SHOULD WE REALLY BE CELEBRATING, IF THERE’S NOTHING TO CELEBRATE?
To mark the Little Black Dress’s 91st anniversay, Ruby Sanderson talks with radical retailer Rita Britton to chat punk, 21st Century feminism and the importance of being politically involved. Photographs by Ruby Sanderson. Ruby Sanderson: When did you first get into alternative It seems that we live in a time where women are far and avant garde designs? from liberated. Marking 91 years since Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel changed the course of fashion and freed Rita Britton: “Erm, probably in the 1980s when Rei Kawomen from the confines of the corset, we have lost wakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake started to come our punk spirit. Nearly a century later, the tiny waist- forward”. line has risen from the dead to haunt us: today’s women are obssesed with waist trainers that are essentially RS: What were people’s initial thoughts when you the 21st Century equivalent to the corset. It’s a shame brought avant garde to Barnsley? Coco Chanel hasn’t risen from the dead with it so that RB: “We are in Barnsley but 90% of our clients are from she can use it to strangle all the materialistic mental- outside of Barnsley. We’ve just got a whatsapp from someists and show them what it really means to be liberat- one in Menorca saying how they like what we have sent, ed and to “choose comfort over appearance.” Coco’s and we have a client in Bermuda. So no, it’s not got anything to do with Barnsley really”. words, not mine. The spirit of Chanel - fabulously grumpy, radical and uncompromising - lives on in Rita Britton, one of the first fashion retailers to bring Avant Garde designs to the North in the 1960s. We discussed the fashion fads of today, feminism and fashion, politics and most importantly what it means to be “punk”.
RS: So do you not have that many clients in Barnsley? RB: “Well, in the early days, around the late ‘60s-early ‘70s, 90% of our clients were from Barnsley. But remember there was no M1 motorway back then; there was no fast train track to London. Then, as things opened up like the motorways and trains and the internet, we became more and more up-market and Avant Garde and our Barnsley clients became less and less”.
RS: Have the designers you’ve championed and retailed over the years been influenced by punk? RB: “Well, to be honest with you, I think there’s always a [punk] design element [that] comes in when a fashion look is particularly strong. I think one of the strongest designers around, throughout [fashion] history, is Vivienne Westwood and her Buffalo Girls collection. I think that changed the game. Vivienne Westwood was obviously influenced by punk.” RS: Do you think there is a subculture today that is as subversive as punk was? RB: “I think fashion today is as sad as I’ve ever known it. We see women walking around in high heels, bent knees and tight dresses, looking what I call “titz ‘n’ glitz”. One of the few companies that I admire at the minute is Vetements. They do big oversized things. It’s a very ugly period we are going through at the moment, and that is because, as I predicted 20 years ago, the emerging markets have had a damning effect on fashion.”
RS: Do you think we place too much emotional attachment to the movement punk was created in the 1980s? RB: “Too much emotional attachment to the 1980s? No because there has never been another period that has surpassed it, I mean, the most creative people like Rei Kawakubo were around in the 1980s. I don’t see that there is anybody coming through that’s giving us a new breath of fresh air. I would have to say Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto were absolutely incredible, and they are not at not at the forefront of fashion anymore. If we are going to move things on you learn from the past. Have you got flat shoes on? Yeah good. I have got clothes in my wardrobe that are 20 years old.” RS: What do you think it means to be a punk? RB: “I’m not quite sure. It obviously means rebellion and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with rebellion. I think we need a bit more rebellion. I think it’s quite brave of young people to take on that kind of challenge; because they are only going to get vilified and they are going to get ridiculed for it. As did Vivienne Westwood. I mean, I can remember her being on a chat show and they just ridiculed her”.
RS: Do you think it’s still possible to shock people through fashion? RB: “I get shocked everyday when I look at all those silly women try and walk in stiletto shoes and all the fat hanging over the back of their dresses. You have to ask, do they even want to look like that? If they want to look like that, who am I to say they shouldn’t?” RS: Do you think it’s important to be politically aware? RB: “Yes, incredibly important. It’s the most important thing, and most important issue there is. It’s incredibly important to vote because it’s no good grumbling if you’ve done nowt about it.” RS: How do you feel about the current state of America with Donald Trump? RB: “I think it’s incredibly scary but I have to say that, as with everything, you have to look what’s going on. With Donald Trump and Brexit we’ve had a big swing to the right and that is because I think people are fed up with political correctness; that we all live in a nanny state where everything has to be thought out.”
You know, I can’t agree, being a feminist, with women wearing a full burka. I cannot agree to it. Cos if you were in here in a full burka, how do I talk to you? How do I see your facial expressions? How can somebody in a full burka go out there and drive a car and ride a bus? I’m not being racist, I’m being a bloody feminist and they can say these women chose to do that. Well they choose to do it because they don’t know what their other alternatives are. See you’ve got me on my hobby horse.” RS: Going back to punks, are you attracted to the aesthetics of punk or the spirit? RB: “Am I attracted to it? As a fashion statement?” RS: yeah
RB: “Not really, not for me. I mean, one of the strongest collections and I’m sure she was influenced by it was Buffalo Girls. I still think that was one of the most sensational collections from Vivienne Westwood and that, and I’m still influenced by that, but not the extremes of punk. Like I said, my bag is punk, but i’m not influenced by the extremes of it, or the extremes of any real fashion statement. I’d still wear Buffalo Girls, I still think it’s great, the RS: “Does it annoy you that we are still fighting for shoes, the culture, the freedom. I think any fashion women’s rights? that limits the movement, or the thinking of women RB: “Of course it annoys me. But then I still think we are stepping backwards. I’ve been fighting for women’s is a waste of space, so I think you cherry pick what is right for you. Rei Kawakubo is a real Feminist, rights without knowing I was doing it. I went on a and Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake, I’ve met protest, God knows, 40 years ago, against the AmeriIssey and he is one of the loveliest guys. People look can air bases. I have been protesting all my life. I was brought up with a grandmother who talked about suf- at fashion, fashion is not an art it’s an industry, it fragettes so it was around even then. I remember when creates jobs for magazines, newspapers, students, lecturers, textile, shoe manufacturers, hairdressers, I was your age, I had a copy of Germaine Greer’s Female Eunach. Greer used to give lectures on feminism, photographers. The fashion industry is bigger than and I realised that it’s not women she needs to convert the car industry. It generates more money in this country than it does in the motor trade but fashion it’s the blokes. We are banging our head against the like feminism is a joke. A man came into the shop wall. If a man opens the door for us it’s a pointless with his wife and he was grumbling about the price issue to say “I don’t need you to open that door”, and that’s the bit of it I don’t believe in because he’s just be- of a skirt she was buying and saying that she could ing polite. I’d hold a door open for anybody. I wouldn’t go into Marks & Spencers and buy the skirt for a fraction of the price of this one. So I asked him what care if they were male or female. So we have to watch that we don’t make a laughing stock of ourselves. And car he was driving, and he looked shocked because it was a Mercedes and I said well why don’t ya get on I think the way that we change our culture is by the public transport. So when I say most white, hetrojobs in which we are in will only change the culture sexual males, fashion and feminism is linked in the when we are top lawyers... same breath and it’s a joke. Mainly the only ones The sad thing about feminism is that it is a joke to I like are gay men, or the ones I have anything in most white, hetrosexual males. I have to tell you that common with, because they love, fashion, women I’m not that hopeful. I’ve seen this swing of feminism and mates.” every 10,15, 20 years.