday.

Taylor, L. 1998. 'Doing the laundry? A reassessment of object-based dress history', Fashion Theory, 2(4), 337-358.

Part of a special issue on methodology. This article outlines the disputes and debates that have taken place within the field of dress history in Europe and North America over the last twenty years, set in the context of the 'Great Divide' between object-centred, curatorial/collector based approaches and 'academic' social/economic/cultural studies methodologies. This divide was seen to (mostly) male social/economic historians, who place no value on close assessment of garments or fabrics, set against (mostly) women curators and collectors, who see close object study as the crucial basis of any social/consumption analysis. A second context is the history of the reluctance, within museums of decorative art, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum to accept fashionable Euro-American dress within their collections. In a riposte to these attitudes, discussion lays out the significant, pioneering collecting/curatorial role undertaken internationally by women dress historians, such as Doris Langley Moore, Anne Buck, Yvonne Deslandres and Madelaine Delpierre, Irene Lewisjohn, Aline Bernstein and Polaire Weissman in the 1930s-50s, faced, as they usually were, with demeaning nicknames such as the 'frock girls'. Finally, through an account of recent good practice case studies, this text addressed positive multi-disciplinary developments in the academic and museums worlds apparent by 1997, which, it was argued, were starting to overcoming the negativities of this 'Great Divide' between 'academic' and object-centred dress history.

Taylor, L. 2004. Establishing Dress History. Manchester, Manchester University Press.

A study of the historiography of dress and of dress collections in a museum context.

Tseëlon, E. 2001. 'Fashion research and its discontents', Fashion Theory, 5(4), 435-451.

Until recently, fashion has not been seen by Academia as a worthy topic for serious study, as it is in media discourse. Other than in fashion columns, fashion issues feature in ways that underline their perceived triviality. The field of fashion studies exhibits the symptoms that are common to subjects in search of a discipline. This article highlights some of the main disadvantages that characterize research in fashion studies - unfruitful appropriation of the natural science method, misuse of theory, and meta-theoretical confusion - and discusses each in turn.

Warwick, A. and Cavallaro, D. 1998. Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress and the Body. Oxford, Berg.

The body has been the focus of much recent critical attention, but the clothed body less so. In answering the need to theorize dress, this book provides an overview of recent scholarship and presents an original theory of what dress means in relation to the body.

Identity relies on boundaries to individuate the self. Dress challenges boundaries: it frames the body and serves both to distinguish and connect self and 'Other'. The authors argue that clothing is, then, both a boundary and not a boundary, that it is ambiguous and produces a complex relation between self and 'not self'. In examining the role of dress in social structures, the authors argue that clothing can be seen as both restricting and liberating individual and collective identity.

In proposing that dress represents 'a deep surface', a manifestation of the unconscious at work through apparently superficial phenomena, the book also questions the relationship between surface and depth and counters the notion of dress as disguise or concealment. The concept of the gaze and the role of gender are approached through a discussion of masks and veils. The authors argue that masks and veils paradoxically combine concealment and revelation, 'truth' and 'deception'. Here the body and dress are both seen as forms of absence, with dress concealing not the body, but the absence of the physical body.

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Fashioning the Early Modern " Methodology

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Barthes, R. 2006. The Language of Fashion. Oxford, Berg. Roland Barthes, widely regarded as one of the most subtle and perceptive critics of the 20th Century, was particularly fascinated by fashion and clothing. The Language of Fashion brings together all Barthes' untranslated writings on fashion.

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According to the sexual script theory, human sexuality is largely determined by culturally-prescribed scripts, or templates for behavior. These gender-normative scripts are typically heterosexual, where men are depicted as sexually active and assertive, while favoring nonrelational sex. Conversely, women are described as sexually passive and seeking relational sex. Such tendencies are learned through socialization and then acted out, thereby creating further reinforcement of the conventions, making these scripts cyclical in nature. Despite the twenty-first century's advances in gender roles, the stereotype that men are generally sexually eager and women are coy, if not repressed, is still the sexual norm (Garcia, Reiber, Massey, & Merriwether, 2012). Both evolutionary drives and media messaging explain this phenomenon, which is also related to social dominance theory's view that men have more power in the gender hierarchy (PSU WC, 2015). To further complicate matters, adhering to these traditional gender roles is associated with societal rewards and punishments (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012).

These concepts of gender and sexuality are stereotypical and fairly obvious, yet a deeper look reveals huge and complex juxtapositions for both men and women. The terror management theory suggests that men have a profound subconscious ambivalence towards women and their sexuality because it reminds them of their true corporeal animal nature and therefore, mortality. This concept is woven throughout many different culture's religions and histories. On the one hand, men spend much of their lives lusting after women, and on the other hand men wrestle with an intense fear of women. This contradiction is unsettling and at the mild end of the spectrum can create cognitive dissonance for men, potentially leading to sexism, misogyny, and even violence and rape, in the extreme (Landau et al., 2006).

Accordingly, Sigmund Freud developed a theory to explain men's anxiety towards women's sexuality, suggesting that men cast women into one of two categories to allay the uncomfortable dichotomy of fear and desire: the Madonna (women he admires and respects) and the whore (women he is attracted to and therefore disrespects). The Madonna-whore complex views women's desirability/licentiousness and purity/maternal goodness as mutually exclusive traits. Love is seen as clean and virginal whereas sex is viewed as dirty and shameful. Because healthy sexuality is sublimated, it is rerouted towards the secrecy and debasement involved in pornography where the concept of slut is outwardly despised and privately craved. This dichotomy may contributes to many relationship issues, where men generally seek to maintain the image of their romantic partner as Madonna, but may seek the whore in the form of an affair in order to achieve both opposing idealizations that are difficult to project onto the same woman (Landau et al., 2006).

Hartmann (2009) asserts that though many of Freud's sexual theories are now considered antiquated and sexist, his psychoanalytic notion of the Madonna-whore complex is still quite viable and pervasive in modern sexual dynamics and gender roles. Women are given so many shaming antisexual messages suppressing the understanding and integration of their sexuality, while simultaneously being valued principally for their youth, thinness, attractiveness, and overall sexual prestige by society. The female plight is just as dichotomous as the male's: women want to be both respected (primarily) yet desired (secondarily), whereas men struggle to reconcile these concepts that they can find paradoxical, creating cognitive dissonance. Landau et al. (2006) indicate that men's ambivalence towards women's sexuality is predicated on the ambivalence about their own sexuality, again a painful reminder of their mortality.

My initial aim in writing this blog was to explore the difficulties involved in women's gender roles and sexuality, however, after further research it seems that men's attitudes and proclivities are just as complicated. I think these dynamics are both fascinating and frightening. So much of how we behave sexually it seems is based on genetic and societal programming outside of our control. But understanding these deeply rooted tendencies and conflicts is the first step in self-actualizing to consciously create the gender and sexual roles we feel comfortable with and want to portray. Also, I think the Madonna-whore complex does affect many relationships to varying degrees, especially married couples, and those with children most of all. I've seen family and friends struggle with that dynamic, probably thinking the issue was unique to them, whereas I believe it to be a much more widespread phenomenon.

References

Garcia, J. R., Reiber, C., Massey, S. G., & Merriwether, A. M. (2012). Sexual hookup culture: A review. Review of General Psychology, 16(2), 161-176. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1037/a0027911

Hartmann, U. (2009). Sigmund Freud and His Impact on Our Understanding of Male Sexual Dysfunction. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 6(8), 2332-2339. doi:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01332.x

Landau, M. J., Goldenberg, J. L., Greenberg, J., Gillath, O., Solomon, S., Cox, C., . . . Pyszczynski, T. (2006). The siren's call: Terror management and the threat of men's sexual attraction to women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 129-146. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.129

The Pennsylvania State University World Campus (PSU WC). (2015). Lesson 6: Intergroup Relations. In PSYCH424: Applied Social Psychology (5). Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/psych424/001/content/07_lesson/05_page.html

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Tags: freud, gender roles, sexism, sexual script theory, sexuality, social dominance theory

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Madonna-whore complex | Applied Social Psychology (ASP)

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According to the sexual script theory, human sexuality is largely determined by culturally-prescribed scripts, or templates for behavior. These gender-normative scripts are typically heterosexual, where men are depicted as sexually active and assertive, while favoring nonrelational sex. Conversely, women are described as sexually passive and seeking relational sex.

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Why do we bother listening to what artists have to say about the world? This week, Grayson Perry - the cross-dressing winner of the Turner Prize - wrote a long essay in the New Statesman, in which he railed against something called "Default man". By this he meant "white, middle-class, heterosexual men, usually middle-aged".

These people, Perry wrote, "with their colourful textile phalluses hanging round their necks" (also known as ties) have "othered" the rest of society. Quoting hackneyed feminist slogans, he argued that "male power nestles in our very language, exerting influence at the most fundamental level". Come again? He concluded that Default Man "sits in a gender/class/age nexus marked 'Unexploded Emotional Time Bomb'."

Well, I certainly found myself close to throwing the magazine across the room, so maybe he did have a point.

I've no doubt that Perry is a clever man. But his opinions are just so... default, and so obvious, that they can be found in almost any artist. Before the Clacton by-election, for instance, the street artist Banksy - who has bravely stuck his neck out in the art world by criticising capitalism, the police and Israel - produced a mural depicting some pigeons telling another bird to "go back to Africa". It was a comment on xenophobia, yeah, which is not cool, you know?

Unfortunately, some overzealous equality and diversity official at the council didn't see the joke and ordered its destruction for being racist - the unintentionally funniest moment for modern art since a cleaner threw away a Tate Britain exhibit in 2004, which she thought was rubbish. (You can hardly blame her: it was, literally, a bag of rubbish, demonstrating the "finite existence" of art.)

Perry's idea that men are somehow "default" because of their backgrounds is the sort of thinking that appeals to people who have not read any history. By his logic, America's Founding Fathers, simply because they were white, middle-class, heterosexual and middle-aged, were somehow less interesting than the Ottoman sultan's court of the time - which, for all its exotic mixture of nationalities and eunuchs, was intellectually a wasteland.

Reading Perry, you think that somewhere out there must be a former polytechnic missing a gender-studies professor. In that world, lots of people write like he does, using jargon-filled phrases that mix Freud, Marx and pure waffle. The difference is that no one listens to Marxist professors any more - but once an artist such as Perry says it, the world pays attention. Why?

Artists are interesting people because of their work. But the character traits and talents that make them artistic rarely go with the analytical skills, understanding of unintended consequences, and willingness to overcome bias that lead to political wisdom. If anything, the reverse is true, and the qualities required of an artist - open-mindedness, creativity and imagination - are far more commonly found in people on the hard Left. In fact, there's no reason to think that Rembrandt or Michelangelo would not have sounded and reasoned like Perry - or the various artists who have got behind every bad idea since Picasso was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.

Although there is limited evidence that artists' endorsements win votes for politicians, they certainly shape political culture. Will Gervais, of the University of Kentucky, has found that religious beliefs are spread as much by celebrity endorsement as any product, so that "people also care deeply about what the prestigious or successful individuals in their local societies believe" and often follow their lead.

This goes for politics, too. The liberal-Left has managed to gain a near-monopoly on British public life largely because Left-wing politics are popular with high-status people, especially in academia and the media. So it really does matter what a successful artist thinks about the world (even if we might suspect they know less than us).

The rise of outspoken and politically minded artists is therefore a serious blow to conservatism.

It's also a loss to art, removing the mystery that should exist between artist and audience. Luckily for us, though, great art always outlives the opinions of its creators. So perhaps one day people will be able to appreciate some of Grayson Perry's work without having to read his rants about middle-class, middle-aged, heterosexual white men.

Ed West is the author of 'The Silence of our Friends' (Kindle edition)

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Grayson Perry proves that art and politics don't mix

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Why do we bother listening to what artists have to say about the world? This week, Grayson Perry - the cross-dressing winner of the Turner Prize - wrote a long essay in the New Statesman, in which he railed against something called "Default man". By this he meant "white, middle-class, heterosexual men, usually middle-aged".

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The morning I am due to meet Grayson Perry for a discussion on masculinity, my own issues on the topic are brought into sharp focus. In particular, I think about my cold towel. It's cold because the rail on which it hangs no longer emits heat - the fuse has blown and I am waiting for my dad to visit so he can change it. If it is true that we are currently suffering a masculinity crisis, then could my cold towel and I be the perfect illustration?

"Of course I can change a plug," says Perry when we meet, with a hint of incredulity. "But my father would not only know how to change a plug, he could have rewired the house, built the back wall. It's a generational thing."

Perry is possibly the perfect person to teach me how to man up, and not just because he knows how to avoid a 220-volt shock. His latest three-part television documentary, Grayson Perry: All Man, delves into the subject of masculinity by visiting people living out some of the most stereotypical macho roles in British society - from mixed martial arts cage fighters in the north-east to loadsamoney City boys via teenage gangs in Skelmersdale, west Lancashire. Given that Perry is best known for the slightly less stereotypically male tasks of making ceramic art and wearing homemade dresses, wasn't venturing into these macho environments a little bit ... well, scary?

"Yeah," he says. "With the young men in Skem, there was one moment where we go down the subway with them and I thought: 'If they're gonna rob us, it will be now.' I knew that at least one of them was carrying a knife ..."

But if you think Perry is an unlikely choice to interview subjects on masculinity, then you would be mistaken. For a start, it is a subject he has given a lot of thought to over his 56 years: "Was there a flashpoint in my life that made me question masculinity?" he says, a little amused by my question. "Well, if you start putting on dresses when you're 12, it's a bit of a wake-up call. Being a transvestite does somewhat force the issue ..."

Perry also has an unusual affinity with his subjects that encourages them to open up to him, perhaps because, just like many of his subjects, he is a working-class male who needed to escape painful aspects of his past (albeit through art). During one heartbreaking moment in the first part, Hard Men, a cage fighter breaks down over his brother's suicide. Another occasion sees teenage gang members concede their fathers were useless role models. Rather than a gentle poking at the silly side of masculinity, Perry's show is a serious study of emotional repression and its devastating consequences.

"Often men don't even realise they're sad," he says. "Boys are brought up to unconsciously feel they would be breaking their man contract if they were to cry too much. That's why men kill themselves more - they bottle up, bottle up, bottle up, bottle up, until they're overwhelmed by it."

Perry thinks the shocking suicide rates in the UK - men aged between 20 and 49 are more likely to die from suicide than any other single form of death - is just one reason why we urgently need to address our view of what being a man should involve. In a world where manual labour is declining and technology is transforming the workplace, it is hardly surprising that traits associated with violent aggression are becoming increasingly redundant.

Such stereotypes are something Perry has fought since childhood. Rejecting the figures of masculinity he was "handed by fate" - in particular, a stepfather so violent that Perry recently claimed he fantasised about killing him - Perry invented his own ideal male role model, represented by his teddy bear Alan Measles: "He's an extreme example of what a transference object can do in the right hands," he laughs, "although he's just a lump of rather rotting foam now."

Perry also embraced a female alter-ego called Claire, although "alter-ego" is a term he now dismisses. "It's just me in a dress," he says. "I don't make any claims to having any understanding of what it is to be a woman. I might walk with shorter steps, that's all!"

The idea of gang members putting on frocks and taking up pottery might be slightly farfetched, but Perry - who grew up through the androgyny of punk and the experimentation of new romanticism - thinks a lot of people could be freer if they loosened up about gender.

"Gender is great," he says, "and I'm happy for anybody to celebrate wherever they are on the gender spectrum. It's got amazingly much easier in my lifetime."

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Grayson does Australia: 'It's just me in a dress.' Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

I ask where he stands on the debates about public toilets - whether people who identify as female should be allowed in women's toilets. "Well, [in] all situations, you have to give and take," he says. "If the majority of women don't like it, then you have to listen to them. Because all identity is co-created. If I say, 'I am X', and you don't agree with me, am I really X?

"I can shout what I want from the rooftops," he continues, before diverting into a story of a meeting he had with someone who ran a gender-equality clinic in Charing Cross. "He told me his job isn't to transform person A into person B, but to get them to look like something that feels right to them, [so] that other people don't give them questioning looks all the time. It's getting them to a place where they feel happy and other people accept it. It's always about finding what really works. In the past, if you wanted to declare yourself whatever, and everyone said, 'That's ridiculous', then it was hard work."

Back to the subject in hand - how men can embrace a healthier form of masculinity - and we run through a list of things men could do better at, from opening up more and embracing feminism to refiguring our definition of what bravery means (see below). As we skip through the list, I realise that it is probably not me who needs to sort out my masculinity issues. Instead, it's some of the cage fighters and City boys and gang members. Because the masculinity Perry thinks we should aspire to is not a traditional one; it is one that fits the modern world, where problem-solving and communication are more important than being able to kill your lunch with your bare hands. And if I am still left unable to change a plug at the end of it all, at least I no longer need to wait for my dad to visit. I can simply give Grayson Perry a call instead.

Grayson Perry's 12 steps to becoming a modern man

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Grayson Perry: 'Get me on a mountain bike and I love it.' Photograph: Channel 4

"Being vulnerable is the absolute key to having good relationships. And good relationships are the key to being happy."

2. Bravado comes in many forms

"Men are very good at bungee jumping or driving fast, things that are physically dangerous, but they're not so good at emotional bravery, such as having that difficult conversation with a colleague or partner. Men often cringe; they can't handle it. I'm probably better than most because, having been through many embarrassing situations, I've learned that you don't die."

3. Don't get too hung up on identity issues

"The idea of gender fluidity is an alien concept to the vast majority of people, even in Britain."

"Men are always looking back to a time when men were men and trying to bring that back. I'm saying you've got to look forward, mate. Women are always looking forward. Feminism always looks to how women can be - and that's fine. It doesn't stop them being women."

"All men wear costumes - they just don't think of it as a costume. That's the thing about masculinity; it sees itself as this sort of default position, so therefore everything else is dressing up, whereas the man is just being normal. Men might not have frills and furbelows as women traditionally do, but they've got spurious function: knobs on their watches or extra pockets on their jackets that are just as decorative as anything women wear."

6. Channel your painful past into useful things

"We all find ways to comfort ourselves, or reinterpret experiences to make them seem OK. For me it was art; for other people it can be sport."

7. Feminism is your friend

"Men need not be scared of it. But the name puts them off - it has 'feminine' in it. I don't think enough is talked about the rewards for men from gender equality. Women have clear goals to gain from it that are easy to measure - such as pay - whereas men stand to gain emotional benefits and become happier, which is harder to measure."

8. Realise there's a problem

"It's difficult convincing men that there's a problem with masculinity because they are the least equipped people to realise they are lacking things on an emotional level."

"Men need to learn how nice it is to be nice, how to be more empathetic to the world. It's a simple, sloshy thing to say, but lots of men are hooked into proving that they are men too much. It's to their own detriment, as much as everyone else's. I want them to be happier, that's all."

10. Taking risks is part of our nature

"Men are predisposed to taking risks, and that's fine - I love risks: get me on a mountain bike or a motor bike, I love it. I'm an adrenaline addict. It's the same with public speaking or becoming a part of a public conversation - these are all risky strategies that can go terribly wrong."

11. Let your children be themselves

"Parents in this country often know their child's gender before they are born, so they start the gendering process on the foetus. They're already talking to it in their stomach and getting their mindset on how they will treat their child."

12. Think about how macho pursuits affect the world

"Just look at Isis and what it promises to those young boys who go to fight. You're in a group, there's a clear goal - it's a real masculine adventure. There's not much negotiation going on!"
Grayson Perry: All Man is on Channel 4 on Thursday at 10pm.

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Grayson Perry: 'Boys think they're breaking the man contract if they cry'

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The morning I am due to meet Grayson Perry for a discussion on masculinity, my own issues on the topic are brought into sharp focus. In particular, I think about my cold towel. It's cold because the rail on which it hangs no longer emits heat - the fuse has blown and I am waiting for my dad to visit so he can change it.

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Grayson Perry, the Turner-prize-winning artist, is guest-editor of this week's New Statesman. He takes the opportunity offered by that dizzy-making eminence to launch an attack on what he calls "Default Man". By this he means white, middle-class, middle-aged, straight men, whom he reveals, with astonishment tempered by disgust, to be the people who run the country.

"They dominate the upper echelons of our society," Perry thunders, "imposing, unconsciously or otherwise, their values and preferences on the rest of the population. With their colourful textile phalluses hanging round their necks, they make up an overwhelming majority in government, in boardroom and also in the media."

One could argue that the current Parliament's legalisation of gay marriage doesn't really suggest that it's comprised of a 600-strong cabal of heterosexual males "imposing their values and preferences" on the population; one could murmur that dark two-piece suits are the defining uniform of Perry's anathematised tribe, rather than ties (which haven't been worn by anyone in the media for several years); but let us not stop the nation's top potter in mid-rant.

Perry fumes that Default Man has "a strong grip on the keys to power", more by virtue of who he is - well-educated, rich, well-mannered, charming, confident - than what he has achieved. This is incontrovertibly true, and was almost as true a whole century ago, before working-class men, women and homosexuals started to get their hands on the keys of power. They may not be in charge yet, but that's evolution for you. Perry also claims that the bourgeois straight male, if accused of being a member of the group, will always deny it.

There's something a teensy bit smug about the way Mr Perry exempts himself from being part of the bourgeois herd he so despises. "By coming from a working-class background and being an artist and a transvestite," he assures us, "I have enough cultural distance from the towers of power." Well lucky old you, matey, is all I can say. Those of us stuck with being white, straight, middle-class and middle-aged British men know that it's no stroll in the park. It's tough being ordinary. Look at this crown of thorns we wear:

1. Frankly, there's little chance of persuading your bank manager to loan you large sums of money if you go to see him wearing a lovely red-white-and-gold chenille smock, a green-and-yellow patterned skirt, pink platform heels and a caramel Huggy-Bear handbag. It may be fine for Grayson Bloody Perry but not for the rest of us.

2. Straight, middle-class etc chaps can yearn all they like to go on television quiz shows and be interviewed on a sofa by camp entertainers who encourage them to describe their encounters with A-list celebrities, and greet their replies with knowing laughter but, trust me, it's not going to happen.

3. If you're not an artist, merely a boring politician, many innocently fulfilling activities are out of bounds. Gilbert and George have spent years showing off their genitalia and rectal cavities in pictures at the White Cube Gallery. But let a Default Man emulate that innocent behaviour by, for instance, sending pictures of his ham javelin to a foxy political PR, he'll soon be up to his neck in crocodiles.

4. If you're middle-aged and middle-class, the chances of being allowed to eat roast chicken with sage stuffing, or similarly comforting dishes, are severely curtailed. When visiting friends, you'll be expected to endure uncomplainingly the kofta b'siniyah with tahini sauce and kohlrabi salad from a simply diviiiiiiiine Ottolenghi recipe.

5. Default Man seldom strikes out on bold, original notes by learning Mandarin Chinese, kite-surfing or playing the single-stringed Gambian fiddle. Unless he wants to have his peer group think he's been out in the sun too long, he'll stick to watching Boardwalk Empire, taking up golf and listening to London Grammar.

6. Under no circumstances can you so much as broach the possibility of buying a leather jacket or a Caterham 7 sports car without everyone muttering "midlife crisis".

7. Displays of weeping in the boardroom, the Commons or in front of the camera are considered pathetic signs of weakness, as are screaming, running about waving your hands, or clutching your COE/chief whip/studio manager round the shins and begging him not to fire you. The strongest emotion that Default Man is allowed to express is embarrassment. Not a big advantage in life, though, is it Grayson?

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Does Grayson Perry have any idea how tough life is for white,

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Grayson Perry, the Turner-prize-winning artist, is guest-editor of this week's New Statesman. He takes the opportunity offered by that dizzy-making eminence to launch an attack on what he calls "Default Man". By this he means white, middle-class, middle-aged, straight men, whom he reveals, with astonishment tempered by disgust, to be the people who run the country.

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Jonathan Wolff's column about the way academics dress caused uproar on my Twitter and Facebook feeds this week. And rightly so. Despite occasionally acknowledging that some academics might be women, his comments betrayed his assumption that academics are male, for apparently their default uniform comprises trousers, a jacket, a shirt and a tie.

But the most galling thing about his assumption is that in one way, he's right: masculine dress is the standard academic uniform, for academia remains an overtly male domain. As a result, female academics find their appearance scrutinised in ways a male colleague would rarely encounter.

It's well known that the suit conveys authority and power in the workplace in overtly masculine ways. You only need to look at the tie, pointing insistently to the male crotch, to recognise this.

So when a man wears a suit, he is simply adopting the standard uniform of a conventional authoritative masculinity, as Grayson Perry recently noted in his description of the great white male. But if this form of dress is also the default academic uniform, what should a female academic wear?

In my experience, many choose to adopt feminine adaptations of the standard uniform: a shirt and jacket, with a smart skirt or trousers. This can be a help at conferences, when the obligatory name badges still tend to sit in holders designed to be clipped to a man's jacket pocket or lapel, rather than hung from a lanyard around the neck. But I've been told by some women - particularly junior colleagues - that they dress like this in order to be "taken seriously".

The implication is that dressing in a more conventionally feminine way is somehow more frivolous, and can undermine perceptions of a woman's intellectual and professional skills. Dressing in order to be taken seriously indicates that the spectre of older, more explicit forms of sexism still hovers over us: a woman who adopts a more feminine style is too preoccupied with pretty things to be a serious academic, because a woman can't be both attractive and intelligent - if indeed she can be intelligent at all.

But even when a woman wears a suit in the academic area, she's not immune from similarly loaded and critical assumptions. I've overheard conversations at academic gatherings in which female colleagues have been described as "power-dressing" - coded language used to accuse a woman of asserting herself in overly-ambitious ways.

How different it is for a male academic! When he wears a suit, he's simply perceived to be professionally and smartly dressed. He doesn't need to "power-dress": by virtue of his being a man, he is already powerful.

This is why a male academic can afford to look scruffy if he chooses: no one will question his intellectual or professional authority. Male academics who wear jeans, hoodies and t-shirts are "lads" to their students, and "good blokes" to their colleagues. Older men who wear scuffed shoes and a fraying tweed jacket, accidentally accessorized with a splodge of egg yolk down their tie, are "eccentric" or "distractedly intellectual".

But a female academic who looks similarly casual, or scruffy, or unkempt, risks becoming the target of a range of sexist assumptions: she must be a student, or a mother distracted from the job by childcare, or a woman too old to need to bother about her appearance.

These assumptions are obviously not isolated. The unspoken dress-codes of academia are simply a reflection of the wider policing of women's bodies in other professional contexts in western society. No matter what their occupation, women are still frequently held to account for their appearance, rather than only their expertise and experience.

Like an increasing number of female academics, I refuse to wear the male uniform. And as a result, I've sometimes been criticised or advised by both men and women (academic and non-academic) when it comes to my appearance.

I dress smartly but not formally for work. I wear what I'm comfortable in - both physically and socially. But for some, my heels are too high. My hair is too long. My smart jeans are too modern. Apparently, for some people I look too "glamorous", or too "feminine", to be an academic.

At a conference a few years ago, a senior female professor suggested I should wear long skirts or looser trousers and tie my hair back (or better, put it up altogether) because attendees would be able to concentrate more carefully on what I was saying.

Even when I've stepped into the media in my role as an academic, my appearance has caused confusion, leading one TV critic to remark: "Clearly whoever commissioned a three-part series on Biblical scholarship for BBC2 was entirely indifferent to the fact that it would be presented by someone who looks as if she's shimmied out of one of the hotter passages of the Song of Solomon".

Essentially, the message is the same: unless women dress modestly and conservatively, they look out of place in academia, because fundamentally, they don't have the right bodies to be academic authorities.

This infuriates me, and I refuse to accept it. My intellectual abilities as an academic should be judged on my work: my research, my publications, and my lectures. This is how I have earned and now own my place in academia, regardless - or in spite of - my "feminine" appearance.
Francesca Stavrakopoulou is professor of Hebrew Bible and ancient religion at the University of Exeter - follow her on Twitter @ProfFrancesca

More like this:* My university life as a woman professor
* Why women leave academia and why universities should be worried
* Academics Anonymous: sexism is driving women out of science
Join the Higher Education Network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter @gdnhighered.

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Female academics: don't power dress, forget heels - and no flowing hair allowed

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Jonathan Wolff's column about the way academics dress caused uproar on my Twitter and Facebook feeds this week. And rightly so. Despite occasionally acknowledging that some academics might be women, his comments betrayed his assumption that academics are male, for apparently their default uniform comprises trousers, a jacket, a shirt and a tie.

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On her mission

I've worked in fashion for many years, both as a model and agent. I became an activist after I founded the Black Girls Coalition in 1987, and Iman joined in my plight to celebrate the black fashion model. Black models started to be featured in top editorials, adverts, catalogues and on the runway. It was worth celebrating. As time went by, the models of Black Girls Coalition grew up and slowly left the industry, leaving no replacements. The industry lost its sense of color and became whiter than white. My activism was called upon again to re-adjust what we were seeing. I'm not just fighting for the black model. That's why I say models of colour, it covers a much broader spectrum - I care very much about anyone who is having difficulty because they are not Caucasian.

But really, I'm trying to help white people, because often it's white people who think they're very 'liberal', not realising that 'liberal' is a word that often times can be borderline racist. Ignorance can cause the results of racism. The people I'm trying to help are those who think there is nothing wrong.

On media representation

Emanuel Ungaro, Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016
Ambra Vernuccio

It comes down to how we see people nowadays; we see all kinds of people in everyday life, but how they're represented in the media affects everybody. A perfect example is American Vogue. In the past, if Vogue used girls of colour they would, more than likely, have to be laughing, jumping or dancing. I was so taken aback when in January 2014 I went to get an issue of the magazine and it included three different portfolios of models of colour, which had never happened before.

It's interesting, if people could just integrate the idea of how things would naturally look everyone could get used to it. Then it wouldn't become such a big deal when you see a person of colour in a photo or a painting.

On colonialism

When people colonise an environment it's never with the intent to incorporate; it's always with the intent to have what is seemingly a good deal. They go in and push past the people. The people are gentle, the people are soft, the people are kind, the people are not aggressive, so it's easy for the western men to get what they want. In this process culture can get lost. So the people who have been acquired have to try to stay true to the culture that they had.

This image by The Singh Twins is a strong message because it reminds us that there were other people who helped create a culture. The dominant culture becomes something more than it was before it met the less dominant one, so you have a merged, diverse and strengthened culture.

That's why it's so important to educate people, to make them wake up and smell the coffee; because it's everybody who makes something change, not just one group.

On cultural appropriation

I'm not bothered if a white hairdresser decides to put the white models hair in cornrows for the Valentino collection. To me they're referencing our culture. But the problem is they're not telling anyone of the reference, which seems to bother many in the black community.

Well, gee whiz. What are they supposed to do? Come out over the loudspeaker or even write it into the little catalogue they put on the seats at fashion shows? So, people of colour, Native Indians, Latinos ... basically everybody, has an angst about how their culture is not given credit.

And to move on to the wonderful Colonel T.E. Lawrence portrait by Augustus John. Lawrence of Arabia was a good example of someone who really got involved in another culture. He knew the people, he knew the language, he lived there for many years. It makes a difference to have had that involvement in the culture. You understand the history and tradition of the clothes that you're wearing, rather than just thinking 'oh, I like the look of that'. It's a subtle difference in context, and about respect.

On Victoria's Secret

There are things that can be understandably disturbing to a culture. For instance, the Victoria's Secret show is very potent example of how the boundaries of respect can blur.

So when they mimic the Native American by walking with this beautiful headdress on, (which is quite beautiful by the way - I loved it on Karlie Kloss) it becomes offensive because the person whose culture is depicted knows that the person who is using it has no understanding of what it means. She couldn't walk on to a reservation like that!

Yousuf Karsh
Sir John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada 1937

In my view, this image of Sir John Buchan, is not the same. You'd think he must really be part of it as the headdress was a gift from a Native Indian tribe. He may be a westerner but his experience has brought him closer to the culture, you can even tell by the way he put his head, and holds the coat that he respects the tradition.

On David Bowie

Masayoshi Sukita
David Bowie wearing Kansai Yamamoto New York, 1973.
© Photo by Sukita

When someone like David, who was such a visionary, references other cultures, it's a whole other story. It was like he was not plucking off other cultures, he was looking to drown in it, because he was so inspired by it.

He was always going a little bit beyond the bar to stand up for things he believed in. If you left the little guy out he had no problem using his celebrity to question you on it. Once, at the beginning of MTV's success, he questioned them on their lack of black musicians and talent in the music videos. He really kept MTV's hand to the fire, and the interviewer started just tripping over his own feet. He was trying to make sense of it but it was just like he was walking deeper and deeper into a mess and he couldn't explain why there were no black people present.

There are few people like that that come along in this world to push the button.

On painting

Pierre Mignard
Portrait of Louise Renee de Penancoet de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth 1649-1734

The difficult thing about paintings is that sometimes they don't really tell you enough. In Pierre Mignard's portrait of the Dutchess Louise Rene de Kerouaille and the little Princess Louise Marie Therese, the black child is at the knee of a noble Victorian lady in a position of supplication.

If you look closer, though, the little girl has beads around her neck and she looks just as elegant as the Caucasian woman. So it's unfair to determine what that story is because we don't know without further research, and even then history is very biased. From what I did read, that little black child was prominent in some way, too. But who would know that?

Anthony Van Dyck
William Fielding, 1st Earl of Denbigh c.1635-6
Oil on canvas
2475 x 1485 mm

The National Gallery, London. Presented by Count Antoine Seilern, 1945

But when you look at a painting like Sir Anthony Van Dyck's portrait of William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh it doesn't make you feel respect for the gentleman because of his attitude of superiority. It doesn't read like he could be learning something from this young person, rather he fits the convention of hierarchy, power and privilege.

History remains interesting ...

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'Bethann Hardison on art, race and power dressing' - Interview | Tate

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I've worked in fashion for many years, both as a model and agent. I became an activist after I founded the Black Girls Coalition in 1987, and Iman joined in my plight to celebrate the black fashion model. Black models started to be featured in top editorials, adverts, catalogues and on the runway.

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Power dressing. It's a notion fashion often trumpets as the next big thing - generally right after a period when women have been urged to waft around listlessly in hippy duds like Talitha Getty, or don diaphanous nighties during the day. Guess what? It's back for spring 2015 - but, in the current ADHD scramble of "Faster Fashion" (at both high end and high street), it's uncomfortably coexisting with hippy frills and drippy slips.

However, there's a twist to fashion's most recent incarnation of power dressing. For once, designers seem to be looking beyond its favourite, frequently rehashed cliché - namely the Dairylea triangle silhouette of sharp shoulders and short skirts that scream "authority", via Thatcher the Milk Snatcher and Joan Collins as Dynasty anti-heroine Alexis.

"I tried to avoid the phrase 'power dressing' in the context of the exhibition because I think we associate it with a very particular, 1980s quite masculine suit," says Donna Loveday, who co-curated the Design Museum's current exhibition Women Fashion Power (until 26 April). Of the exhibition, she states: "It's not power dressing. It's using clothes to suggest power." That's age-old - from Elizabeth I in her eyes and ears-embroidered cloak (not so subtle), to her contemporary incarnation and her ever-present hats (a subtler monarchical echo of the crown, without the weight).

Designers seem to have, finally, got the message. Maybe it's a spin-off from fashion's co-opting of feminism last year - a practice so ubiquitous it led Time to propose "feminist" as one of a list of words to ban in 2015. That, understandably, provoked a backlash: the publication has since apologised, but you understand its intention. It's not the ideology of the term, but its appropriation and overuse that the magazine objected to. In any case, it seems to have led designers to propose power dressing for spring without compulsory shoulder-stuffing, instead exploring a myriad incarnations of powerful women.

Nice idea. But when its realisation is a model walking wordlessly down a catwalk, power has to be evoked through appearance alone. That's rarely subtle. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana dressed their women as matadors; Donatella Versace cut her skirts short and taut - dressing sexily is her interpretation of power dressing. Tom Ford thinks very much the same, with his soaring hemlines and skinny flares kicking out over hyper-high shoes, models attenuated and towering at an altitude of roughly 6ft 6in. When his models had their breasts bared, bar strategically-placed jewellery, they resembled 21st century Boudiccas braving battle.

Of course, the physical manifestation of power varies according to the eye of the beholder. I saw Tom Ford's prowling, platform-shod models as embodiments of female power; many perceived the exact opposite, in those stocking-top short hemlines and fembot nipple pasties. They saw Ford's femmes not as fatales, but as surrendered women.

Perception is a big issue. Take the work of Lee Alexander McQueen, whose early collections of intentionally tattered clothing were frequently accused of misogyny. "I design clothes because I don't want women to look all innocent and naive, because I know what can happen to them," said McQueen himself back in 1996. "I want women to look stronger."

"I remember being shocked when people said, 'Oh, it's misogynous, it's misogynous'," says the stylist Katy England, McQueen's creative director on those shows. "I thought, 'What the hell are they talking about?' I didn't really get that at all." Case in point: the opening two spaces in the Victoria and Albert Museum's Savage Beauty exhibition, devoted to those early, "difficult" McQueen shows, consist almost entirely of clothes donated by women who (sometimes) bought and (always) wore the designer. They felt empowered by McQueen's provocative clothes, not encumbered.

That's a big issue with fashion pushing a power trip: who's to say how authority is articulated via clothing? Maybe it isn't even visual: when I think of power dressing, I automatically think not of Joan Collins or Armani power-suits, but of Phoebe Philo's clothes for Celine.

In fact, Philo's clothes are very similar to those of Armani in the Eighties - excluding the signature width of the shoulder. What Armani's clothes represented to a generation of women was an escape from dressing to be decorative: they were clothes for business, machines for living, to borrow from Le Corbusier. That's why women wear Celine today - it looks great, sure, but it does so unobtrusively. It lets you get on with your job.

Interestingly, Donna Loveday cited not a love of shoulder pads nor the impact of royal portraits as the impetus behind the Women Fashion Power exhibition. Rather, it was the exact opposite, of looking at "powerless best-dressed lists". You could argue that, as a result, the visual impact of clothes takes second place to a focus on the experience of women - from the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to Dame Zaha Hadid - actually wearing their clothes.

Fashion can be empowering, I insist. Dame Vivienne Westwood - another woman included in the Design Museum exhibition - once said, "You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes." The idea of dressing for success is as Eighties as, arguably, the notion of power dressing, but both have a validity today. Hillary Clinton is quoted in the Design Museum exhibition saying: "Now it's sorted. Women can express who they are more. You have to be aware of conventions, but you don't have to be a slave to them."

Maybe that's the most modern and relevant statement fashion can make about dressing women: that the choice, from Ford fembot to Dolce matador, is yours.

How powerful is that?

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Power dressing is back - but no shoulderpads

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Power dressing. It's a notion fashion often trumpets as the next big thing - generally right after a period when women have been urged to waft around listlessly in hippy duds like Talitha Getty, or don diaphanous nighties during the day. Guess what?

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Whatever your political leanings, it is undeniable that Margaret Thatcher was an immensely influential figure. Foremost as the first female British Prime Minister and champion of neo-liberalism. But, as the Victoria and Albert Museum have suggested by recently introducing items of her clothing into their permanent collection, in her dress, too.

The same week that BBC Four's Woman's Hour named Baroness Thatcher as the most influential woman of the last 70 years, the museum in South Kensington unveiled what they have identified as three iconic outfits worn by the late Prime Minister including the blue wool Aquascutum suit she wore to the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool in 1987 and again to cast her ballot in that year's winning election. A custom-designed brocade suit and taffeta opera cape designed by Marianne Abrahams by Aquascutum she wore to the Lord Mayor's Banquet in 1979, and a black slub silk hat with feathers and velvet-flecked tulle designed by Deida Acero, which she wore to her husband Sir Denis' funeral in 2003 and again at memorial for US President Ronald Regan in the same year, are also appearing.

Reconsidering Thacther's dress-sense seems particularly important in a year when the UK gained its second female Prime Minister - without a little controversy surrounding her own fashion-sense and its costs - and women have held (in Germany) and narrowly lost (in the US) the world's most important seats of power.

Jane Tynan, a lecturer in fashion history at Central St Martin's School of Art in London, says that our tendency to scrutinise what women wear is a reflection of a sexist society that draws attention away from the real work they do in politics.

Nevertheless, she argues that Thatcher was very aware of her image and used clothing as a tool of power. But a trend setter she was not. Instead, the former Prime Minster adopted the signature "power-dressing" style of the 1980s.

"Like many politicians, she created a personal style to project political values. She followed trends to some extent but matched this with style references to emphasise her conservative values," explains Dr Tynan.

"With 'power dressing' she could tap into the image of a career woman but her reputation as a fierce leader then drove her to wear clothes that might 'soften' her image, which was why she wore pussy bow blouses. A symbol of the past reflecting a more conservative femininity, the pussy bow blouse clashed with the aggressive power suits.

"This was the paradox of the Thatcher image: at once she sought to embody conservative values while also seeking to assert her right to power as a woman. Conservatism did not necessarily embrace women in positions of power. What Thatcher's wardrobe represents are the contradictions of a woman leader gaining power through a Conservative ideology, which limits female power in wider society."

In turn, the dark Conservative blue was a recurring colour in her wardrobe as, says Dr Tynan, was her choice of heritage brand Aquascutum.

"Here she sought to represent a certain version of Britishness that would see her share in their strong tradition of Military and Royal clients."

Three decades later, clothing is still important for politicians - and still perilous for women.

"It is clear from the choices made by Hilary Clinton in the run up to the recent US Presidential election that clothing matters for all politicians," says Dr Tynan of the Democratic hopeful who became synonymous with pantsuits.

Commenting on the recent furore surrounding Theresa May's £1,000 leather trousers she adds: "The PM was criticised for what she was wearing simply because she is a woman. It is clearly unfair that women come under more scrutiny than men in this regard, particularly as male politicians often purchase expensive clothes, for instance, Savile Row suits."

Yet, men still don't quite escape scrutiny either, she adds. As Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn knows all too well, clothing is also a symbol of values for men. And yet, in a world of spin and PR, politicians must know exactly what they are doing.

"While Theresa May's expensive fashionable trousers came under criticism, Jeremy Corbyn has in the past been criticised for being scruffy and not spending enough on his clothes."

"But we cannot ignore the fact that people are also using clothing - and its symbolism - to wage political wars because it is such a powerful marker of social values."

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Helmut Lang. What he achieved in the nineties is so little written about, so far beyond the existing reach of the Internet-and was so elusive, even at the time-that it's hard to capture its enormity. What he did went far beyond inventing a casual-formal, elegant-subversive uniform-things to wear every day that emitted confidence, centeredness, and sexiness. It was more than that. Everyone who packed his shows felt it when they saw his model army marching at speed in single file around the white spaces he commandeered in Paris, and later, New York. The audience got it. The models embodied it. Nobody voiced it, but everyone knew: It was the coming of age of the cool.

Lang performed the rites of passage into adulthood for all those who had grown up as punks and ravers, people who'd slouched through their youth wearing nothing but T-shirts, jeans, parkas, and sneakers as their tribal badges of honor. Before Helmut, fashion had nothing for this anti-fashion youth-pack to put on. They didn't even want it. But by the mid-nineties, this was the crowd that was rising to power in the creative classes: artists, actors, stylists, photographers, movie-makers, editors, graphic designers, entrepreneurs-people in their 20s and 30s who were going out and killing it in business for the first time in their lives.

Helmut Lang suited them. He gave them layered white cotton tanks, androgynous flat-fronted boy-pants, ideally plain tailored jackets, Crombie coats like their dads wore, only immaculately redone, and upgraded parkas to throw on as they made their way to work in the streets of New York City. It was a coded disguise, a knowing way for the cool of both sexes to hide their origins in plain sight. When you walked into a pitch or a presentation wearing one of those black Helmut Lang suits, everyone would turn and pay attention. You could pass in the straight corporate world while secretly laughing. Who knew that Lang was surreptitiously encoding the imagery of bondage harnesses, trash-bags, bra straps, and rubber into those clothes? Who recognized the sly flashes of acid-house pink? They didn't. We did.

Over time, he steadily and subtly ramped it up. As his band of customers started to go out to smart restaurants, cocktail things, awards ceremonies, and the Met Ball, there were camelhair coats, creamy alpaca linings, duchesse satin shifts, and heels with gold-tipped toes. Delicate organza capes sprouted like wings in the wake of the urban angels he'd help put up there, in places they never dreamed they'd reach.

For all these reasons, people cried when they saw Helmut's "family"-the cast of models he used over and again-walking in his shows. A couple of videos on YouTube capture the camaraderie of beauty and the dignity they inspired. There was Stella Tennant, Cecilia Chancellor, Kristen McMenamy, Kate Moss, Élise Crombez, Amber Valletta, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Kirsten Owen. There was his regular bunch of guys, and there was Elfie Semotan, Helmut's 50-something photographer friend. Loyalty mattered to him; age didn't. Their hair scraped back into simple bands or ponytails by Guido Palau, their lips sometimes minimally stained red by Dick Page, they were a legion: the exemplars of a new clean, shining, attainable beauty.

Helmut did all that, and then he quit.

Lang left his label in 2004 almost without a word. (He was never big on words: "It is dangerous to become over-exposed," he once said.) He's now an artist, living privately in East Hampton. The facts of his career are these: He was born in Austria in 1956, raised by his grandparents in the Tyrol, and first came to Paris to show in 1986. A crucial turning point came when he contacted the English stylist Melanie Ward, the young fashion editor who had discovered and shot fourteen-year-old Kate Moss with the photographer Corinne Day for the cover of The Face in 1990.

Ward and Lang were coconspirators through the Paris years, a time in which the cult following for his shows, always held in the ex-industrial white space of the Espace Commines, feverishly rose. Lang decided to move to New York City in 1997, and Ward followed. By then, his influence had become so strong that his unilateral decision to show ahead of the New York season upended what was then the traditional cycle of collections. It's because of Helmut Lang that New York designers show first today. Before Helmut decamped for his 80 Greene Street studio in Soho, the calendar went Milan-London-Paris-New York. As soon as Helmut said he'd be ready to show earlier, Donna Karan and Calvin Klein announced they'd do the same. New York has come first from that day on.

That, however, is only an incidental footnote to the place carved out in fashion by Lang. He had comrades- Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, and Jil Sander among them-who were writing their own chapters in the same fashion volume of the nineties, defining styles that became labeled as "deconstructionist" or "minimalist." But it is Lang who stands as the one who truly articulated an underground movement for the overground, leading a generation with him into the world of work and self-realization. In that respect, I have always thought that those who identified with Giorgio Armani in the eighties and Yves Saint Laurent in the seventies must have felt the same as all of us who felt so passionately about Helmut Lang. Once in a blue moon, a designer comes along who holds up a mirror in which we recognize everything we want to be. In the nineties that man was Helmut Lang.

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Helmut Lang Dressed a Generation of Nineties Influencers, Then He Disappeared-Sarah Mower Takes Us Back

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Helmut Lang. What he achieved in the nineties is so little written about, so far beyond the existing reach of the Internet-and was so elusive, even at the time-that it's hard to capture its enormity. What he did went far beyond inventing a casual-formal, elegant-subversive uniform-things to wear every day that emitted confidence, centeredness, and sexiness.

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NEW YORK, United States - "I remember once Guido [Palau] and I were flying to New York first class and someone saw us and wrote that you would have given us a wide berth," says Melanie Ward, the British stylist who rose to fame in the late '80s as the prophetess of raw, gritty fashion imagery. "It was all quite manicured. Once on the flight, I was in my cashmere sweater (because even then I liked a little bit of luxury); I had sanded the sleeves to get holes in the elbows, and this gentleman came up to me and said, 'I don't know if you realise you've got a hole in your elbow.' No one really understood what we were doing."

Back then, Ward's look couldn't have been further from the gold-buttoned, gaudily hued outfits of the era's fashion editors, known for their photogenic haircuts and high-octane glamour. Instead, she favoured slightly tattered-looking second-hand clothes, like sailor pants and khaki army greatcoats, that she would customise, dye and tailor herself. Today, she's much more polished with an air of restrained subtlety, dressed in soft, tailored trousers, a luxe knit, minimal makeup and tight ponytail.

Ward started out in London in the late '80s, at the height of the Thatcherite government and the subcultural currents that rebelled against it. Together with her photographer friends - Corinne Day, Nigel Shafran, , Glen Luchford and Donald Christie - she began by staging impecunious shoots that might involve asking an old lady at a shopping centre to wear a leopard-print fur coat, or making a daisy-chain necklace for a giggly unknown model called . "I was making a lot of clothes," says Ward, who studied politics and languages at London University before enrolling at Central Saint Martins for a year-long design course. "I was making a lot of things, and changing things; I wanted the clothes to look like the person owned them as opposed to this sort of 'fashion' image."

Just as the Youthquake of the 1960s shocked the establishment by photographing free-spirited models like Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy rebelling against the couture-clad froideur of previous decade, Ward and her collaborators went to second-hand and Army surplus shops. They customised garments, which were often unironed and slightly tattered, and they were more interested in models with flawed skin and natural hair as an antidote to the Amazonian perfection of Linda, Christy, Claudia et al. and the superstar photographers who shot them with high-gloss and saturated colour.

However, unlike the youthful experimental fashion of the '60s, which has been somewhat renegaded to trend fodder, the gritty look of Ward's early work has an untraceable, timeless quality. It can often be found on the mood boards in designers' studios or on the countless Instagram and Tumblr accounts that find perennial inspiration in the raw "realism" that is central to its appeal. "I feel like that whole movement was about effortless dressing," she explains. "It still seems so appropriate for now."

I know Anna Wintour hates the word, but I'm passionate about brands. I love brand building and finding the DNA.

The look resonated with designers, and soon Calvin Klein, and Helmut Lang, who was still based in Vienna at the time, came calling. "Calvin is the most genius branding person ever," says Ward, who, along with Kate Moss, David Sims, Guido Palau and Dick Page, was flown out to New York to shoot a campaign. "I remember on the job it was like, 'I don't really like these jeans.' So I got these men's black jeans, pulled them on her hips, made a little crutch, lifted it all up, and she [Kate Moss] was all our little rock chick in skinny black jeans," she remembers. "You've got to remember people were just wearing baggy, blue jeans back then, so even Calvin took a risk on us doing that."

Her partnership with Lang, which began in 1992 after they met at the Café de Flore in Paris, ushered in the zeitgeist of lo-fi luxe with white-spaced shows of models of both genders and all ages, walking fast in clean-cut, flat-fronted , layered cotton tanks and sheer tees, utility-luxe parkas, and techno- flou dresses that were bold and grown-up (rather than fragile and grungy). It is epitomised by the word cool and, in hindsight, it lent an air of polish to underground references, echoing the transition of Ward into a much more serious tier, where scraping together a look would be impossible. By 1998, Ward was working exclusively with Lang (much to the chagrin of Klein and Sander) and the brand had relocated to New York. Over 1,000 yellow cabs congested Manhattan streets with "HELMUT LANG" lettered across their roofs, without even a picture needed to convey its appeal. The branding was so powerful that it even enabled the Austrian designer to launch a fragrance on the internet in 2000. "I've never met anyone who had such similar taste to me," says Ward. "They used to call me the female Helmut - we both have rarefied taste with a hint of the raw. I remember he would go to a furniture store and they would say, 'Melanie's already bought it!' and vice versa with me."

In the mid-'90s, Ward's work for Jil Sander also caught the eye of Liz Tilberis, the British-born editor of US Harper's Bazaar, who persuaded Ward to become the "naughty girl" of the magazine. Initially, Ward was hesitant and declined the offer of a job. "She said, 'What if you just go on the masthead? You don't have to come into the office, you just do X amount of stories a year for me, you come to the shows with me, and you drive around in a black car,' and I thought, 'Well, I suppose I could give it a try!'" Her time as senior fashion editor at the magazine resulted in plenty of memorable images, lensed by Inez & Vinoodh, Patrick Demarchelier and David Sims. "I've been everything really," says Ward. "I've been a creative director, I've been a muse, I've been a stylist, but I actually feel that I'm more interested in style than trends because they're just so fleeting, and if you look back at trends, I mean, I don't feel like they're very lasting."

"I know Anna Wintour hates the word, but I'm passionate about brands," Ward laughs. "I love brand building and finding the DNA. Sometimes I think I should be famous for the things I've turned down!" Today, she acts as a stylist and consultant, and has been working closely with Nadège Vanhee-Cynbulski at Hermès, as well as Rag & Bone and Peter Pilotto. As a consultant, she advises designers on more than just the fit of clothes or accessories they should be paired with.

Here, she offers her essential advice for building powerful fashion brands.
1. Hire someone who can cut a pair of pants
For Ward, the pressures on designers have never been greater than today. "Everyone is so impatient now," she says. "We've got something like an eight-second attention span. Back in the day, when I was a kid, you could design a collection and not deliver it - I think John [Galliano] and Hussein [Chalayan] did that once - and now the industry just doesn't have patience for that anymore."

Although certain values of the industry may have shifted, Ward is also keen to emphasise that fashion has always first and foremost been about the clothes - and can't exist in a show or social media vacuum. "A problem I see often is that someone will be hired just because they've got a lot of Instagram followers," she adds. "Don't just hire them for that reason; hire them because they can cut a pair of pants. I'm obsessed about fitting because I spent so much time fitting clothes and [brands] need help - they need help to learn that."

"At the end of the day what matters is someone going into a shop and finding a product that they want to buy and that makes them feel good about themselves," she continues. "I truly feel that the most important thing is to feel comfortable in your skin."

Ward's aphorisms are echoed by her own personal style. "When you put on something by Azzedine [Alaïa] or some old Helmut [Lang], you feel good in your skin. I don't want to look like I'm a Noguchi lamp; I just want to put my clothes on and go out of the door. Fashion is a creative exercise, but at the end of the day people want to wear the clothes. They can't just exist in a gallery, and my personal take is that if I want to go to the theatre or see a movie, I'll go to the theatre or the cinema."
2. Be inspired, but make it your own
Every creative lays claim to inspiration, however, according to Ward, the key is to put just as much of yourself in as you take from elsewhere. "Reference, but twist it somehow," is her advice. "I'm the first person to go to a vintage store and pull a bunch of stuff and cut it all up and re-proportion it. The most important thing is to make it my own. Where it goes wrong is when people just lift something and what's missing is putting a little of themselves in."

In the early '90s, when Ward helped usher in a raw "realism" into editorials and advertising, countless stylists and photographers attempted to emulate the look. "They just didn't understand it, because it was just the antithesis of what the norm and the tradition was and the codes were just so different," she says. "When you're not just looking at a reference and it's instinctual, it never looks contrived, but if you overthink it, it's too much."

Much of Ward's early work, as well that of her collaborators, has gone digitally undocumented due to the absence of the internet at the time. It can often transpire that those unexposed images are plundered from with no nod to the originators. "People are hyper aware when it's not coming from [your] gut. It's because they're not making it their own. Whatever you're doing, whether you're working on an image or you're working on clothing or branding, it's always most successful if you put yourself into it."
3. Embrace mistakes
"Creativity happens in a moment," says Ward. "People are so afraid to push themselves and afraid to be judged, but my honest belief is that the only way that you move forward and learn is by making mistakes. We work in a creative industry and unless you make a mistake - I'm not saying that I'm out there to make mistakes when I'm working with clients [laughs] - but editorially, if you don't make mistakes, you can't be free."

Ward recalls a number of risks that resulted in game-changing fashion moments, from Calvin Klein bringing her to New York to work on his iconic advertising, to Helmut Lang challenging the sacrosanct fashion system by first showing his Autumn/Winter '98 collection on a CD-ROM and the internet, later reasoning that it allowed his customer "an unfiltered view" of his work.

For Klein, Ward became a part of a new generation of image-makers to propel the brand, including David Sims, Kate Moss and Guido Palau. It was a risk for a multi-million dollar business, but one that paid off and launched the careers of those involved along with a whole new style of advertising and fashion imagery.

Later that decade, when Lang embraced the digital presentation of his collection in 1998, the response was also unexpected. "People were so upset with us that we didn't do a show because they wanted to have the show experience," Ward recalls,"but again, it was not being afraid to push boundaries."
4. A little bit of ego is essential
Before enrolling for a year-long course at Saint Martins, Ward studied politics and languages at London University, which would later become useful in understanding the dynamics of hierarchy and collaboration. "I have to be such a diplomat in my job. I remember [at university] I would have to read a lot about Machiavellian plots, and I see a lot of that in fashion," she laughs. "Try and keep out of it, but we do see that, especially nowadays, right?

"Essentially, it's about brands. You're a brand, I'm a brand, and it's a certain DNA that you build," she explains. "A little ego is super important and very healthy, but an overblown ego is very self-sabotaging and works against any kind of collaboration." As a stylist and consultant, she is conscious that a client is hiring her to work for them. "It can't become about you; it should be about the brand, it should be about their man or woman."
5. You've got a second to stop someone in their tracks
Ward is known for creating arresting images, from Kate Moss photographed by Corinne Day for The Face to Claudia Schiffer under the "Y" of the Hollywood sign for Yves Saint Laurent. Today, she says that the medium has changed and therefore requires stronger, more impactful imagery. "Back in the day it was all about what magazine you were working for and what editorial you did and how it would appear on the pages and the printing and layout," she says. "Now, everything is reduced to a small square. Instagram reaches a bigger audience than most of those magazines and that's incredible, but we shouldn't forget that content is still really important."

The risk is, she says, that it all looks like it's been "thrown together." "At the end of the day, who is your woman, who's your man, and what is that content? Years ago, people would linger over your ad in a magazine. Now you really only have a couple of seconds to get that message across. There's got to be some kind of arresting message: something that is going to make someone stop."
6. New is the opposite of original
The fashion industry is saturated with an increasing number of brands, all eager to carve out a unique identity. However, Ward argues that the desire to generate a sense of newness can result in a homogenised aesthetic.

"A lot of brands want something new and different, but what they're buying into is complete inexperience and they're ignoring the roots of their DNA," she explains. "What they're getting is something that looks like everyone else and in these times that's the last thing you should want. When you've only got a few seconds for people to look at what you're showing them, why look like everyone else?" For her, the restrictions of a brand's ethos are a welcome challenge. "The advice that I give young designers is to find your woman or man and stick to that. Don't be so schizophrenic!"

"If I was designing my own collection, which I did with a capsule a few years ago, that's my brand and it's me," she says. "If you're doing an editorial, you have to respect the magazine, the advertisers and the audience, so you're working for them, but you make your own imprint. I think that the job of a stylist and a consultant, if you're smart, is to have the intelligence and foresight to look at a brand and see who its woman or man is. It's not about you, you're there to help somebody and facilitate the whole process."
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6 Lessons From Melanie Ward on Building a Cult Brand

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NEW YORK, United States - "I remember once Guido [Palau] and I were flying to New York first class and someone saw us and wrote that you would have given us a wide berth," says Melanie Ward, the British stylist who rose to fame in the late '80s as the prophetess of raw, gritty fashion imagery.

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Donna Karen model

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This week, Hillary Clinton will become her party's nominee for President of the United States of America, more than two decades after Donna Karan launched her famous, and indelible "In Women We Trust" campaign. Photographed by Peter Lindbergh, the ads featured Rosemary McGrotha, a blue-eyed Floridian and sometime Vogue cover girl, being sworn in, surrounded by security, in an "Oval" office. As Hillary Clinton vies to make real what Karan imagined, we talked to McGrotha about playing Madame President and power dressing.

How did you come to work with Donna Karan?
I think she picked me. We just hit it off. She used me at Anne Klein when she was [there], and we just continued. I worked with her forever. We clicked, I guess. For a while that's all I did, and we were like a little family.

What do you think she saw in you?
You know, you'd have to ask her that, but they used to say that I was like her alter ego. I just read Donna's book not that long ago, and she said if she could look like anybody, she would look like me-which was a huge compliment. I think she liked that I had a woman's body. I didn't have your atypical model body. I wasn't extremely thin; I was busty and curvy, and I think that's what she liked about me, and she kind of identified with me having a woman's body instead of a cookie-cutter kind of very thin model body.

Were you given a role to play for the "In Women We Trust" campaign?
They never gave me instructions. The minute you get dressed like that it's just sort of role-playing. You get dressed, you see the Secret Service men around you-they would take it the whole nine yards, everything from a private jet, living the whole life-so [it was] very easy to get into character, but no they didn't direct me. I was saying: "Rosemary for President!" when I was shooting it; I definitely wasn't thinking of Hillary, I can tell you that.

I was surprised to read that the ad agency's rep said of the campaign: "It's generic politics. We're not saying it's presidential."
Oh, yes it was [presidential]! They had that idea in their head-I'm sure Donna did. She was all about power and women and that kind of thing. Everything is sort of conducive to [it being presidential], the set is like that. You get it right away. And then the swearing in on the Bible. It definitely was. Donna was really on that presidential thing. I think she would have liked to see a woman be president, and she would still like that. I know she was very close with Bill Clinton, because she dressed him, and I think he was a good president.

What are your thoughts on power dressing?
I didn't power dress in real life, no, but I will say this, the minute you put on those clothes, you felt empowered, if that makes sense. It's just like when you dress in uniform, I'm sure you feel like you're ready for duty. Those clothes were really designed for women empowerment. They were constructed, but they were comfortable. And once you'd get on the whole gear, you'd feel empowered. I like to dress nice, but I'm a jeans person.

How did you get into modeling?
I don't have any exciting story to tell you about that. I left home; I just wanted to see what was out there in the world. Actually someone from my hometown walked up to me and said: "Do you know you could be a model and you can make a million dollars?" Growing up, I remember looking at pictures of Karen Graham in Estée Lauder, and I loved makeup, just loved it, and I would try to do my makeup like the fashion magazines. I think I just gravitated toward it, but I didn't really have the easiest time starting out modeling. I went to New York and a lot of people told me I looked too European-I don't think I did at all, but . . . . Then I went to Europe and really got my start there; there were two or three major photographers, Helmut Newton, Gilles Bensimon, and Denis Piel, who kind of took me under their wing, and when I came back to the U.S. everybody wanted to work with me. Those three I worked with consistently, and each one of them had three different styles [that were] totally unique. I think that was part of my success-I could go natural or very sophisticated.

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That's Ms. POTUS. Model Rosemary McGrotha on Playing President in Donna Karan's Prescient 1992 Campaign

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This week, Hillary Clinton will become her party's nominee for President of the United States of America, more than two decades after Donna Karan launched her famous, and indelible "In Women We Trust" campaign. Photographed by Peter Lindbergh, the ads featured Rosemary McGrotha, a blue-eyed Floridian and sometime Vogue cover girl, being sworn in, surrounded by security, in an "Oval" office.

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"Anything else at work is unthinkable" proclaimed john t molloy

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business & economics / women in business

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business & economics / business etiquette

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Buy New Women's Dress for Success by John T. Molloy (ISBN: 9780446672238) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Quote by Donna Karen "my whole thing was having a women feel like a woman"

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In the late 1970s and early '80s, business-minded women began dressing-if not for power, then simply to fit in. They were joining a boys' club, and if they wanted to be taken seriously, they had to assume the uniform-which is to say, a slightly below-the-knee skirt suit, preferably in gray or dark blue, with a white blouse, a scarf tie, sensible pumps, and skin-toned pantyhose.

"Anything else at work is unthinkable," proclaimed John T. Molloy in his best-selling 1977 manual, The Woman's Dress for Success Book. Having spent years conducting "scientific" research, the image guru also counseled women to avoid platform shoes, peasant dresses, floral patterns, and sweaters. "[They] give out nothing but negative impulses," he stated of the latter. "They say 'lower middle class' and 'loser.' "

But as women made strides in the corporate world, so did their wardrobes. Donna Karan, who at that time was working as the head designer at Anne Klein, noticed that all the women around her looked like office drones, and she wondered, 'Where is the sensuality?' Aside from Giorgio Armani, who had started cutting suits with freer, more-fluid lines, few designers were considering the working girl's feminine side. "My whole thing was having a woman feel like a woman," says Karan, who launched her own line in 1985, providing on-the-go gals with soft-shouldered jackets, cashmere knits, skirts that wrapped like a ballerina's, and stretchy bodysuits with her signature "cold shoulder" cutouts: Take off the jacket and you were ready for a night on the town.

"Nobody understood how busy our lives were," she says. "And those power suits were holding us back!" Her functional, comfort-driven, quasi-athletic take on fashion was decades ahead of its time, as was her 1992 ad campaign shot by Peter Lindbergh, featuring the model Rosemary McGrotha running for president. "I called Peter the night before and said, 'I know this is crazy, but let's do it.' Needless to say, we showed her being sworn in."

But while the body-con silhouette raged, the smell of teen spirit started to seep in. By the mid-'90s, few could deny the power of grunge or the slack, ambisexual style of its poster child, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. "Grunge ushered in an age of effortless dressing and beauty," says Melanie Ward, who served as muse and stylist to the designer Helmut Lang for more than a decade. "We played on this way of thinking, mixing masculine and feminine, uptown and downtown." Lang, with his androgynous tailoring and tech-y, transparent tops, put a chicly subversive spin on power dressing. And thanks to him and Jil Sander -the leading force of '90s minimalism-the suit was suddenly the epitome of cool.

Of course, both Sander and Lang left holes in many wardrobes when they exited their companies in 2000 and 2005, respectively; and they weren't truly filled until Phoebe Philo took the reins at Céline in 2008. Her cerebral, cut-the-bull designs mirrored the attitude of smart, cultured women. As Philo took risks-sending out carelessly saggy pants and fur-lined Birkenstocks, for instance-so too did her followers.

For Spring 2017, Philo, like many other designers, is pushing fashion forward by looking back and rethinking '80s office-wear, with its big shoulders, button-down shirts, and banal pumps-this time around in imaginative, ultra-feminine, and not entirely un-risky ways. At Céline, a slouchy suit looked as though it had been layered over a fluid skirt. At Louis Vuitton, a Prince of Wales check blazer was cut into a cape. Prada made a case for marabou-trimmed pencil skirts, and Balenciaga offered a pinstriped jacket with a linebacker's silhouette paired with spandex-cinched pant-boots ("poots"). Indeed, under the wrong circumstances, these looks could be wildly inappropriate. But with the right attitude and some deft styling, they can-and undoubtedly will-be worn by authoritative women in all types of industries. Because if power dressing in 1977 was simple, sexless, and boringly steadfast, 40 years later it is wide-ranging and refreshingly individualistic.

"It's all about what's appropriate to your field, which, thankfully, has opened up greatly for women since the term 'power dressing' came about," says Linda Fargo, the 50-something senior vice president of Bergdorf Goodman.

So, while she still regards a traditional well-tailored jacket as the clearest signifier of she-means-business, Fargo, as a fashion insider, is inclined to sport more-daring clothes like sheer leopard-print blouses, hothouse-patterned dresses, and lamé pantsuits. "Personally, I like my 'power looks' to be a combination of drama, nonconformity, restraint, surprise, modesty, and playfulness," she says. "That's when I feel strongest and the least vincible."

On the other hand, Emily Weiss, the 31-year-old founder and chief executive of Into the Gloss and Glossier, a beauty website and direct-to-consumer beauty brand, just likes to be comfortable. Her outfits often consist of skinny black Rag & Bone jeans, Adidas shell-toe sneakers, and a sweatshirt emblazoned with her company logo-even when she's conducting meetings. "I definitely fall into that start-up-business fashion stereotype," she says, adding that she keeps her hair and makeup decidedly undone as well. Weiss does, however, put more thought into what she wears on her fundraising trips to Silicon Valley.

"A very small percentage of female-run companies are funded by venture capitalists, so already I feel a certain pressure and total bewilderment about how to present myself in that environment," she says, noting that she'll swap out her kicks for kitten-heel boots, which give her some "height and swagger." "The first time I went there, I remember wishing I was wearing an Armani power suit," she recalls. "And the president of my company was like, 'You'd be the only one.' The tech world's sense of power dressing is a Patagonia fleece and khakis-the more inconspicuous you look, the more important you are."

Perhaps, then, power dressing in this day and age has less to do with style than with substance. Gabriela Hearst, whose 2-year-old luxury-sportswear line has become a go-to for natty, no-nonsense women, says she believes in clothes that are crafted responsibly. The Italian mill that manufactures many of her woven pieces, for example, is owned and operated by women.

"My designs have to be beautiful and utilitarian but also made with a clear conscience," she says. "There is an overload of product out there, so you have to choose things that are better for you as well as the environment. I find that to be very empowering."
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How Fashion is Updating Power Dressing for 2017

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In the late 1970s and early '80s, business-minded women began dressing-if not for power, then simply to fit in. They were joining a boys' club, and if they wanted to be taken seriously, they had to assume the uniform-which is to say, a slightly below-the-knee skirt suit, preferably in gray or dark blue, with a white blouse, a scarf tie, sensible pumps, and skin-toned pantyhose.