Personal Map

This graphic montage of texts and images was Dagworthy’s contribution to the exhibition ‘Super Contemporary – Designed in London’. The exhibition, curated by Daniel Charny, was shown at the Design Museum, London (2009) and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2011). It presented the curator’s selection of the most significant designers and artists working in London from the 1960s to the present day. The curator invited Dagworthy to create one of the ‘personal maps’ he was commissioning from leading figures from the fields of architecture, graphics, fashion and product design from the period covered by the exhibition. Dagworthy collaged material from her sketchbooks, correspondence and designs, drawing on her practice over the period 1968–2010 as a fashion designer, entrepreneur and instigator of London Fashion Week. The images and texts were related to a map of London to illustrate the scope of her contribution to the culture of the city through reference to the specific locations where they were enacted. The montage structure provided Dagworthy with the opportunity to consider her collected individual designs within a single narrative structure and reflect on the interrelations between each of these and her overall growing contribution to the fashion industry in the UK, which was established in the period. ‘Super Contemporary’ was shown at the Design Museum from June to October 2009, where it was seen by 48,262 visitors (and 82,367 visitors viewed the exhibition webpage). It then travelled to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, where it was shown from August to November 2011, to coincide with the Taiwan World Design Expo 2011. The Taipei show was seen by over 75,000 visitors. The research Dagworthy undertook for ‘Super Contemporary’ also informed the open lecture she gave at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, China, in November 2009

Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s

The exhibition ‘Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s’ (July 2013–February 2014) at the V&A Museum was the first in-depth historical consideration of the relationship between experimental young fashion designers and major sub-cultural forms of the city’s popular music, club culture and alternative dressing. Dagworthy was expert consultant alongside curator Claire Wilcox. Her research drew on her combined personal reminiscence and industrial experience to help construct a narrative that explained how both womenswear and menswear collections and new promotional contexts for fashion in the capital developed during the decade, making the city distinctive for its fashion culture. The exhibition explored the character of style culture under categories such as New Romantic and High Camp to understand how changes in British fashion design practice occurred during the 1980s. On an aesthetic level, the interpenetration of the fashion, graphics and music industries during the period was a key catalyst for change. Dagworthy also stresses the significance of the introduction of the twice-yearly fashion shows that first took place during the decade and the role of the London Designer Collections (precursor to London Fashion Week) in this initiative by positioning the city as a significant hub. ‘Club to Catwalk’ offered Dagworthy the opportunity to present her understanding of how the fashion industry related to wider cultural movements while also responding to specific actions by key practitioners. Her contribution included research in the V&A’s archives and designers’ private collections, and identifying and selecting material from these sources that could be displayed to illustrate their interaction. ‘Club to Catwalk’ was widely reviewed and profiled worldwide, New York magazine calling it “a fascinating glimpse at the world of upstart British designers in the eighties who found international fame thanks to their bold aesthetic.” The show’s first three months had an attendance of 75,945

“Style City” How London became a Fashion Capital

The book explains and explores in a critical as well as a celebratory way the birth of today’s London Designer identity and the evolution of London Fashion Week. It starts in the mid-Seventies when the cultural recognition of British fashion designers scarcely existed. It covers the rise of Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Katharine Hamnett and many others who were to become household names. But at the same time, it relates the persistent failure of the British government and the clothing industry to respond to successive opportunities, leaving designers to create an industry for themselves. It ends with British designers established worldwide and London Fashion Week as one of the world’s four premier fashion events

Future Fashion Now: The Fashion Design Process, Royal College of Art

‘Future Fashion Now’ was an exhibition co-curated by Dagworthy and Deirdre Murphy (Curator of the Royal Collections at Kensington Palace). The show, featuring work from 2008 RCA graduates, emphasised the technical skills and specialist knowledge that underpin the creation of designs for today’s fashion industry. The exhibition, which showed the work of 27 graduate designers, was split into four sections: concept, form, technique and detail. Rather than just being a celebration of finished work, the displays deconstructed the fashion design process in order to show the relationships and dependencies between different specific activities. It illustrated the extent to which an understanding of aspects such as material, cut, stitching and embellishment are essential to fashion design practice as much as concept generation through preparatory sketches and design boards. The exhibition proved to be an opportunity for Dagworthy to present her design education philosophy through the medium of the gallery environment. By relying on in-depth case studies of the entire working practices of successful graduates, rather than just showcasing results, it addressed the pressing issue of skills acquisition fundamental to the fashion industry, which is frequently downplayed in favour of notions of celebrity and the power of the brand. ‘Future Fashion Now’ ran from May 2009 to January 2010. Because it attracted an unprecedented number of visitors, the show’s run was extended for an additional six months

'Foreword’ and ‘Designer statement: Womenswear'

Dagworthy’s contributions to two publications, 80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk (2013) and the earlier Style City: How London Became a Fashion Capital (2009), were both underpinned by her archive and collection research and her professional and personal creative engagement with the fashion industry since the 1970s. Dagworthy, who was a leading protagonist in the development of London as a fashion capital, used her own experimental commentary as a basis for the interpretation of this significant period. She undertook oral history interviews and object analysis to build a critical contextualisation of the fashion industry, design production and consumption. Dagworthy’s introduction and a chapter on her own practice in the exhibition publication for ‘80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk’ was expanded and further developed from Style City, which explored the origins of today’s London designer identity and the evolution of London Fashion Week over a period stretching from the mid-1970s to the present. Dagworthy undertook archive and collection-based research at the V&A and London Designer Collections Archive to provide material for the text. ‘80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk’ provided an in-depth examination of the revolution of British Fashion Design that took place during the decade. Dagworthy was chosen for one case study chapter on the strength of her dual role as a celebrated practitioner and key instigator of London Fashion Week. In this essay, Dagworthy contextualised her own experience as a designer and the expansion of her business within the decade’s wider social, cultural and political events