01x02 - The Fashion Rebels

[bunniefuu]

-[sirens wailing in distance]

-[car horn honking]

[Enninful] I've worked in fashion

for over 30 years,

and I'm still crazy about it.

How are you?

As someone who's edited Vogue magazine,

I guess I'm part of the establishment,

an insider.

Maybe we need to break up

the column distributor

But that's not how I started.

Back then, I couldn't have

been more of an outsider,

maybe even a rebel.

[metal screeching]

[Enninful] One day,

I remember getting on the train

and this man got up.

Gave me his card,

and he wanted me to model for him.

I didn't really know

[chuckles] what modelling was.

Um, so I remember going home

and my dad literally said,

"No, you can't model,"

and my mum was like,

"No, not that industry, no."

You know, like most 16-year-olds,

I just pressured her and pressured her,

and this time she said, "Okay."

That first sh**t I was like

It was so exhilarating.

It's really amazing to think

that that train journey

sort of changed my life.

[lively reggae music

SL2 "On A Ragga Tip" playing]

[Enninful] And we were all so young,

it felt like we were part

of something exciting

that hadn't yet become mainstream.

The underground scene

that I knew in London,

the heart of it, was rebellion.

We lived in bedsits,

we lived in unfurnished flats,

we went to clubs

that weren't the most glamorous,

you know, and that was our life.

It was music, it was the art scene.

We just wanted to change the world,

-show the world something new.

-[music concludes]

[Glen Luchford]

When i-D magazine came out,

it felt like the first fashion magazine

that really represented the street.

By the 1990s, I was at i-D,

the youngest fashion director in history.

A bit of fun at i-D.

[Enninful] We were on the edge,

we were the cool kids,

we were against the system.

[man] So, tell me,

what's the best thing about i-D?

We just present an alternative.

We present different ways to view clothes.

It was a magazine by young people

for young people

and just really giving youth a voice.

You know, we put together things

that had soul, that had meaning,

that felt personal to us,

and we would create a sh**t that way.

It was a truly independent magazine.

[Enninful] The word "commercial"

was the dirtiest word.

It's like, "We don't

do commercial pictures,

"we don't do commercial clothes."

So, everything was anti-establishment,

anti-fashion, so we called it grunge.

Grunge was really just a state of mind.

Being fashionable used to mean

looking good.

Well, thanks to a fad

that started in the Pacific Northwest,

high fashion now means, well, you decide.

Anything that wasn't glamorous

and elegant was grungy.

When the music wasn't like pop music

but really dark,

it became "grungy music", right?

If the fashion wasn't the big shoulders

and big hair, it became "grungy fashion".

[male reporter] The grunge look

is an urban lumberjack,

anything goes ensemble

of duck boots,

tattered shirts, and long underwear.

The whole rebellious,

rejecting luxury and like

Where everything was going

and just having

an allergic reaction to it.

I mean, it was just so raw and so real.

We heard of this incredible

husband and wife duo,

Kurt Cobain and Courtney.

And we were obsessed

with Courtney's style,

the little princess

with the tiara and the socks.

It was so grunge.

[Kim Kardashian] All we wanted to do

on the weekends

is do these like mock-up

little photoshoots in our garages.

Messy hair and baggy pants

and we definitely

had, like, this attitude, for sure.

All of our parents were like,

"What are you guys doing?"

Like, you know, "Dress

"You gotta dress up."

But for us Gen Xers,

it was a way to put a stamp

on who we were as a generation.

People couldn't ignore the fact

that there was a shift.

There was really something happening,

and no force on Earth can stop an idea

whose time has come.

Grunge. Mmm.

Yes.

No, Anna was not the biggest,

biggest fan of grunge, I wouldn't say.

[chuckles] She just

It wasn't her thing.

Anna was appalled, frankly, by grunge.

[in French accent] So suddenly

you need the big boots,

big looks of poverty, no look,

this thing clack, clack.

I don't like the idea to look poor

when you are not poor. I hate this.

Grunge was not joyful

and it was not uplifting

and it was not covetable.

You didn't really wanna

be in that picture.

[Grace Coddington] For me,

personally, I love grunge.

One felt there was a change in the air,

and I sort of got hooked.

Yeah, so did you have a story in mind?

-I'll find one.

-Okay.

Absolutely, I'll find one.

So, yes, I took the jump, and I said,

"We have to do this grunge story."

But Anna wasn't really going for that,

you know.

Grace and Anna, it was love-hate.

Um, row is a bit heavy.

But row, yes, I should say so.

[chuckles]

Can you get me a car

to go to, um, Rick at 12:30?

[Kristen McMenamy] Grace,

a little powerhouse,

she breaks the rules

but she's like a naughty little kid

breaking the rules,

like, "I hope I get away with it."

I think I've told Anna about it,

but only half.

-I like the stripe.

-Yeah

I don't think the word "grunge"

ever came out.

I say something I want to do,

she says no,

and then I bring it round the other way,

and come from this direction.

She says no, so I come from this direction

and that direction and eventually,

I kind of wear her down.

So, yes, I'm stubborn.

We hated grunge.

But the new generation

of designers loved it

and Vogue had to reflect that.

I love Marc.

He have something that I love.

[Jacobs] When we did

the grunge collection, I was like,

"I hope the audience likes it."

But I didn't care. [chuckles]

[Tonne Goodman] Marc Jacobs had just

taken the reins at Perry Ellis,

which was this very preppy, classic,

Upper East Side brand.

It was for, you know, the New Yorker

who dressed well,

quite restrained, quite traditional.

[chuckles] And he was determined

to shake things up.

[Jacobs] I was gonna be

the youngest person ever

to run a huge house on 7th Avenue.

But I had made a decision

that I was going to make and create and do

based on what inspires me.

[reporter] now that we have

-a light on you.

-I think they look gorgeous, huh?

I had crazy energy.

I mean, we couldn't do enough.

My agent was like,

"You've gotta do this show."

You know, it was all kind of like

pinning things together

at the last minute. It was so exciting.

[McMenamy] It was a high risk show,

and I remember just, like,

chatting with Naomi

about the looks, and being like,

"What? What's he doing?"

I was at that show and I remember

being completely stunned.

The whole world was like,

[gasps] "What the hell is this?"

Carlyne Cerf from Vogue was helping me

and she was like

[mimics French accent]

"I hate grunge, I hate grunge."

I hate grunge!

[in normal accent] But she wouldn't leave.

Carla Bruni, she was in this dress,

and it just didn't seem right.

I was like, "Well, we'll just cut it,"

and Carlyne loved the idea.

She went, "Cut the dress," and,

I just took her scissors

and roughly chopped it.

Barely covering her bum. [chuckles]

When you really looked at the collection,

it was very, very sophisticated.

They were very beautifully orchestrated

patterns on patterns on patterns

and the palette was very kind

of washed out.

[Jacobs] We were layering the clothes

with a flannel shirt

with a knit beanie,

and the girls just coming out in, like,

Doc Martens or Converse.

It was like complete confidence

that this was good,

and it was right,

and it was exciting, complete.

I was part of the grunge thing,

that's how we dressed.

So the fashion

wasn't shocking to me at all,

but it was to everyone else.

After the show, it was like,

"Jesus, what has happened?"

[Bowles] That collection made Marc

an overnight star.

But a star without a job.

That was it.

When people say,

"You were fired from Perry Ellis

"because of the grunge show,"

like, it just made me, like, this rebel.

There was really something happening

and, like, nobody could ignore it.

[Bowles] Back at Vogue,

Grace, God love her,

pushed for a grunge sh**t.

And Anna let Grace do her thing.

Yeah, we went off to the country

and, you know, we had a great day.

I was working a lot

with the great Steven Meisel at that time,

who was an extraordinary photographer.

I had McMenamy who I was crazy about.

And then Naomi,

they were loving it,

we were having such a great time.

[Campbell] I never asked,

"What are we sh**ting?"

I've never asked that.

When I got there and I saw what it was,

I was so excited.

I remember Grace putting on

a big flowery Ralph Lauren dress,

and then she put a flannel shirt

over top or something,

and then, like, boots and she said,

"Ralph Lauren's gonna k*ll me."

But she did it anyway!

[Coddington] It was grunge

and it was taken from grunge

but it was still quite chic.

[Anna Wintour] When Grace is on a mission,

she is on a mission.

I mean, that was part of why

I felt so lucky to have her at Vogue

because she did have an eye

that I don't pretend to have.

And she saw things

that many of us didn't see

and she saw them first.

[Coddington] To suddenly be presented

with this look

must've been quite shocking for her,

but she trusts her team.

So if they bring it to her

with enough conviction,

she will print it.

I pulled out Vogue

and started looking through it,

and I just was mesmerised

by these images.

We saw how they were kinda picking up

on this pop cultural change with grunge.

I think that when you have Steven Meisel

presenting grunge,

you're presenting it

in a very, very sophisticated way.

[Enninful] One of my favourite

fashion stories ever,

you had all the hallmarks of grunge,

the plaid,

the woolly hats, the striped sweaters,

but you had supermodels modelling

and I'd never seen that before.

It showed that, "Oh, my God,

"what had been happening in London

had now gone mainstream."

I thought if Vogue can do grunge,

why can't i-D magazine do supermodels?

"Oh, my God, let's do a Naomi cover."

We met, instantly we bonded,

it was like Naomi's my kindred spirit.

She had curly hair

and I thought, "Oh, my God, how perfect."

I was in my Whitney Houston phase

and I wanted that bodyguard haircut.

[Enninful] Even though

we were the same age,

she was a supermodel

and she was the one with the money,

so she would have to buy the food,

sometimes we'd make her pay for the van.

There was no budget, so we would sh**t

after nine o'clock at night.

I think I had to do my own makeup,

sleep at a friend's place.

But we did it because it was Edward.

[Enninful] That cover

really was very important

because she was a superstar.

Then we tried Helena Christensen.

Then we tried Christy Turlington.

The readers loved it.

We got so many letters,

this is back in the day,

where you got letters from readers

and I thought, "Okay."

[Linda Evangelista] Doing the i-D,

I felt so cool,

I was like, "Oh, my God."

I'm like I felt, like, relevant.

[Valletta] We got to have fun

and experiment,

and you get to do things

that you don't normally get to do.

All these models knew that, for longevity,

and for cool,

they had to work for i-D.

[man] Any other hassles

on cover shoots?

I think the worst hassle's

when the girl can't wink.

The i-D winking, yeah, of course,

who can forget that?

I don't know who came up

with that idea for the wink,

but it's cursed us all forever

because most people can't wink.

Kate Moss can't wink.

If you look at all Kate's covers

So many of the models couldn't wink.

I can't.

[laughs]

Literally, it's one of my like,

my whole face, I can't do it,

I cannot do a glamorous wink.

So I did a few like this.

It was always like, "No, an i-D cover,"

but, of course, historically,

I'd always thought they were the coolest,

so yeah, I loved doing them.

[camera shutter clicking]

Look straight.

Yeah, yeah and then try to wink.

[Kasterine] I really loved working at i-D

because, of course,

that gave us a platform to create shoots

that were really personal

and, you know,

that felt very new at the time.

But then I got a call

from someone at Vogue

and she said, "We need a lingerie story,

would you be interested in doing it?"

Now, a normal lingerie sh**t

that would appear in Vogue in 1993

would be more often than not

shot on someone like Claudia

in a very expensive location,

wandering down a beach,

looking really suntanned and gorgeous.

I thought this maybe could be a moment

where I could do something

completely different to that.

So I said, "I'd love to do that,

"but could I sh**t with this photographer,

Corinne Day?"

Strangely, they said yes.

They didn't know what they were getting,

and I said, "Can we work with Kate Moss?"

[Moss] I just felt really good,

the whole sh**t, I felt really comfortable

and it was in my flat in London.

You know, it wasn't glamorous.

Our bedroom was,

like, a bedsit. [chuckles]

That's the kind of fashion I liked.

It was much simpler.

I loved creating the images with them.

[Kasterine] She's sort of, you know,

jumping around her bedroom

and she's got her neon pink pants on,

her hair's just loosely in a ponytail,

and she hasn't got much makeup on.

But it's actually just very normal.

She's just a teenage girl in her bedroom.

I think Vogue

had the foresight to understand

that this was an important sh**t

to publish,

because it was something special

and new and different.

I mean, obviously Vogue wanted it

but the public were not ready.

[Kasterine] Immediately

they were completely vilified

and slammed in the press,

and they were absolutely appalled,

is the word I think I'll use.

[laughs]

Perhaps we'd underestimated

how that look

that we had been sh**ting

for magazines like i-D,

that had, in our minds, been quite normal,

but if you transfer that

into the context of Vogue,

then it becomes something very different.

That look,

very undernourished-looking model

made people uncomfortable.

I detest it, I really do.

I I think that it's an unhealthy thing

to promote, that look,

and I don't see any reason for it.

[Goodman] My initial reaction

to the sh**t with Kate,

those images certainly

did not look healthy,

they certainly did not look well-fed

and this is gonna become a trend?

This is gonna be something

that, you know,

we're gonna embrace and endorse?

[Moss] I think

because I was just skinny

and people weren't used to seeing skinny.

But if I'd been more buxom,

it wouldn't have been such a big deal.

You know, it's just my body shape

was different from the models before me.

[Enninful] The whole thing just blew up

and that piece in Vogue

really triggered

a huge amount of hysteria,

what became known as heroin chic.

[Kasterine] The label "heroin chic"

was just sort of appalling to us.

But if you look at the broader picture

of what was happening in music and film,

you've got films like Trainspotting,

which, of course,

was dealing with the horrific

subject matter of kids addicted to heroin.

We all know

what Courtney and Kurt were up to,

but you'd never get away with labelling

somebody or someone's work like that now,

you know, it's slanderous in some ways.

They were saying, "It's Kate Moss's fault,

it's Kate Moss, you know, she's,

"you know, glamourising heroin chic."

People's parents would come up to me

and say, "My daughter's anorexic."

You know, it was awful.

There was one time

that my mum called me and said,

"Darling, I've just read that

you're a heroin addict, is that true?"

Many of us at Vogue

worried about "heroin chic" or anorexia,

all the things that are associated

with that look

and it rocked, not only the industry,

but it got to such a fever pitch,

and I remember physically

being in the White House

when the Clinton administration

took it on.

We now see in college campuses

and neighbourhoods

heroin becoming increasingly

the drug of choice,

and fashion leaders are now admitting

that images projected in fashion photos

in the last few years

have made heroin addiction

seem glamorous and sexy and cool.

You do not need to glamourise addiction

to sell clothes.

Heroin chic did a lot of damage

to London, you know,

all of a sudden we were seen as careless,

we were seen as radical,

but that wasn't the intention.

The intention was young people

photographing other young people

to show the world

what was happening in London.

[Big Ben chiming]

[dancey rock music playing]

[Enninful] There was such a great energy

in the city.

There was so much happening,

so much bubbling under.

You had all these incredible designers

coming out of Saint Martins.

Lee McQueen.

Hussein Chalayan.

Stella McCartney.

Then you had all these incredible artists

coming out of Goldsmiths.

[McCartney] Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst,

we were all just in the same room

at the same time.

There was this freshness

and recklessness

of breaking of boundaries.

Musicians, the artists, the models,

the photographers,

everyone would hang out together

and influence each other.

We were, like, going to museums together,

we were going to all the films,

we were going to all the gigs,

Blur and Jarvis and, you know, Oasis.

Like, we were all at the same things,

and we were going to all the clubs.

I was going, of course,

to the sex clubs in London. [laughs]

Also, "No sex we are British,"

it's not true, it's not the reality,

you know?

It was just buzzing,

it was like London was alive.

Hi, I'm Hamish Bowles,

I'm the European Editor

at Large for American Vogue.

I hope you can hear me over the din.

Ahem.

I'm in London for fashion week and I

I had young London thing to do for Vogue.

Someone who had been saying

"This young designer

called Alexander McQueen,

"you've got to see him."

So we went up to this derelict warehouse.

-[people chattering indistinctly]

-[birds squawking]

[Bowles] It was dark, enclosed room.

There was the sound of birds.

[bell ringing]

[Goodman] Lee McQueen was a genius.

I mean, he was an enormous,

enormous talent.

First of all, he was a master tailor

and then the fact that he really

birthed something in London

that was absolutely unique.

He was playing with the duality of London,

the wild and sophisticated.

McQueen liked to provoke and to shock

and to have people talking about him,

it was part of who he was.

[woman] What do you think?

Um I thought it was

rather wonderful, I must say,

sort of exhilarating to watch.

Middle America might not

be quite ready for this.

By the time it ended, I was in shock.

It was something incredible

that I hadn't seen before, actually ever.

[Katy England] I think Lee

was very honest and very real

and he didn't put on airs

and graces for people.

[McQueen] Well, did it piss you off?

-[journalist] No.

-It should've done, that was the idea.

His vision was quite dark.

[reporter] McQueen has always been known

as a rebel

and he sent his models staggering

down the catwalk in torn clothes,

looking like they'd just been violated.

[Enninful] The journalists were outraged,

but the kids were loving Lee McQueen,

you know,

youth will always love something

they can relate to,

something they see as anti-establishment

and Lee was that.

Well, I've always been a bit of a rebel

with a cause. [chuckles]

[man] Which was?

Which is to destroy

the fashion industry at large.

-[man] From within.

-From within, at the core.

[Enninful] Everyone thinks of Lee McQueen

as this dark person,

but I've never laughed with anyone

more than I did with him.

[England] When I first met Lee,

he came up to me and he said,

"Are you Katy England?

I'd like you to style my next show."

I was young, and I was excited,

and it felt like just an instant fit.

Camera up, please.

[England] Lee was making the clothes

himself.

We didn't have money for a fitting model.

I would try on all the clothes

and Lee would make alterations on me.

My first Santa's sleigh girl.

[both laugh]

When Lee left Saint Martins,

he didn't have any money at all.

He was signing on for unemployment benefit

as Lee McQueen.

He was very concerned

that people from the dole office

would see him in the press

and that he wouldn't

get his unemployment benefit,

hence the name

he put on his first collection

was Alexander McQueen, not Lee McQueen.

[woman] Did they want you

to be a designer?

No, my dad wanted me to be a plumber.

But I got sort of mixed up

with the costume,

you know, the all-in-one just turned me on

so much. [laughs]

What I love about Lee

was his eye for tailoring,

his eye for proportion, you know,

and he was always so knowledgeable,

you know, of history,

not just British history,

but world history.

I knew he had the talent,

I knew he could take an idea

and really, sort of, transform it

into something magical.

For me, the moment of the shift

was the Dante show.

I felt really that was the moment

when people sort of took him seriously.

It was chaos backstage.

[people chattering indistinctly]

[England] It was a really,

really chaotic show

because the collection had arrived

so late.

[people chattering indistinctly]

And it wasn't like

he had an awfully big fan club

of fashion journalists at that time.

The people are coming

to see Alexander McQueen, for sure.

Are they coming to laugh, to gawp,

to walk out of here going,

"Would you wear that crap?"

"No, of course, I wouldn't."

He thought it'd be a bit of fun

to put a skeleton on the front row.

He was just doing a little dig at the way

the press had responded to him so far.

[chamber music playing]

That was the first time I walked for Lee.

It was a special show, that one.

It was amazing, it was almost

a spiritual experience actually.

[Wintour] Everything was a bit perverse

as well as quite, quite dark.

I've always been drawn

to English designers

because they're so incredible

at doing so much with so little.

They seem to be able to pull things

out of a paper bag

and they're not worried

about their investors, or their backers,

they don't have any.

[England] He had the antler horns.

He had the masks,

little Jesus figure on the nose.

It was just a really lovely balance

between something that felt polished,

but it still had his raw energy.

[Enninful] What Lee showed the world was

that London fashion could be rebellious,

it could be exciting and wild,

but also sophisticated.

The world took notice.

Right at this moment in time,

Alexander McQueen is possibly

the most exciting, outrageous talent

that British fashion has.

In America, they'd heard about him

and they wanted

to bring the show to New York.

And it was just chaotic.

[people chattering indistinctly]

[woman] Oh, man! What a scene

at the Alexander McQueen show

in front of an abandoned old synagogue.

The show in London was in a church

that was still in use,

but the synagogue is not in use any more,

so it's gonna be kind of crazy,

a bit more madder than the London show.

[woman laughing] Because he wants

to climb over the car!

[England] So many people

wanted to come and see it.

We hadn't quite expected that.

[man] We are packed wall to wall!

We have closed the place down now.

It's dead. Have a nice night.

The American production team

were panicking

because they had never seen

anything like that before.

It was actually quite scary.

Rumour has it that there was a problem

getting Anna Wintour through the door.

There are a lot of angry people out there

who we couldn't get into your show.

So what do you say to that?

-Sorry!

-[both laugh]

And I said to him,

"Lee, Anna Wintour's outside the door

"with André Leon Talley and

Grace Coddington and she can't get in."

And he was like, "Oh, f*ck 'em."

He He didn't care. [laughs]

I was like, "Oh, my God,

what are you doing?"

It's like, nobody would do that but Lee.

[McQueen] When I'm paying £30,000

to do a show,

I will do whatever I like.

Because it's my £30,000

and my half hour to do anything I like.

The synagogue was very difficult

to get into,

but I did get in, and yes,

he rocked the boat,

but I think that sense

of slightly annoying people,

he was into that.

He was incredible, Lee,

he was such a laugh,

he was so cheeky, he was so talented.

I went to some of his shows

and it definitely cemented the fact

that I want to be a fashion designer,

and so I started looking at, um, colleges

to study fashion design

and there was only one.

This week we're coming to you

from Central Saint Martins

in Charing Cross Road,

one of London's leading fashion colleges.

Everyone had gone to Saint Martins.

Galliano had gone there, Lee was there.

I mean, I really wanted to get

into Saint Martins,

but I didn't love it when I got there.

Because the weirder and more wild

and crazy your creations were,

the better you were at being a designer.

If you did anything

that was remotely kind of normal,

you were like the biggest loser

in the world.

So I'd spent two and a half years

creating dresses out of spaghetti

and like, I mean, none of it was wearable.

And so when it came to my degree show,

I was like,

"Oh. Am I brave enough

to do what I wanna do?

"Like, have I actually got the ba*ls

"to do something

that's really quite normal?"

[people chattering indistinctly]

[McCartney] I was obsessed

with antique fabric and antique lace,

basically vintage clothing.

And so I was like,

"I wanna make those kind of clothes,

"but I wanna be able to wear them,

modernise them."

[announcer] Stella McCartney

fashion designs.

[techno music playing]

We used to go to the graduate shows,

we were all very excited.

There was a lot of hype

around Stella McCartney.

And Stella presented a collection

that was quite classic,

very female friendly

and featured Naomi and Kate.

[McCartney] All the other students

were choosing their models,

then they were getting their mates.

I had mates,

but my mates were the supermodels.

I was like,

"Everyone's gonna hate me if I do that."

And I just thought,

"You know what? Sod it."

Like, just like, "Life's too short

and you're genuinely my mates."

[woman] Naomi, why are you here?

I'm here to support Stella McCartney

in her graduation.

When she called me, she said,

"It's my graduation

"and I really would love you girls

to be a part of it."

So we flew to London to do the graduation,

and I don't think anyone's

ever had a graduation like that.

We were just hanging out

in, like, Notting Hill,

going to the same bars or restaurants

or whatever

and I didn't know she was a McCartney.

And then I saw her driving around

in a Mercedes and I was like,

"She's at college,

how can she afford that?"

And then she told me,

and then she asked me

to do her graduate show.

Stella's a friend of mine so,

and she was doing a show,

so she asked me to do it.

Lots of important designers

have come out of Saint Martins

and some huge designers in the future

will come out from this show.

Those girls were the hottest girls

on the planet.

They were doing every show in every city.

And they did a little college,

you know, fashion show.

That, for me, was like, it was amazing.

[Campbell] I've never seen any graduate

from Saint Martins

have their collection on the front cover

of every single newspaper.

[Enninful] A lot of students were like,

"We don't have Stella's background,

"we don't have Stella's connections."

So Stella, from the beginning,

even though that was great for her,

also suffered a huge backlash

about privilege.

As the child of such famous people,

you know, it became this whole drama.

I was like, "Ahhh!

Get me out of here!" [laughs]

There was a lot of hype

around Stella McCartney,

but there was so much talent

in London at the time

and British designers

were in demand everywhere.

I was already installed in Paris

at Givenchy.

And then I got the phone call

from the company president,

which made me nervous

because it was a Friday afternoon

and you don't normally get invited

to Mr Arnault's office

on a Friday afternoon.

I thought, well,

I tried my best at Givenchy,

maybe it just didn't work out,

I'm not ready for it, whatever.

But no, he then asked me if I would like

to be the artistic director

at the house of Dior.

[reporter] John Galliano

is bringing his talents

to Christian Dior,

an international standard setter

for style and elegance.

I never dreamt of going to Dior,

that was very

No. No, no, no.

It's the greatest house in the world

and every fashion student

dreams of being a little part of it,

but to be given the reins of the house

is just something

that I would never believed would happen.

It was an amazing moment for London.

Our designers were being hand-picked

to head these storied French houses.

[reporter] And it's not

a one-man revolution.

Alexander McQueen,

who will take over from Galliano

as Givenchy's top designer is British too.

When Lee was offered the job at Givenchy,

he was 27-years-old.

Such an opportunity comes along

once in a lifetime.

Lee really went for it.

You know,

he didn't falter with that decision.

Catapulted onto an international stage.

[McQueen] I love working for Givenchy,

I mean, I love the ateliers.

The people are really lovely.

You know, it's hard work,

but life's hard work anyway.

So, you know,

and if you're dedicated to work,

it's never gonna be easy.

[clapping]

[Enninful]

He was a working-class designer,

so was John Galliano who was before him.

They were these working-class kids

in these ateliers of high society,

British designers

who took the fashion system

and turned it upside down.

I was in my little studio apartment

in West London

and people were starting to, like,

wanna buy my clothes.

I was selling to a couple of stores

in Japan and in London

and we were like just really busking it,

like we didn't know

how to do business, and I was like,

"I don't know what I'm doing."

Okay, definitely.

And I remember just getting

the phone call

of the CEO of Chloé.

The only reason I knew about it

was my mum used to wear Chloé in the '70s.

So when I was scouring through

her wardrobe,

I'd see this brand, Chloé, I loved it.

It was beautiful.

And they kind of asked me

if I would be interested in going

and being the creative director

of the house,

I was like, "What the hell

are you talking about?"

[engine whirring]

[McCartney] It was like a big job

and a lot of pressure.

I was so overwhelmed,

but it was a done deal.

I mean, that was it.

[reporter] She's never staged

a major catwalk show,

but her Chloé boss says

she was the right person

to replace Karl Lagerfeld.

[people chattering indistinctly]

Stella taking on Karl Lagerfeld's role

at Chloé

was almost like Little Red Riding Hood

taking on the Big Bad Wolf.

I don't feel that you can really

tell the story of '90s fashion

without telling the story

of Karl Lagerfeld.

[Bowles] I loved what Karl had been doing

at Chloé,

but he was also creative director

for Chanel.

[reporter] He has single-handedly

made the name of Chanel

wildly trendy again without jeopardising

its status as a fashion classic.

[Claudia Schiffer] He was a true genius,

like Mozart,

and he would often wake up to sketch

in the middle of the night, for example,

and I remember him sketching so rapidly,

as if his hands could barely keep up

with the ideas in his mind.

His brain needed to be constantly at work.

It's instinct.

He drew ever since he was a child.

That was his thing.

I always was interested in fashion

before I even knew

fashion was called fashion.

Karl's mind was exceptional.

There wasn't anything

that you could bring up

that he wouldn't know everything about.

He was not only a great designer,

but he was also a philosopher,

a poet, a writer, a photographer,

a furniture designer,

an architect, interior designer.

He was so many things.

You know, he was like an emperor.

[Enninful] Karl Lagerfeld was unparalleled

in the '90s.

And for Stella,

she had to navigate this world

that she'd never encountered before.

[McCartney] When I started at Chloé,

Karl Lagerfeld did the most genius quote,

I think,

he said, "I knew they'd take a big name

to fill my boots,

"but I thought they'd use a big name

in fashion, not music."

And I was like, "Oof, b*tch."

[laughs]

[people chattering indistinctly]

[reporter] Stella McCartney

couldn't have chosen

a more dramatic location

for her fashion show.

This is the Paris Opera,

and if you have a look around here,

it really is the most opulent of places.

My first show at Chloé,

literally, I was like,

"I don't know what's going on."

They said, "You need

to put down something like 80 looks,"

and there were thousands of people,

and I was just like, "Okay."

[Wintour] It was very difficult

at the beginning for Stella.

Maybe things had happened

because of her surname.

[reporter] When she took over at Chloé

from Karl Lagerfeld,

many said that at 25,

Stella McCartney was too young,

they said she got the job

because of her dad.

But she followed her creative instincts.

"This is what I'm gonna do

and this is who I am.

"I'm not Karl Lagerfeld,

I'm Stella McCartney."

[upbeat music playing]

[Moss] And the clothes were beautiful.

I know she was inspired a lot

by her mother

and her mum's wardrobe

from the '70s and stuff,

so she did do things

that weren't so out there.

But she knew what she was doing.

Not only does she have a real talent,

Stella has always

been very clear and defined

in what she wants and what she was doing.

[clapping and cheering]

[Alexander] She was an absolute triumph.

I think that she'd foiled all the doubters

and she sent down a collection

that was so pretty

so girlie, so romantic and so sexy

that it just knocked spots

off a lot of things.

[cheering]

I think they're beautiful clothes,

very feminine

and I think she's a very talented girl.

It did really well. I mean, look,

yeah it's true,

there's no better revenge

than just like kicking arse.

And then Karl Lagerfeld very quickly

retracted the comment

and would spend sort of many a weekend

saying, "Can I take your photo?"

I'd be like, "No, because I'm getting

on the Eurostar

"and I'm going home, and riding my horse."

London's young designers

had conquered Paris.

[people chattering indistinctly]

[Bowles] But it was Princess Diana

who offered the ultimate seal of approval.

[people shouting indistinctly]

I think all of us were so captivated

and fascinated by Princess Diana.

At that time, she was the most famous

woman in the world.

She was enjoying fashion

and the spotlight

that she put on, particularly,

British designers.

I remember one day, we all jumped

into this old van and we went to London

where we met Princess Diana.

She'd been invited to the Met

and she would wear one of my dresses.

The Met Gala is the most influential

red carpet in the world.

It was like a blessing, I mean, wow.

We went to Kensington Palace

and discussed drawings

and I was trying to push a pink,

but she was not having it, "No, not pink."

That was real, real fun.

So we did the dress

and subsequent fittings

and it was beautifully done, you know,

very kind of correct,

you know, the corset,

everything was correct.

[car horn honking]

[Galliano] Fast forward to the event

and I just remember her

getting out the car,

I was like [gasps]

I couldn't believe it.

She'd ripped the corset out.

She didn't wanna wear the corset.

She felt so liberated,

she'd torn the corset out.

The dress was much more sensuous.

The cameras went mental.

The paparazzi was blinding

which made the dress really bling

and the jewels and everything.

[Wintour] I don't think that anyone

had worn Galliano for Dior

on the red carpet

at such an important moment before.

It was a really amazing opportunity.

[Bowles] It was like Diana had embraced

the fashion rebels.

I mean, wow,

Diana was my first couture client.

Great, you know?

It just felt like a triumph

of British fashion,

it felt like a triumph of all the work

we'd been doing in London.

[Wintour] And so London became a place

where you went to look

for the best talent.

[Galliano] Yes, there was an influx

of British designers

holding incredible positions

in historic French houses.

So it was kind of an electrifying time.

[McCartney] We just would hang out.

You know, Lee and I went

out for dinner many times

and I would do the same with John,

and there was a moment there where we were

kind of running the show, I would say.

[people chattering indistinctly]

[Bowles] Everything turned.

Fashion became about the youth

rather than the establishment.

[people chattering indistinctly]

It was amazing to think

that what had started in London

essentially had now gone

on an international level.

[clapping]

[Enninful] Fashion was changing.

We weren't kids any more,

everybody was growing up.

It really felt like a revolution

was underway.

There was a sense

that everything was changing.

We were on the front page

of every newspaper

and we're like, "What the hell is this?"

Did we know what was coming?

No, but we knew something was coming.

[Coddington] I said to Anna,

"This is the beginning of the end,

"where are we going with this?"

What? You're gonna, like,

bring back the '70s?

You're gonna bring back sex?

That's not happening.

Action!

[Enninful] Fur, feathers, sequins.

It was extremely boring.

Let's get women on the red carpet

in our clothes.

I just remember Madonna and Courtney Love

saying, "Best dress."

[laughs]

[theme music playing]