ABSTRACT
So far I have attempted an initial documentation of the working practices of fashion designers in Britain from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. In addition to revealing a small scale and economically wobbly set of activities, more or less a cottage industry though now thoroughly urban and studio based, this book also highlights some of the tensions embedded in these practices. There is a great deal of fluidity as the designers flit from one employment or self-employment option to the next; there is the continuing attempt to project a public image as creative artist while having to develop expertise in business; and there is also the reality of being a onewoman enterprise and relying on some of those skills including knitting and sewing which the art school training suggested should be relegated to low skilled, paid employees. This is summed up clearly in Gillian P.'s comment ‘I was knitting away night and day’.
