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Anglophile Designers

February 10, 2009
Venetia Rainey

Venetia Rainey explores how Anglophile and indigenous designers appropriate the idea of “Britishness” to their designs.

Isn’t it great to be English? Rain, mud, cups of tea, countryside institutions such as Harry Hall, Barbour and Hunter… It’s not that we’re ashamed, just not particularly proud. The only time it is acceptable to sport any of the above is when looking good is apparently not the issue at hand. When walking the dog, for example, or popping round to granny’s.

But for some, the traditional English style is exactly what they aspire to emulate. And when I say ‘traditional’, I mean the bizarrely romanticised version of our countryside lifestyle espoused by designers such as Ralph Lauren. His flagship store in New York is located in the Rhinelander Mansion, a shrine to all things supposedly upper class and English. Oil paintings of horses and sullen children adorn every mahogany wall; polished shooting guns sit on shelves; cashmere scarves drape themselves over stag antlers; the whole store is based around a warped idea of the local Yorkshire farmer on a Hollywood budget.

This Anglophilia is reflected in his designs too. From monocles and fitted tweed jackets to riding crops and boots, some of Lauren’s favoured details are incredibly English in their origin, even if their preppy presentation and jockey associations make them incredibly American in result.

Burberry Prorsum is another designer powerhouse caught up in a love affair with all things English. Established by Thomas Burberry in 1856, the company became famous for gabardine, a comfortable yet waterproof fabric for riding, shooting, and other soggy country pursuits. In 1914, Burberry invented the trench coat as practical wear in World War I for officers in the trenches. Today, Burberry prides itself on being a distinctly British label, using Kate Moss in several of its campaigns, and with Yorkshire born-and-bred Christopher Bailey as Creative Director. Their latest collection was inspired by his “own garden in Yorkshire, and a Thames & Hudson book on eccentric Brits called Garden People – never types to be daunted by a bit of mud.” The looks, however, remain clean, muted, and classic, retaining their international appeal rather than indulging any real “eccentricity”.

A fashion article on Anglophiles could never be complete without a mention of (to use the fashion media’s term) Dame Vivienne Westwood. The fashion world loves her. Throughout her collections and career she has never abandoned ‘Britishness’. Of course, we are talking a wholly different strand of Britishness from anything that Ralph Lauren would even consider touching with a polo stick. We are talking 60s Britain, the era of punk, tartan, political consciousness, rebellion, safety pins and Union Jack flags. This is a woman who set up a separate line called ‘Anglomania’, comprising of tartan suits, ball gowns and fake fur corsets. Even her logo, an orb floating in a ring, reflects the orb of the British Crown Jewels, but with a punk twist. It is also a very clear reworking of the Harris Tweed logo, an opaque reference to how much her work is influenced by one of the most quintessentially English fabrics available.

There are other designers who give the rest of the world a glimpse of what the idea of Britishness means to them. Luella has an obsession with all things equestrian, whilst Dolce and Gabbana recently ran a campaign which depicted a group of people decked entirely in tartan standing outside a country house, complete with dogs, horses, a Land Rover and a very old but proud looking lady in a checked headscarf. It is interesting that in this day and age, as the sense of what makes someone British becomes increasingly intangible and indefinable, the most notorious British and Anglophile designers feel the need to recapture days gone by in order to keep hold of that essence.