Venture Designer Awards

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Venture Designer Awards (Venture)

Media Archive for Central England
1985-05-02
Sound

Looking for the fashion stars of tomorrow.

John Stapleton is our host for this look at the top fashion trends of 1985. Three judges from the world of fashion - June Marsh, fashion editor for Options magazine; Liz Deveraux-Batchellor, fashion director for the Next clothing chain; and young up-and-coming designer Jasper Conran - have the difficult job of finding the best young designer from the Midlands.

Competing for the cash prize are the contestants: Hayley Rhodes-Jones from Oswestry; Sonia Rymond from Wellingborough; Sarah Stanton from Ipsden in Oxfordshire; Sarah Trott from Worcester; Suzanne Fenn from Wellington in Shropshire; and Lorraine Merrith-Holme from Leicester Forest East. Despite there being talk of underwear as outer wear, the collections are based around wearability, and as a snapshot of what was driving the catwalk (and the high street) in the middle of the 1980s this is a perfect time capsule of the times.

Venture was a series produced by Central Television in Birmingham that looked at business and innovation in the Midlands. The series began with the birth of Central Television in 1982 and ran throughout the decade as Birmingham fought off the worst of the recession and emerged as a vibrant forward-looking city typified by a brand International Conference Centre.

The series also ran a number of business competitions, including the search for the best Midlands small business, the Venture Midas Awards, which looked at innovation within Leicestershire, and the Venture Designer Awards featured here.

What We Wore

Fashion takes enormous strides forward in 20th century Britain.

From the Tudor court to the Georgian dandy, Britain has long cultivated a passion for fashion, but the late 20th century saw things step up a gear. New generations of talent emerged, whose idiosyncratic style democratised fashion for a younger crowd and helped sell ‘Cool Britannia’ to the world - long before that term was coined. In the 1960s, progress was catalysed by the ‘Swinging London’ of Biba and Mary Quant, followed by the Punk movement a decade later. Designers drew inspiration not just from contemporary subcultures but also from established craft traditions across the UK – in some cases helping to revive cottage industries at risk of dying out. The dawn of the 1980s saw the rise of avant-garde pioneers (Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood), reimagined Savile Row tailoring (Tommy Nutter) and the upscale yet quintessentially British chic of Jean Muir and Bruce Oldfield – a favourite of Diana, Princess of Wales, who gifted British fashion a truly global platform.

38 videos in this collection

British Fashion Autumn 1983

1983

Space Antennae

Birmingham
1982-07-28

The Sash My Father Wore

1977-07-10

Focus on Britain: Design

1987-01-01