Dagworthy’s contributions to two publications, 80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk (2013) and the earlier Style City: How London Became a Fashion Capital (2009), were both underpinned by her archive and collection research and her professional and personal creative engagement with the fashion industry since the 1970s.
Dagworthy, who was a leading protagonist in the development of London as a fashion capital, used her own experimental commentary as a basis for the interpretation of this significant period. She undertook oral history interviews and object analysis to build a critical contextualisation of the fashion industry, design production and consumption.
Dagworthy’s introduction and a chapter on her own practice in the exhibition publication for ‘80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk’ was expanded and further developed from Style City, which explored the origins of today’s London designer identity and the evolution of London Fashion Week over a period stretching from the mid-1970s to the present. Dagworthy undertook archive and collection-based research at the V&A and London Designer Collections Archive to provide material for the text.
‘80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk’ provided an in-depth examination of the revolution of British Fashion Design that took place during the decade. Dagworthy was chosen for one case study chapter on the strength of her dual role as a celebrated practitioner and key instigator of London Fashion Week. In this essay, Dagworthy contextualised her own experience as a designer and the expansion of her business within the decade’s wider social, cultural and political events.