As a new version of the classic 1980s TV series Dallas comes to the UK, the decade that spawned it is back on the catwalks. However, just as the new series has toned down the glitz and glamour with which it is synonymous, so this time around the 1980s trend is a more sophisticated interpretation of the perms, puffballs and power dressing decade.
“I feel the characters should have good taste over being loud and garish,” says Rachel Sage Kunin, Dallas costume designer. Laura Larbalestier, buying director for Browns, says: “In the 1980s, women [such as JR’s wife Sue Ellen in Dallas] were dressing to be powerful. Now we are more relaxed.”
Wendy Dagworthy, dean of the School of Material and head of fashion at the Royal College of Art, was a leading British designer in the 1980s. She says that today “it’s not as pronounced as the power ladies in old Dallas. Chanel’s silhouette is very angular and geometric but the shoulders are dropped, so not as big and square.” Not that [the look] has lost its bite, she says. “The time is right for a harder edge. We’re bringing back power dressing in the economic crisis because it makes people feel stronger, as it did in the 1980s.”