Wendy Dagworthy
| Wendy Dagworthy | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Wendy Ann Dagworthy 4 March 1950 Gravesend, Kent |
| Occupation | Fashion designer, university academic |
| Notable credit(s) | Wendy Dagworthy label (1972–1988), Member of British Fashion Council (1996), Professor at RCA (1998–2014), OBE for services to fashion (2011) |
Wendy Ann Dagworthy OBE (born 4 March 1950) is an English former fashion designer and now design academic. During her career she has led fashion design teaching at both the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, mentoring notable fashion designers including Stella McCartney and Hussein Chalayan. An influential designer in her own right in the 1970s and '80s with the Wendy Dagworthy label, and one of the founders of London Fashion Week, she was described by the Daily Telegraph as: "the high priestess of British fashion".
Wendy Ann Dagworthy was born in 1950 in Gravesend, Kent, the daughter of Jean A. (Stubbs) and Arthur Sidney Dagworthy. She was interested in fashion from an early age, noting that: "Sewing was something you did back then. You learnt needlework at school. There were no high-street shops where you could buy cheap clothes, so you would go to the market, buy some fabric and knock up your own". She was a pupil at Northfleet School for Girls, later attending Medway College of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts). She studied fashion at Hornsey College of Art, where her degree show attracted attention.
After leaving college, Dagworthy began working with the wholesale company Radley, which then owned the brand Ossie Clark. She was also creating her own designs and, at 22, she had her first collection to sell to London stores. These included the independent King's Road boutique Countdown – the store's clients included Mick Jagger. One of Dagworthy's early personal customers was musician Bryan Ferry, who she had met through a Gravesend connection. She designed some of Roxy Music's stage costumes and also made Ferry a pair of monogrammed black silk pyjamas to wear in hospital while he was having his tonsils out.
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