Katharine Hamnett shaped the style of the 1980s

CHOOSE LIFE. PROTEST AND SURVIVE. PEACE.

Picture these slogans printed across an oversized t-shirt in your mind’s eye, and you’ve got the clothes that made Katharine Hamnett a 1980s sensation.

Hamnett’s designs were sought after by many fashion-conscious Londoners. Her clothes toed a line between stylish and casual, quirky but wearable. And they caught the eye of Kim Philpotts, a young woman who moved to London from Warwickshire in the early 80s.

Philpotts was interested in, and knowledgeable of, the designer fashion of the time. The substantial collection of Hamnett clothes she donated to London Museum give us a snapshot of a woman’s wardrobe during this period. And they point to the influence of Hamnett on London style.

Hamnett studied fashion in central London at the renowned St Martin’s School of Art (now Central Saint Martins). Her own label, Katharine Hamnett London, launched in 1979.

The 1980s saw a quick rise forof Hamnett’s designs. They were initially stocked across London in boutiques like Joseph on Sloane Street.

Her first London flagship opened in 1986, a cavernous former industrial space on Brompton Road just a brief stroll down from the upmarket Harrods. “There are poured concrete floors, skylights and a gaggle of good-looking sales people,” noted The Washington Post that November. “What there is very little of, it appears, is clothing. This is shopping as minimalist theater at its most extreme… The shop is sensational.”

By the mid-80s, Hamnett’s clothes could be found in 700 stores in 40 countries. Philpotts’ collection of Hamnett clothes comes from a range of retailers across London.

Hamnett became known for her oversized garments made from cottons and silks, many of which featured loose silhouettes and deliberately crumpled fabrics. “It expressed a spirit of freedom, an idea that crumpled is beautiful”, she told The Times in 1986. Philpotts admired pieces like this blue dress because of the contrast between their wearability and quirkiness.

Many of the designs were functional, based on a range of workwear, including traditional office-wear, army uniforms and boiler suits. Hamnett opted for practical fabrics, such as the heavy cotton in this suit ensemble. “I think people like to wear a uniform,” she said in a 1985 interview on the Reporting London TV show, “it makes them feel important”.

Philpotts bought a range of suits from Hamnett, including jackets with what would have been considered quite ‘masculine’ tailoring. In the same 1985 interview, Hamnett said her suit jackets were “reflecting the liberation of women, that women are taking on men’s jobs, that the roles are less defined, that women are getting a lot more powerful but still retaining their femininity and flirtatiousness”.

Hamnett became known for her experiments with denim. She was an early champion of distressing the fabric and claimed to have invented stonewashing.

Stonewashing is a treatment that gives denim a faded, worn-in look. This manufacturing process uses a lot of energy and water, and the wastewater contains toxic chemicals that harm the environment.

The jeans and jacket in our collection show Philpotts was drawn to Hamnett’s denim designs – though she also wore classic Levi’s 501s in the 1980s.

In 1983, Hamnett launched her t-shirts with large, block letter, political slogans. No, she didn’t exactly invent the slogan t-shirt. One of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s most controversial creations was a 1977 piece with “DESTROY” layered over a swastika and an image of Christ.

But Hamnett made the look go global. The band Wham! wore the CHOOSE LIFE t-shirt, Hamnett’s first slogan campaign, in the 1984 video for Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. You’ll still see t-shirts bearing the same bold, all-capitals lettering today – whether they’re Hamnett knock-offs, or new pieces from when she relaunched her label in 2017.

Hamnett saw her t-shirts as a method of protest. The 1980s witnessed the horror of the HIV/Aids epidemic, the threat of nuclear war and the divisive leadership of the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In 1984, the designer famously wore a tee saying “58% DON’T WANT PERSHING” to meet Thatcher, a reference to public opposition against American Pershing missiles being based in Britain. “It was about putting ideas into people’s heads,” she told art publication Frieze. “You can’t not read the slogans. You have no defences.”

Philpotts bought this CLEAN UP OR DIE tee from Hamnett’s autumn/winter 1989 collection. The slogan was a call to arms for the fashion industry to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

In 1989, Hamnett had her own environmental wake-up call when she researched how cotton was produced. The pesticides used in cotton agriculture harm both the environment and people, leading to thousands of deaths a year from accidental poisoning. She looked to her industry – and her own label – and saw the harmful impacts of every material and process. She was horrified. She vowed to change.

Hamnett turned to using organic cotton in her garments, such as the slogan t-shirt above. She tried, and failed, to convince other designers to follow suit. In the decades since, she’s become one of the most visible and vocal champions for ethical, eco-friendly practices in the fashion industry.