Year in fashion

From scrub-making to lockdown dressing, Stephanie Smith takes a look back at a very unusual year when Yorkshire fashion designers and brands stepped up to help.

It feels like a lifetime ago but London Fashion Week did actually take place in the flesh back in February, when York designer Matty Bovan staged a critically acclaimed catwalk show – but did he know something that the rest of us did not when he presented designs that, with the benefit of hindsight, seemed to hint at the need for social distancing?

Using wide panniers and curtains on poles raised high above the head (made by hatter Stephen Jones), Bovan challenged the silhouette of the body, and described the mood as “off-world” – these were surely designs for a time of chaos.

Lockdown began in March and, as Covid-19 continued to put frontline workers at risk, expert sewers across the land answered the call to make protective clothing for NHS and care home staff. Yorkshire fashion designers, manufacturers, students and skilled amateur dressmakers stepped up to produce scrubs, masks, bags and hairbands. Some worked from their back bedrooms and dining tables, some in socially distanced conditions at clothing mills. In Castleford, at its trench coat factory, Burberry turned production over to making scrubs. In Huddersfield, designer Kevan Jon made headbands and McNair Shirts changed its motto from “It takes a town to make a shirt” to “It takes a town to make a gown”. In Leeds, Laura Sedman, of Laurelle Woman, joined the call to make PPE after seeing the Facebook page For The Love of Scrubs, started by Boston nurse Ashleigh Linsdell. Founder of Yorkshire Born & Thread Lisa Gilbert set up a group with nearby fellow sewers to make PPE and local companies including Brand Yorkshire and Bradford-based Downham Textiles donated fabrics. North Yorkshire farming daughter, fashion designer Sarah Thompson, made washbags for nurses to use for the safe laundering of their uniforms at home.

In May, Rita Britton, founder of the legendary Pollyanna and owner of Barnsleybased fashion label Nomad Atelier, spoke out strongly in favour of fashion sustainability and said the high street would never be the same again,