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Bridal Corsets Biography
Ahead of this month’s Design Museum’s Women Power Fashion exhibition, here’s our pick of the most stylish alpha females…
Is there someone missing from the list? Leave your suggestion in the comments below and you could feature in the alternative list next week.Thatcher, Thatcher, style limelight-snatcher. The former PM cleverly refined her clothing to reflect her rising power. The pussycat bows of her early career were ditched. She stopped wearing hats, seen as too middle class, to appeal to the widest possible demographic. Instead, she came to favour tailored suits with matching handbags and low Ferragamo heels – ideal for state functions and the televising of Parliament. She could adapt this look for different locations: blue for Conservative party conferences, adding fur in Russia and often incorporating the colour of the national flag of the country she was visiting. She enlisted Aquascutum director Margaret King as her fashion adviser and kept files on what she wore when, with outfits named “Reagan Navy” or “Election ’87”.One shudders to think how many cans of Elnett they got through on the set of 1988 yuppie fable Working Girl. When her scheming Wall Street stockbroker boss Sigourney Weaver broke her leg skiing (how 80s), Melanie Griffith’s ambitious Staten Island-raised secretary came into her own. After all, she had “a head for business and a bod for sin”. Griffith was Oscar-nominated and won a Golden Globe for her career-defining performance but it’s her Cinderella-like makeover – going from leather blousons, brassy jewellery and candyfloss mullet to sensible bob, slinky frocks and Armani power suits – that sticks in the memory.“Nuclear Wintour”, the notoriously aloof editor-in-chief of American Vogue and unofficial mayoress of New York, is the most powerful woman in fashion. Her understated minimalist look reflects that lofty status. As a front-row fixture, her every stitch gets scrutinised but the London-born 64-year-old knows exactly what suits her and sticks to it: a shift dress, tweed suit, kitten-heeled Manolo Blahniks, Peta-infuriating fur, chunky necklace, twice daily blow-dry of her perfectly polished, blunt-edged pageboy bob (framing the face with steely conviction) and those omnipresent over-sized black shades. The devil might wear Prada but she looks goddess-like in it.
The only things bigger than 1980s super-soap Dynasty’s ratings were the characters’ hair and shoulder pads. Linda Evans, who played leading lady Krystle Carrington, was naturally broad-shouldered so costume designer Nolan Miller decided to embrace them – and padded the other female cast members’ shoulders to match. Krystle’s nemesis and frequent catfight opponent was Joan Collins’s queen bitch Alexis, who became the show’s clothes-horse-in-chief: all nipped-in waists, batwing sleeves, fur coats, outsized diamante jewellery and red lip gloss. It was the epitome of capitalist excess and a global audience of 250 million lapped it up. Well, until everyone started getting amnesia and that massacre at Prince Michael of Moldavia’s wedding.
If Bowie is the chameleon of pop, Madonna Louise Ciccone is music’s mistress of disguise, constantly reinventing her image over the course of her 32-year career. When she arrived in the 80s, her unique style – be it a bridal dress, thrift-shop punk, Marilyn Monroe gown, religious iconography or bra and bangles – blended confidence, power and femininity. This reached its apex with her power suit in the David Fincher-directed Express Yourself video, wide-legged trousers adding elegance to her tailored jacket. Later came the infamous Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra, disco leotards, corsets, military and cowgirl ensembles. Don’t go for second best, baby.She might be half of one of showbiz’s biggest power couples but the artist formerly known as Posh Spice struggled sartorially when she first moved to Los Angeles in 2007. Goldenballs had signed for LA Galaxy so the Beckham clan upped sticks, but Queen Wag Victoria was just too glossy, groomed and high-maintenance. Her body-hugging frocks, five-inch stilettos, statement handbags and perma-pout just didn’t look right on the studiedly laidback, expensively dressed-down west coast. She nailed it eventually, of course. Now, as a surprisingly successful fashion designer with an eponymous label, she’s helping a whole new generation of women to power dress.The Princess of Wales famously couldn’t wear high heels while married to Prince Charles – she was marginally taller than him but took great pains to look like she wasn’t. As the 80s poster princess for Sloanes and wannabe Sloanes, she inadvertently started a trend for lower footwear. As their marriage disintegrated, the gloves came off and Diana started towering over Charles in stilettos. As the world’s most photographed woman, her style evolved from demure, dutiful wife to glamorous global celebrity. Post-divorce, she was free to venture further into the fashion world, gracing catwalk shows and the cover of Vogue – all while working ye olde “check out what you’re missing” look to perfection.
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