Abstract
Fashion and freedom have both changed dramatically in the last six decades. Britain’s oldest working supermodel Daphne Selfe talks to
Britain’s oldest supermodel Daphne Selfe
Credit: S Meddle/ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
As someone whose career stretches back decades, she has more knowledge than most about how changes in fashion have echoed changes in freedom of expression for women, and men, in British society.
Now 88, and still a regular in glossy magazines, Selfe has experienced many shifts in fashion both on and off the catwalk since she began her career in 1949. “In the 50s you had much more formal dressing – certain clothes for certain activities – you never went to London without hat and gloves and proper shoes and stockings. Tights were the big revelation. People began to bare more flesh.”
She remembers that she had a bit more freedom and did wear trousers sometimes, “because I rode horses. I was always able to dress like that and that was acceptable”. Women and girls did far less sport in her childhood and “men never wore shorts except for sport. What people wore on the beach, now is acceptable in the town”.
A chat with Selfe is a bit like unlocking a series of scenes from British history from the 40s onward. There’s a telltale chuckle and the stories roll out. As a child her mother would never, ever wear trousers, and she herself was only allowed to wear them “because I was in a dance group and we had them for a number” as well as when she went horse riding. She remembers in her early life women just never wore trousers except for “the south of France set”.
Women always wore hats, even to the cinema, she remembered, and if you didn’t, well, “you were rather scorned – why isn’t she wearing a hat, y’know? You had to dress accordingly or you were not let in to lots of places. You had to toe the line.”
Toeing the line came in lots of different forms. She remembers a time when being gay was illegal, and although she worked with several gay men nothing was said publicly. “You would have kept it all secret. Gay men are not illegal any more, and that’s a big step forward.
Selfe, with her striking long grey hair, admits she could “look good in a bin bag” and then goes on to reveal on one of her shoots the designer actually crafted a ball gown for her out of three of them. She recently starred in the Channel 4 documentary Fabulous Fashionistas about women with an average age of 80 who love fashion. Her role in changing attitudes to older women, especially seeing women in their 70s and 80s in shiny fashion magazines, is quickly glossed over. But she does acknowledge that yes, it is a big shift.
The model has seen fashion and clothing used in many different ways, something she talks about in her new book The Way We Wore – A Life in Clothes. She has worked with Hamnett, the designer famous for her T-shirts of protest: “Yes, I wore one of those.” And more recently she was involved in campaign work with Oxfam and Jean Paul Gaultier to send bras and other clothing to Senegal.
What was the biggest change that she remembers? “Not wearing stockings and suspender belts but wearing tights. But not wearing corsets – wow!” Of course that unlocks a conversation about whether corsets are really restrictive and Selfe reveals that she is a fan of them, though they have to be fitted tightly or they are uncomfortable.
Times have changed and so have attitudes. “Now women are freer and do more exercise. So the clothing has definitely changed.”
Changes in fashion amplify shifts in society LILY COLE tells KIERAN ETORIA-KING
Lily Cole attending the BFI Luminous Fundraising Gala, at The Guildhall in London
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“I think clothing allows us to express ourselves as individuals and assert and play with our sense of identity,” said model and actor Lily Cole told Index.
“However, most people dress within the narrow conventions of their culture and so in many ways it is an artifice of freedom.”
Ever since being approached by a Storm modelling agent while out for a burger in 2003, Lily Cole has quickly become an iconic face in fashion. She was model of the year in 2004 at 16, then headed for London Fashion Week and was the youngest model to appear on the cover of British Vogue.
“I actually don’t know why but T-shirts are often the vehicle of political expression and statements: maybe because they are such casual items of clothing, cheap and gender neutral? Maybe because wearing a slogan on your chest is more impactful than on your legs or back! Whatever the reasons, T-shirts have almost created their own language and conversation.”
She spoke of how for many people, particularly women, changes in dress codes have often been a reflection of significant periods of increased freedom and equality, or of repression. “The recent episode with the burkini in France is a poignant example of the politics of fashion,” she said, referring to controversial by-laws which saw Muslim women on French beaches forbidden from wearing full body swimsuits. “The move from Victorian corseted dressing was paralleled by the evolving women’s liberation movement in the West; getting the vote alongside 20s’ flapper style.”
Women will always seek to express their individuality. in conservative Muslim countries, despite severe restrictions on their clothing, women show their fashion sense through shoes, handbags and jewellery. Cole has seen the same thing happen wherever people are restricted to a uniform.
“I was amazed once when standing at a degree ceremony watching all the girls go by in uniform, each with their own twist on style to create identity - some wearing heels, or jewellery, or make-up that distinguished them.”