The old meets the new : bringing 1980s style into today’s fashion industry : a research project exploring the relationship between 1980s fashion trends and today’s style, using sewing as the principal medium and photography as a complementary tool

Abstract

This study adopts the practice-driven theory approach to explore the relationship between 1980s fashion trends and today’s style, using sewing as the principal medium and photography as a complementary tool. It investigates whether or not today’s young women would incorporate 1980s fashion characteristics in their style. For this study, the practice-driven approach involved carrying out both primary and secondary research. The secondary research process involved consulting articles, dissertations, and archival sources on 1980s designers, such as David and Elizabeth Emanuel and Laura Ashley, as well as fashion photographers like Nick Knight, Tim Walker, and Richard Avedon. Meanwhile, the primary research component followed a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires. Indeed, this study, which was conducted over 8 months, involved interviewing women in their 60s who possessed sewing expertise. These participants were selected as they would have been in their mid-20s during the 1980s, implying that they were able to provide insights into the sewing techniques, fabric choices, and design principles preferred at the time. These findings informed the development of a questionnaire targeting young women in their mid-20s to identify which 1980s elements they would incorporate into their style. Overall, the interview and questionnaire findings highlighted how 1980s fashion and today’s style share a relationship where bold silhouettes, structured designs, and vibrant colours from the past are selectively reinterpreted to align with modern aesthetics, reflecting a cycle of reinvention. Most of the questionnaire respondents indicated a preference for jumpsuits over dresses and favoured characteristics like one-shoulder, wide-leg designs, ruching, smocking, and the bird-of-paradise colour palette. Based on these preferences, the researcher designed a jumpsuit using orange and purple silk fabric, accentuated with green thread for the smocking. The researcher then photographed a model wearing the jumpsuit in a studio, where she used an overhead projector to create a circle of light, emulating Tim Walker’s use of the 19th-century circular concave mirror. While still in the studio, the researcher photographed the model as she moved, inspired by how Richard Avedon captured movement in his work. Afterwards, the model was photographed outside in nature, imitating Nick Knight’s use of natural settings.