Woman's Hour - Late Night Woman's Hour - Clothes

Episode Date: April 28, 2016

From the shock value of punk to Muslim modesty codes, via clothes as art and how police officers personalize their uniforms, Lauren Laverne and guests discuss what we wear and what it means. With punk pioneer Jordan, fashion designer Barjis Chohan, philosopher Shahidha Bari, and former police officer and blogger Ellie Bloggs Producer: Luke Mulhall.

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Welcome to Late Night Woman's Hour. I'm Lauren Laverne and this month we're talking about women and clothes with an impeccably dressed and extremely well qualified panel. Joining me tonight, fashion designer Bargis Chohan who cut her teeth at Westwood but has made a name for herself with her own line. Always described as elegant and sometimes described as modest. Welcome to you. Thank you. Thank you for having me on board. Pleasure. Style pioneer Jordan is here.

She was dressing as a punk before it even existed as an aesthetic. Good evening, madam. Welcome. Good evening to you. Thanks for being here. We've got a woman who's spent a lifetime in uniform, PC Ellie Bloggs, ex-police officer, blogger and author of Diary of an On-Call Girl. Hello, how are you doing?

Hello, hello, hello. Oh, she's good. I like that. And Shahida Bari, who is somewhat preoccupied with the subject of women and what they wear, as she's currently working on a book about the philosophy of clothes. Do you write that in your pyjamas, Shahida, be honest? Oh my God, I do. I didn't expect that revelation to come so early on in the show but yes well you know I've written before I know how I know how it works okay well

we'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit welcome everybody I might start with a bit of an easy round table to start the ball rolling um what is your favorite item of clothing that you're wearing tonight um I can start if that's, to give you a few seconds thinking time. I am wearing a blue leopard print dress because I enjoy the blue leopard very much, but underneath a thermal vest. And I feel like the combination is very much a metaphor for where I'm at in life.

What about you, Ellie? Well, mine would have to be the coat that I came here in, partly because it's warm and comfortable, probably mainly because it has a hood, and I'm a bit of a fan of anything with a hood. I was brought up very properly, and I think the hood is my way of expressing my inner hooligan. Bard, just what about you?

Oh, I'm wearing a silk twill top with chartreuse cuffs. I think that little bit of colour really does something to me, especially in the evening, and matching it with silk twill trousers too, which is printed and hand-painted by my staff. Oh, wow. Jordan? I'm wearing a rather old Vivienne Westwood T-shirt.

It's a bit of a relic, but I love it because it's a trompe l'oeil of a pair of rather big bosoms and I've got a rather big pair of bosoms to put in it. And actually, just because this is, you know, the theatre of the mind and the radio, they've actually got a kind of frame around them, a gilt frame, so really showing them off to full advantage. Yeah, but it's not the first time my bosoms have been framed.

Splendid. Shahida, what about you? So I'm wearing this really odd sort of black and bronze stretch knee-length pencil skirt, which is in a kind of weird snake skin print that is, I think, a bit Pat Butcher-ish, but I love Pat Butcher, so I don't mind. Love it. But it's because I'm writing about animals and about animal skin, and there's something about wearing animal skin next to our own skin.

And it's about the fact that we master animals, but also we are animals too. I feel like I should end that sentence with a roar. But yeah, and so you too. Me in the leopard and Fred Flintstone. What does it say about all of us? The German philosopher, Walter Benjamin, he says, there's something horrific about the fact that we wear animal skins so close to our own skin

and it's a revelation of our own savagery actually. We think we master the animals but really we are the animals. So you and your blue leopard print you're an animal. And Pat Butcher apparently a monster. A monster.

Who could argue with that. All right. Well, that's the panel. We know how they look. Let's find out a bit more. So people talk about style and fashion as if they're interchangeable things, but of course they're not.

And for me, you know, this programme is much more about the former. I wondered for you guys, what's the difference between fashion and style? Barges, what do you think? Well, I think style is all about, you know, what you inherit more than anything. Some people have it, got it.

It's like, you know, it's natural. Some people are just naturally stylish, while some people need a little bit of tweaking and training, and that's why they get personal stylists on board. I think everyone's got their own personal style. I know what my style is, but it's very subjective too. So, you know, what you might think is stylish, someone else might think, oh, my God, that is absolutely awful.

The eye of the beholder. Yes, exactly. And fashion, fashion is always changing. It's something what you want to pick and choose all the time. It could be faddy, it could be something quite classical. It really wants... It depends on what you want to make out of it. And how do you describe your personal style?

You said, I know I've got my own. What is it? I think it's contemporary modesty with a bit of quirkiness in it. Okay, interesting. We'll come back to that. Right, what about Jordan? What about you? I mean, you have this sense of style that became iconic.

I mean, when did that first become apparent? Were you always interested in clothes? Yeah, probably from when I was about seven, I think. Wow. I can still remember and, funnily enough, I can still smell this outfit that my mum bought for me. I'd insisted that she buy it. I was very clear on what I wanted to look like

and how I wanted to present myself. It was very inborn into me for some reason. I don't know why. And what was it? What was the outfit? It was a lovely little, it was a cerise, well more like fuchsia pink cape in wool and it had a little mandarin collar made out of

black velvet and it had a little black velvet cap and it had little, sort of little holes where you put your hands out of in the front of it. So it started really early. And you said you can remember the smell. Was that the fabric? New.

That lovely smell of new. New wool, probably, is the smell that I remember most. I can bring it to mind at any moment, that smell. So a fully enveloping, sensory, multi-sensory experience. Yeah. And I used to have these lovely little sticky-out dresses that I loved So a kind of a fully enveloping kind of sensory, multi-sensory experience. Yeah, yeah. And I used to have these lovely little sticky-out dresses that I loved with loads of little petticoats underneath. And, yeah, petticoats were quite a thing, weren't they?

A lot of the vintage, as we would call it now, I guess. I wore petticoats a lot. Yeah. At early days, when I first came up to London and worked with Vivienne and Malcolm, I had a lot of petticoats. Fantastic. It's sex at the shop, yeah. They were see-through then,

so it was a little bit different from your girly petticoat. DIY. Shahida, you're writing this book about clothes. For you, what's the difference between fashion and style? I have quite mixed feelings about fashion. I love fashion. I think some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life have been clothes.

So I was at the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the Bowes Museum in Durham last year and I saw the Mondrian dress. Oh, amazing. Yes, I saw that, yeah. And it's in real life, I've seen so many pictures of it, but in real life it's an astonishing thing because he understands modern art as something that belongs on women's bodies

and so you get these... My makeup was actually, my punk makeup the linear one that I used to wear a lot. With the very heavy cat eye that went all the way... No, no, no, it was geometric. That was all inspired by Mondrian. With the kind of pink, I saw an amazing

photograph yesterday with the kind of pink geometric squares all over your face. Wow. And that was Mondrian. That was Mondrian and the people of Cow, which is a wonderful book by Lenny Riefenstahl. It was a beautiful photographic book of a tribe. Wow.

Well, I think that's the most amazing thing about fashion is that it goes hand in hand at its best with something like modern art. But then the other side of fashion for me is also that fashion is an industry that is oddly not self-conscious about the places that clothes are made, for instance. So last week was Fashion Revolution Week. Fashion is an industry and it's a business. And it's a business that can be really evasive about the hands through which garments have been passed and fashion revolution had that hashtag tag last week you know where were my clothes made yeah who made your clothes is it sometimes it's literally impossible to find out yes well i'm quite aware of that that's why i kind of focus on high end i don't do high street so for me ethical fashion is very very important where it's made, like in India and Pakistan, I just don't go there

because I know that I can't have any control over it. So, yeah, my prices are a bit on the high end, but I just feel I can sleep well at night, and that's very, very important for me. I don't know how it will develop in a few years' time when there's more demand for my work, but I think at this point in time it's nice to know that my work is produced

by someone and I'm paying them a good wage for it. Ellie that you know you're here talking about life and uniform really as much as anything else and the police uniform is quite a look did did it take you a while to get used to that? Yeah I think so and it's quite interesting talking about style when and the word uniform which obviously means everyone's the same the idea really is to kind of get rid of any difference between you, get rid of any personal style. And I think when I hear the word style, I think about your style of being a police officer.

So when you're all dressed the same, you're forced to be judged on what you do, how you act and how you perform your job. So I think it's quite interesting when you put everyone in the same clothes, you're really forced to look at how they act because there's nothing else to distinguish them and it has it has it kind of changed your attitude to getting dressed I mean it's quite a powerful I've been watching a lot of Happy Valley recently well you know you see Sarah Lancashire like putting her uniform on and she's striding across the screen she looks the screen and she looks so powerful

yeah I think it has and I think the worst thing about it is you don't have to think when you get dressed because for the last 12 13 years i've worn exactly the same thing to work every day um except when my boots get a bit worn and i need to order a new pair of exactly the same boot so i think it's it it is really strange because it um suddenly i'm now out of uniform i have to think about what i wear you're kind of not used to it. And I suddenly realised I own no clothes. OK, right. Well, we might have a panel who could maybe help you with that.

I'm in the right company. All right. Well, getting dressed can be a tricky business. How do you decide what to put on in the morning? Jordan, I mean, what about you? Well, I work as a veterinary nurse now. So I actually have a uniform. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Do you wear that T-shirt underneath the uniform? I don't know. Did you kind of have to think that through and think, OK, I'm going to start doing this job that requires a uniform? Was it a strange thing for

you all? It wasn't actually't actually no because i see my job was more important than what i wear yeah in that situation when i go out is a another question okay i like to let loose when i go out i have a a vision of what i want to i suppose it goes back to when i was little as well i just have a vision about what i want to wear and that's it all right barges what about you? Well, in the morning, I've got three kids, so I do my school run, sometimes in my PJs, to be honest. That's appalling. Yes, seriously.

So I can't help it, unfortunately. It's like, you know, one of them saying, oh, mummy, I forgot my PE kit. I forgot that. I just put my coat on and I just drive. OK. When I get home, then I think about what to wear after I've had my coffee. Right.

Yes. OK. Yeah, and if it's like an important meeting, it really depends on who I'm meeting on the day because, you know, women, we dress for other people, you know, we dress for other women too. Right, so women, not men, because there is still a thing, isn't there, where people go, oh, women dress for me.

I'm like, I just don't know anyone who does that, but I feel like I should ask it because here we are on the radio. Well, I don't dress for anybody and I never have. OK. I have never once in my life asked anybody's opinion on what I'm wearing or what I'm going to buy, actually, which is even more important. I've had to think about it really hard for my book. And there is...

We talk in quite commonplace ways about the male gaze that we dress for men. And John Berger famously says that men look and women watch themselves being looked at. And now, especially, we're all so confident, I guess, that that sentiment is really infuriating, right? It sounds a bit Don Draper, isn't it? Yes.

But there is something in it that I quite like. I think we do live in a culture where women are objectified and that women's values... The way that women are assessed is front-loaded. We're assessed in terms of our anatomy and our appearance in ways that men aren't. And I think that's something we can't ignore. But there is something in that formula which I like,

which is that it means that, unlike men, we're kind of... We have a capacity to be almost outside of our bodies and to see ourselves being looked at. I'm interested in that. There's a kind of voyeurism involved in the way that we think about the ways that we are seen in the world. And I think that's particular to women in a really interesting

and quite powerful way sometimes. I was just going to say, don't you think it gives power to a woman, actually, in a way? It's in a roundabout way, but if you use it correctly, it's a powerful, powerful thing. I think this is the subject all over. You know, women and clothes, it's so full of dualities, isn't it? Because absolutely, yeah, you know, I identify with that and I hear, but then we also go back to kind of what Ellie was saying, really,

which is if you're feeling a bit like you're unsure of how to play this game, this game which is, you know, dressing well or dressing, you know, getting involved in it. There's really no way to opt out because as you're saying, Shahida, we're judged on what we wear more than men and kind of whether we like it or not. Yeah, I think that's a really important point

that there's nowhere to hide, even in a uniform for women, that we don't have the possibility for privacy and there are certain moments in our lives that we don't want to be looked at. And you're right that there's a duality. I've become really interested in the difference between dressing for something. So today I've dressed for you guys and I've dressed for work. But there's a difference between dressing for and dressing against. And I think sometimes we dress against the weather we dress against the possibility of harassment or abuse and so I think there's

a real schism or a division sometimes we dress for in purposeful ways to exhibit particular parts of our lives and sometimes we dress against a certain kind of scrutiny well I mean then this is the the perfect point to talk to you about this, Jordan, because I'm guessing you heavily identify with that, having, as you say, had this lifelong desire, and who knows where it came from, really, to dress in a very particular way, and as you say, for yourself only. But obviously the consequence of that, you know, I mean,

it would have been, I guess, extreme right from the get-go. What kind of stuff were you wearing? and what what attention did it bring to you what what how did people react? Well I used to initially I used to commute from Sussex up to London to work with Vivian and Malcolm and I'm uncompromising about how I want to look So what I woke up and put on on that day was what I went on the train in. And sometimes it was unacceptable, deeply unacceptable to the general public. In fact, so much so that the British Rail

gave me a first-class carriage at one stage. Oh, just of your own. Quite right, too. For my own safety, I well this is i mean i remember talking to viv albertina the slits about this and i think there was a year when she was stabbed three times for dressing as a punk in one year so talk us through some of these early outfits you know take it back a bit to the beginning you mentioned the petticoats which were these see-through petticoats what else were you see-through petticoats. What else were you wearing? Obviously, the make-up was part of the look from the beginning.

Yeah, I mean, the petticoats, I would wear probably nothing underneath, which there are some photos of me in the King's Road wearing that. Wow. But I felt quite comfortable. And I'm not an exhibitionist, I have to say. And I'm also not vain, another thing. But I would get on the train with something like a pair of suspenders, some see-through knickers,

and just a mohair jumper that just went down to my waist. Oh, man, that sounds awesome, but unbelievably bold. I mean, was it dangerous? It was, yes. I had a lady once threatened to throw me out of the train. She had the door open. I had people taking photos of me.

I had people arguing vehemently with me that I was upsetting their children and I was mind twisting their children and how I was mind-twisting their children and, how dare you sit opposite me? The full filth and the fury. It was a real filth and the fury thing.

I think it's so upsetting to think that that was happening for you at a certain moment in your life and I think that's our present culture still. I don't think very much has changed. We still dress... And we live in a culture where rape blame and street harassment are connected to the ways that women dress really unfairly. And the real tragedy of it is that it fills women's wear with anxiety, actually.

Even those of us who feel brave and wear whatever the hell we like, there is, I think think often this underlying anxiety you're nodding as well bodges what are you thinking i just feel that even if you wear head to toe a buyer you're still under pressure to look a certain way so i've seen women i've got friends and you know they wear that a buyer but they want to put a little bit of pink in it because they want to rebel against maybe their so can you can you describe what that means for us? Abaya would be covering... It's like a gown, like what lawyers wear. So it's a black robe and then you wear a black headscarf with it.

It's very difficult for younger generational Muslims to differentiate themselves from other women, other girls. And they do that through their accessories, their handbags and maybe the style of the abaya. And it's interesting that the men pick up on it. They would know the difference between one girl and the other just by her hill or just by the way she walks. So I feel even those girls are under a lot of pressure

because they want to find themselves within the parameters of their religion and their culture. And that was a part of how I grew up too, but not Abayas, because I come from a moderate Muslim background. I've only started wearing the headscarf after I got married. And that was like five years after I got married. It was a personal choice. My parents come from a cultural background, not a religious background, a Pakistani background. So I've seen them, my mum wearing shalwar gummies, which is the traditional Pakistani attire, but she never really wore the headscarf and she came in the 1960s from Pakistan.

So we weren't really raised, okay, we knew that we had to do our prayers and everything, but it was never really enforced on us that we had to dress a certain way. But we couldn't wear like, you know, what you wore, you wore that would be i mean that's the complete extreme and my dad would absolutely kill me but it's interesting that that you know people are subject to such common pressures yes i mean jordan just so i just want to get a picture of what was going through your mind when this was happening because obviously you know you describe it so calmly and you kind of really conjure up this sense of purpose that you had where was that coming from why did why did it why was it something that you wanted to pursue when you know all these people are telling you

not to i think it's feeling comfortable in your own skin i had it's not brave what i did and many people said oh you're so brave I suppose the brave part of it was it does set you aside from people and at school certainly I was dressing like very unusually at school and a lot of my friends at school were very very concerned about what was going to happen

each day I went into school they thought there was going to be some explosion from the teachers which there usually was didn't they let you wear a headscarf in the end because you dyed your hair yeah i had to wear a headscarf yeah okay in between classes did you feel isolated yes i did by the way you dressed yes but i was happy in my own skin at the same time it's it's a strange thing really such an interesting tangle of things isn't it yeah it Well, it's remarkable to hear Barges talk about wearing a veil and you talk about wearing suspenders.

And then those two experiences not being so different in a certain way insofar as you're both being held, made to be accountable for what you wear. And for me, that's awful and wrong, but also really powerful because it means that the people who are looking at you are afraid of what you possess. They're afraid of what's under the veil. That's why they inspect you. And they want you to control

or somehow sanction your body with what you're wearing. And that means that there's something really powerful in what women wear. And that's totally compelling for me. Getting back to what you were saying about the street, and I came up to London thinking it would be some sort of, apart from wanting to work where I ended up, I wanted to become part of London

and feel that it was going to envelop me and I would be a little bit safer. Instead, it was actually sort of into the fire situation. Really? Because this is the other thing I was going to ask. You used the word comfort, which I think is so interesting. There are lots of different kinds of comfort, aren't there? There's the physical, unrestricted feeling of comfort. But there's also the comfort of being with people who you fit with

and who are like you. So did you find that? Oh, I did. I found a lot of people that I felt really made lifelong friends with music and many, many, many people. But also if I walked down the street, I would get enormous abuse, sexual abuse from, say, workmen or just people walking in the street.

Tourists in London were absolutely vile. But you need a thick skin to actually cope with that. So it's all to do with your confidence once again, isn't it? It is. It's exactly it. Yeah, I just felt... I just blinked at myself, really, and allowed myself to be me. Ellie, I want to ask you about being a PC in uniform I mean we might assume you know on the surface that that is quite a restrictive thing to

be in uniform but I wonder if there isn't another way of looking at it because it must bring you things I mean presumably power. I think an important thing to mention is and I can't think of another example in this country where this is true but the police uniform actually brings you legal powers so if you have a warrant card and you're a sworn police officer you have the powers of a police officer but there are some of them you can only enact when you're in uniform so it's powers of search powers of arrest power to command a breath test from a drunk driver things like that so it's's proper power dressing. Yeah, it's proper power dressing, and it's hugely important and significant. And I can't think of another example.

Firemen don't have it, paramedics don't have it, anything that's specific to the uniform they wear. So I think that that's one of the reasons why it feels very powerful to have that uniform. And a huge responsibility, of course, as well. You mentioned anonymity before, and I wonder whether that might be beneficial sometimes, that your uniform looms larger than you do.

I think definitely, and certainly if you want to talk about equality, the uniform is what people see, not your gender. So yes, as a female police officer, you may get sexual abuse from the public that you might not get as a man, but really they're directing it at the uniform and if you if you were a man you'd just get a different kind of abuse potentially so I think that there definitely is some anonymity involved and I think it's interesting that police officers probably particularly women but men too they find their own way to wear the uniform so they still put their own little style on it whether it's what was yours um i guess i had a nice fleece that i like to wear under it that

wasn't standard issue and you're not supposed to wear anything you're not supposed to wear anything that's not standard issue but i used to suffer with the cold so it was a pretty practical choice for me but some people would wear a sort of charity tie pin or um a wristband or they'd have a tattoo that they made sure was visible. Some people like short sleeves, long sleeves, that even though it's a very uniform, restrictive thing, people would still find their own way to wear it. We can't help it. That's people, isn't it?

I bet you remember the first time you saw yourself in uniform. Yeah, definitely. I think it's, I mean, the British police uniform is very iconic. It's known the world over, the black and white check and the yellow jackets, and obviously for the men, the tall hats. The women get these silly round things. Would you have preferred the full egg?

Well, it doesn't really work for a woman. It really does look silly. If you've got a tiny pinhead like me, then you would look ridiculous in a hat. It would just engulf me. But I never used to wear my hat. I'd be in trouble constantly for not wearing my hat because I hated them. But no, I think I definitely remember putting it on.

And you look in the mirror and it's not you. It's a police officer. Because you've grown up seeing whatever the police means to you, whether it's good, bad, neutral, whatever, it means something. And so you look in to you whether it's good bad neutral whatever you it means something and so you look in the mirror and it's you and that is a really and i mean i remember being behind the wheel of my panda car and sitting outside a shop window and looking over and seeing the reflection of the police car and the whole image was just you know you don't forget that and hopefully you feel proud or you shouldn't have joined the police.

But it's also quite fearful, the feeling, because it's a huge responsibility. And you know that everybody's looking at you as you walk down the street. And even if they just glance at you and they're all having some kind of emotional reaction to you, maybe not dissimilar to going out dressed as a punk or a goth or in a headdress or anything else. Did your family or friends see you differently when they saw you the first time in that uniform? I think my family, I think they probably thought it was quite amusing and light-hearted. They never really saw me at work in my uniform because why would they? So I think that seeing it, coming home dressed in it

just so they could all have a laugh at seeing my baton and handcuffs I think is quite different to how they might have reacted if they'd seen me at work. Actually, one member of my family did see me at work and said it was quite different. You arrested them? No, Jordan. Jordan's wondering if they were arrested.

No, so it's quite interesting. The context of it is important too. You're listening to Late Night Woman's Hour, where we are styling it out with this season's hottest collection of guests. So style is about rules, I think. Which ones to follow, which to break. Do any of you have any hard and fast fashion or style rules? Anybody?

Not really. you have any hard and fast fashion or style rules anybody not really it really depends on my mood really it depends how i'm feeling i dress the way i feel so there are certain times i don't really want to make a lot of effort and sometimes i do so that's kind of dictates what i wear all right no so no rules for you barges what about apart from the headscarf, yeah. That is a rule, unfortunately, at the moment. What about you, Jordan? I mean, I think that one of the interesting things about punk era was that while people might think of it as a time without any rules, actually, there were lots of rules, as I understand it. You know, for example, I think brown was a colour that was frowned upon for a bit.

People weren't too keen on brown, apparently. And there were, you know, flares obviously would have been off limits, things like that. So there were rules, right? Yeah, you have to remember the beginning of punk, everything was brown. Brown cars, grey cars, brown flares. It was a brown and grey era, really. My only rule would really be commitment to what you're wearing. Absolute commitment. Okay. Don't wear anything that you feel is, you know, a half-hearted attempt at trying

to make yourself into something you're not really. And that applies to everybody. Barges, do you relate to that? I mean, you know, you're talking about your headscarf and that's commitment, isn't it? It is commitment, but I can wear different colours i style it differently so it's like there is a change in that but uh yeah not showing your hair hair that's very very important for me so that's the limitations that i have and i try to work around that sharda this is a big question this one um who makes the rules that influence what most of us wear when we're getting dressed in the morning i i don't know if i can answer it um i mean i don't have rules but i have uh i make choices so if you ever see me not in

heels i'll murder you um because i'm tiny right you're even shorter than i am so listeners i'm about just under a hair's breadth under five foot and you'll never see me in heels less than two and a half inches usually about three and I do it it's not a facile thing to wear heels and I think that's really important to say that this isn't a flippant conversation the stakes are literally really really high because when I wear a heel it does something it cants my body and it tilts my spine and it alters the way that i feel in my body it alters my stride and alters the way that i'm understood in the world and that's what i think style is it's not it's not just something surface it's not just superficial it's about

the way that you are your being in the world i totally agree i don't have the way you walk yeah it's the way you hold yourself that. It's the way you hold yourself. That's what's interesting about rules because I think rules aren't about obedience per se. But the people I really admire, Lauren, I love what you're wearing, right? And it's not that you're obeying a particular rule. It's that you understand what your body is and how you are in the world and how you clothe that body and so what you wear indicates your knowledge of yourself a kind of understanding and and i respond to that in the same way as i respond to to jordan's boobs on her t-shirt right but it's about i responded to those instantly as soon as i

as soon as i clapped eyes on them but it's a knowledge knowledge. And also, really, you know when you get on a train or you get on the tube and you see someone really stylish? It's about them having some sort of understanding and being able to indicate the ways that they're alert to life itself. I had this exact thing. Just a tight ribbon or something. The other day, so the day David Bowie died, right, I got on my train to work and I was really, really sad

and I was listening to the radio and I was feeling really, really miserable and there was a girl in my carriage who had gold shoes on. She had a gold brogue on and I looked at her and she looked at me. I can't remember what I was wearing, but nothing nearly as stylish as her, I'm sure. But we looked at each other and we just both knew. And it's exactly that, isn't it? But it must have happened to you the other way round, of course, as well. You must have had those moments where somebody else looks at what you're wearing and it does something to you.

So again, that question, who sets the rules and who do we dress for? I think the older I get, the more and more I really value those moments when another woman looks at me. Oh, yeah. So I remember wearing, I never wear red because I don't feel confident enough to wear red. See, I've got a rule. Ah, well, maybe that, yeah.

You wheedled it out of her. but I have got this oxblood red coat and it's like um a draped flared coat it doesn't have any buttons mysteriously and you have to tie and it's kind of like a boiled wool and I remember wearing it in the post office queue and feeling almost like a tug and an old woman a much older woman than me had just unthinkingly reached out to touch it and it wasn't about me it was about what that coat was doing to her and now every time I wear it I think of her but you must have had those moments too where someone looks at something you wear and it makes you feel not even wonderful but yourself of course I mean you know the whole thing for me is it's it's

i love watching what other people wear you know getting ready for this program i was thinking a great pleasure of mine is just watching people's outfits and it sounds like a silly thing to say but actually i think it's something i've been doing my whole life and it is such a great pleasure i think of style and and i'm talking about really stylish people other people who are properly stylish it's a highly generalized type of kindness because what could be more wonderful than people kind of going out into the world for for you to admire i mean i love that i love that's one of the best things about public transport for me is just looking at what other and to be honest i'm not really interested in what men are wearing at all, and I'm not interested in what they think

of what I'm wearing, I like, you know, what are other women wearing, I just find it, it's a really, what you would probably these days call quite a very mindful activity, and also it is, it's very, it is quite a beautiful thing, I think. I think one of the most interesting things

about women's wear, I think men are interesting in lots of ways too, chaps are okay, but what's most things about women's wear, I think men are interesting in lots of ways too. Chaps are OK. But what's most interesting about women's wear at the moment is... It's an hour, right? We've already got an hour. It could be hours, Shahida. But even though we complain about fast fashion and mass-produced fashion, and rightly so, and we complain about hipsters or people looking the same,

but the truth is that women in particular, we've never looked more different than this moment in history. That's why it's so interesting. And it's something about our possession of freedom and the ways that we traverse the world. There's something about that. So it's never just about identity.

It's about something much bigger than us. That's why it's so compelling for us. There was an interesting picture that Mark Zuckerberg tweeted, the boss of Facebook. He put this snapshot of his wardrobe up on the internet a while back and it was just all grey T-shirts and grey hoodies. And I thought, that's quite an interesting statement.

And there was something about it that annoyed me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. I think really it was the idea that, you know, I'm a little bit too important to have such silly concerns as what to wear in the morning. So, which I suppose is, you know, I guess it's OK to think that. I didn't feel that. But, I mean, I kind of found that both interesting and frustrating

because I guess very, very powerful men like him can opt out, can't they, of the world's judgement? Jordan, you're nodding. Yeah, I would say they could, yeah. I think it's an interesting thing. It's a bit like Christian Grey in Fifty Shades, isn't it? Yes. You know, this very powerful man being quite boringly dressed. It's anonymity, I suppose, isn't it?

Anonymity, yes. But at one point he wasn't powerful. Was he dressing like that before? Yeah, I suppose, isn't it? Anonymity, yes. But at one point, he wasn't powerful. Was he dressing like that before? Yeah, I don't know. I think it's the difference between, right now, it's the difference between Trump and Hillary, right? Or Trump and Clinton, to be more polite, I guess. It doesn't matter what Trump wears.

I mean, we can mock him and we mock his hair, etc, etc. And Obama says this as well. He says that he suffers from decision fatigue. He's the most important man in the world, so he doesn't have time to make decisions about what he wears. He just picks one of an endless array of black or blue suits. Whereas everyone is scrutinising what Hillary is wearing. And also, she's learnt over the years

that it's another way in which she can seize a certain kind of power, that she can say something about herself. And so it's become a kind of idiom a language for her at one point it was a disadvantage a way to berate and rebuke her yeah but she's possessed it in a different way is there a lesson for the rest of us there do you think i mean you know for women who are early at the beginning you know you were saying about kind of coming out of uniform and obviously, you know, leaving that part of your life behind. What do you think about the future? I mean, do you sort of feel like this is something that you want to kind of get a handle on?

You said you find it quite tricky to decide what to wear in the morning. I think I guess maybe one of the reasons I was drawn into the police was the uniform. And although I wouldn't have thought about it in such a basic way, I think it was that thing of that's one thing I won't have to make a decision about because I'll have far more important decisions to make in the day-to-day life. So I think maybe that did kind of, that feeling of self-importance was there, hopefully in a nice way. But since leaving, I think I almost reject the choice of what to wear each day because I'm still in that kind of frame of mind

where I won't think about what I'm going to wear. So I almost have an opposite reaction. You're kind of going through that period. Yeah, so I think I'm definitely going through that period. At some point I'll have to buy some clothes and then I'll have to make a decision. Barges is like, let's talk. So Barges, obviously, being a fashion designer,

I mean, when I've interviewed and met people in the fashion industry, I think one of the interesting things about it is that people very quickly seem to develop a uniform because, you know, there is, as you mentioned earlier, this kind of constant churn in the fashion world. So people have to kind of knuckle down and decide what they're going to wear and who they are. I mean, for you, you know, is that something that you've kind of got sorted?

I think because I have to design, you know, most of my life, I think more about the woman who's going to wear the clothes than instead myself. Like, you know, for me, it's a black top, black trousers, or maybe, I don't know, a neutral colour is fine with me. But it's only when I'm in the public arena or where I have to go where I feel that I have to make that effort. So for consciously I don't think about how I dress it's more about how I want to dress other women. I mentioned at the beginning of the program that people often describe the aesthetic of your label as modest and I mean that's a very interesting word isn't it it's quite

a loaded term how do you feel about it? I think modesty was always there. My mother, she's very modest. I mean, she didn't used to wear the headscarf. A lot of women around the world, you can't really label that, you know, it's a religious term. You know, there are a lot of Jewish lady who are modest. There are some atheist women who are modest. But I think it's linked with Islam for a number of reasons. People kind of perceive Muslim women as are modest. But I think it's linked with Islam for a number of reasons. People kind of perceive Muslim women as being modest. But my label has changed that a little bit because I've

always believed that modesty is a little bit more wider than that. So when I launched, I thought, OK, I'm catering for a predominantly Muslim market. And that was the point. So I launched at Dubai Fashion Week and I thought, oh, I'm going to get a lot of Arab affluent ladies buying my clothes. But that didn't happen. I failed because those Arab ladies didn't want understated kind of modesty. They wanted the bling. They wanted the glamour associated with it. So it's only Turkish ladies and Lebanese and French ladies who actually appreciated my work. And then I started inquiring and asking, actually, there's a Hannah, there's a Jessica buying my clothes. I don't understand that at all.

And then I said, oh, we're not Muslim, but we like elegant clothes. We like modest clothing. I'm sorry, but the fashion industry are not catering for us at all. And it's like, hello, you've come into the scene and you're designing modest clothing so it's more of modesty as a kind of approach to life or you know a kind of lifestyle that or a character I think the western women are going through this kind of phase at the moment maybe it's the 30 year cycle but they're kind of feeling a little bit more empowered they don't want to conform to how men want them to dress. While in the eastern markets like Pakistan and Middle East,

actually through satellite, people are actually feeling more liberated and they want to actually expose. So it's the other way round more than anything, which is really, really interesting for me. I don't know if you know, there's a really... Lady Mary went in Montague in the 18th century. She's the wife of the ambassador and she goes to Constantinople. And she's the first person to go behind the veil. She goes into the harem, she goes to the baths.

And the women of the harem are shocked at the fact that she's wearing corsets. And they take off her stays and they unlace her and they say, God, you must have this tyrannical husband. And she says, she says, the women of Turkey are the freest in Europe. And she says they're free because they wear their veils and their abayas and they can run around the city having affairs. So there is a way in which there's like a whole history

to the wearing of a veil and it's a much more complicated relationship to freedom, I think. I think lots of women are alienated in the things that they wear or they feel alienated by the things they wear. And in a way, girls in the veil have thought much more about why they're wearing the veil. And in a way, they're less alienated in some respects. I think some people wear it because it's purely cultural.

It's got nothing to do with the religion. And I think that's a lot in the Middle East too. They've just been raised in that way. While I think the modern Muslim women being raised in the West is a bit different. So, you know, I didn't have that pressure and it was more about personal choice than anything. When and why did you make that choice, if I can ask? I just felt that I started reading because I was raised in a culture environment. I think religion wasn't really for. So I want I was curious to know more about it. I was curious to know what is Islam, what is it about,

what's the significance of wearing the hijab and all that. And that's when I realised that, you know, something, there is that connection, that spirituality of me and God, you know, the connection, and I wanted that connection. And that kind of compelled me to wear the headscarf because all of a sudden I didn't, even if I had a bad hair day, I didn't really care anymore. It didn't really, before it was like,

letting my hair down and then I would get guys coming up and say, oh, I love your long hair because my hair was really, really long, you know, below my hip. And they used to come up to me and say, and I didn't get that all of a sudden. And I just felt really liberated as a woman wearing it. So your priorities have changed really dramatically.

Yes. See, the idea of liberation is exactly what is the core of me. OK, so, Jordan, this is exactly the question. So it's a sense of freedom. You know, you describe the kind of violence and really persecution that you suffered when you first started travelling to London, but you still felt free and you still do? Yes, and also it was a time of great liberation of the sexes

because men and women and girls and boys, if you like, at that time, were sharing each other's make-up, and they were trying to outdo each other when they went out to clubs. It was a fabulous time, because men could become involved in that whole fashion scene. I was looking back at getting ready for this. I re-watched Jubilee, and I was looking back at a load load of old photographs and what struck me is how completely conservative we are now by comparison I felt I just felt you know and I remember interviewing Sandra Rhodes once and

she was telling me about wearing a one-breasted dress one-breasted asymmetric dress to parliament like in you know I don't know what whatever year it was. And I said, how did people react? Like, what happened? And she went, oh, it wasn't a big deal. I mean, do you kind of think it was a freer time? I do, most definitely. Yeah, I do. I feel actually a little bit sorry for some young kids today

because they're sort of encouraged to dress like their parents. And, you know, there's certain brand names that just get passed around all over the place. And the mother was wearing the same as their daughter and the son would be wearing the same as their dad. And they'd all, you know, been driven to school and they're wearing the same clothes, you know, the same jackets particularly.

Yeah. And when you ask people, you know, I get very shocked by that. I think I'd rather have done anything than look like my mum. Anything! And I just can't believe somebody wanting to conform like that. And what they say is

it's anti-bullying. They say, well, I like my children to dress like that because they're not going to be bullied. Well, the other thing I think that's that's very interesting about about punk and and movements like it is that you know you have this very kind of rich experience because it's not just clothes is it it's art it's music it's an attitude i mean it was it is an aesthetic in the truest sense isn't it yes i mean a lot of people were inadvertently involved in all that really I mean there's a great picture of me

and David Bowie on the net with him looking shocked at standing next to me and Andy Warhol of course he was all in a kind of way involved way back and there's a great picture of me and Diana Vreeland and him at the ICA where it's all the mixture

of cultures And is it also a way of being part of something me and Diana Vreeland and him at the ICA where it's all the mixture of cultures. And is it also a way of being part of something? So although it sets you apart from society, you are part of other punk people within that world just as when I went out in uniform

I would nod and smile at police officers I'd never met before because they were wearing the same uniform. So you're part of it and that's a protection in itself You could always tell a kindred spirit One of the things I wanted to ask Jordan, because you mentioned Bowie and you mentioned Warhol and obviously

you and the Bromley contingent you're all suburban kids and I think that's a very interesting thing and I think in some ways you kind of need something to kick against if you if you're going to be a pioneer and I wonder whether the the punk look in particular and you know that the kind of sharpness and the extreme nature of that movement was was partly born out

of that of suburban life yeah I think it was I think it was born out of that and it was also born out of a a tiny few little magazines who the power of the word was fantastic. And it reached out to people in the suburbs. And just I remember seeing a tiny little snippet of something saying about this shop in the King's Road. And it was about four lines, probably in a magazine like Honey or something of the time.

And it made me get on that train and go up there or or you know think about things like i wouldn't before i was dressing the same admittedly i was on a sort of parallel line but it gave me somewhere to focus on and something to be part of and to to champion if you haven't found that quite early in your life, I mean has that gone on to be a kind of really significant deterministic thing you know throughout the fact that this aesthetic came into your life and you found

your tribe early on? Yeah, I think I think people would admit that there were several people that were first on the scene and I was one of them. And you just feel that you hopefully have given other young people some benchmark to look at and feel comfortable with. And I still do get quite a lot of young people come up to me in the street

and they still sort of recognise me. I can't think why, but they do. And it's really lovely. I had a sort of 16-year-old girl come up to me the other day. You wouldn't have expected in a small place like that to have a little kid, youngster like that, who was just blown away by the whole scene, going all the way back.

I mean, you know, she wasn't even born. So, I mean, we're almost out of time and, you know, it could go on all night, but let's talk a little bit about uh about fashion and identity and this interesting idea of you know fashion as and how you dress what you wear as a source of power i mean often when people are depressed or they're going through a difficult time in their lives or things are changing they're losing a sense of their own identity and who they are one of of the strange kind of things that happens

is you suddenly don't know what to wear. I remember going through it when I first had my first son, you know, afterwards kind of emerging from the sleepless chaos of the first few months and thinking, oh, who am I and what do I wear? I don't really know. That's interesting. Yes, I mean, Jordan, I can't imagine you've ever gone through that.

But Shahida, what do you make of that? I mean, this idea that, you know, in difficult times, our sense of style can kind of desert us. Yeah, I think not even in difficult times. I think, I mean, because I'm filled with envy when I listen to Jordan talk about being comfortable in your own skin and having come to that knowledge quite early on in life. I don't think I'm comfortable in my own skin yet

and my bra strap is digging into my shoulder as I speak. Actually, mine is too. It's the left one always. And there are lots of ways that I tolerate... I'm glad you knew there was a reason for that. But I think there are lots of ways that I tolerate the ways that dress can shape my body in particular ways and I'm still trying to work out how I could be comfortable in my skin.

But I think, to answer your question, that there is a kind of magical thinking in dress, for women in particular, that sometimes we shop wildly maybe or prolifically because there's something that we think we're not capable of ourselves and that this dress will fix for us or somehow lend to us

and there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with that but I do think it could be like an endless search so I've got a I've got this lovely red coat but I always feel like I'm looking for the coat in which I will feel absolutely composed and perfect and I haven't haven't ever yet found that coat but I wonder if I won't ever find that coat and it's about finding a place in my own life and in my own body Maybe it's looking for it that matters Yeah, maybe, maybe

and maybe dreaming of it a lot too I always tend to shop for the thing I don't have I went through a phase of being obsessed by a pair of horrifying and I don't use that word without considering it, horrifying yoga boots. And I realised it was because I didn't have any free time. I don't even know what yoga boots are.

I mean, you don't want to know, to be honest, John. But it's a pair, it's like a horrible kind of slipper that you put on on the way to yoga. And I think what I wanted was, I wanted the downtime cappuccino moment where, you know, I'm just walking to my yoga class because I wasn't going to a yoga class. I was going to work again

or getting up in the night with kids or whatever. You know, like life was just too crazy. And what I wanted was leisure. It kind of represented, it was emblematic. There's a philosopher called Hélène Sixxou who's basically the most glamorous philosopher you could ever imagine, always like turbaned and with huge Chanel sunglasses

and she writes about the designer Sonia Raikiel and she says she owns a dress by Sonia Raikiel and she says it's like, when I put it on it's like entering water, it's like a kind of transparency, I am myself in myself in this dress and that's the dress I

dream of that there will be a dress in which I will be myself in myself and that the self that I am from the outside will somehow magically fit the self that I am in the inside and I'll have superpowers or something in it I mean barges how do you feel listening to this do you do you feel you know you mentioned earlier the women that you designed for the woman that you have in mind when you're creating is it your dream to kind of help them express themselves help them feel that kind of feeling most of the time women come to me because they want me to solve that issue you know they've got a problem and they need a solution for example now the wedding season is coming about so a lot of women are coming to me and saying that, look,

we want to dress modestly, but we're going to a registration or a wedding. But, you know, most of the time the dresses, they're sleeveless. Now we can't wear that. Can you solve that issue? So people tend to come to you because they can't find it in the market. So that's my job to kind of tick it and say, OK, yes, I can create that soft blue dress for you in, you know, with sleeves, but not make it look frumpy, you know, because most of the time when you put sleeves on, sometimes it makes you a little bit too grown up or too old. So that's the challenge with my assistant designer to make it look youngish, but at the same time stylish. And Ellie, you talked earlier about seeing yourself in uniform and finding that, you know, identifying as a police officer and the sort of strange, powerful, wonderful, scary reality of that.

I wonder now that you've left the uniform behind, is there a bit of it that's kind of still under your skin? You know, has it given you something that is still there? I think it has. And when I, it was very interesting when I joined the police, I definitely felt like the uniform gave me some authority to go into a strange situation, take control and everyone would listen to me. And it was because I was wearing the uniform. And it wasn't until I had a period when I was not wearing uniforms. I was on light duties for a while and I went on some inquiries and I walked into a hospital and I totally forgot I wasn't in uniform. And I just walked in and started barking orders at people and asking for this and that and everyone just responded to me and gave me what I was there for no one asked to see ID and and I suddenly realized it wasn't the uniform

although for me I needed to put the uniform on to kind of release that authority but for me it actually wasn't that the uniform uniform. It was something else. It was just, I guess, confidence and assertiveness and being comfortable in who I was that I could just walk in. I had the right to ask for those things and I don't think I've lost that and I don't think you ever do lose that once you've done a job like that.

How interesting. Well, that's the perfect note to end on. You had become, the uniform was like water and you had absorbed the water within you. Like Dorothy in the red shoes. Thank you so much for our wonderful panel. That's all we've got time for tonight. You've been fantastic. Thank you, Bargis, Chohan, Jordan, Shahid Abari and PC Ellie Blogs. Thank you very much.

Thank you. That was so interesting ands. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. That was so interesting and brilliant. Thank you. I could listen to you forever. I want your number. I didn't know that thing about the uniform, that there are certain things you could do in a police uniform. Yeah.

So it belongs to someone. I didn't know that. It's fascinating. I'm a police officer in uniform. So like stopping traffic, you can't just step out in a suit in front of traffic. So, technically, that is the most potent outfit in the British woman's potential repertoire.

So, like, even if it's a fake police uniform, you could step out. Well, that's a crime, isn't it? That's illegal. Well, no, because you also need the warrant card. So you also have to be a sworn police officer. And then we're back to the early days of punk because television have got that lyric, isn't it? That's illegal. Well, no, because you also need the warrant card, so you also have to be a sworn police officer. And then we're back to the early days of punk, because television have got that lyric, haven't they?

Dress up like cops, think what we could do. You know, Derek Jarman, you know, in the middle of Jubilee, they all got arrested because they were... Nobody asked permission to do any filming in those days. There's loads of police on motorbikes in that. Really? In the background, just literally coming for you? No, no, no, real. I mean, there's actors.

Oh, right. And suddenly, with guns, with machine guns. Not real ones, but they'd had the pins taken out. And somebody phoned the police and said, there's people out on bikes with guns. Well, yeah, they they would wouldn't they and they turned because there's this woman who's dressed up as britannia in a very itchy costume was it itchy oh really anyway they got arrested they got arrested

derrick and the two really two actors got arrested that is commitment isn't it what did they did they did they charge them or did they just sort of... It was half days filming, wasn't it? It costs a fortune. Yeah. Oh, my word. That's a likely story of filming. It would be great to be a punk for one day, seriously.

Is that what you'd like to do, Bridget? Yes. You'd be a punk for a day. Yes, just for one day. Just be a punk. That's what I... Give me your number. You need to talk.

Modest punk. Yeah, modest punk Give me your number. Need to talk. Modest punk. Yeah, modest punk. How would that work? Good one. Well, you've got... You could put safety pins in there instead of pins. Yeah, that's true. Oh, yeah.

But I mean... Well, my first show, I had a Harley Davidson on the catwalk. Yeah, in Dubai Fashion Week. That's very modest, I don't think. Because I've always wanted to sit on a Harley. Oh, wow. So I thought, let me do it in my show. If not now, when?

Exactly. But that's it, isn't it? Well, I suppose that is the most punk thing that you could do these days, is to, you know, take it to full tilt modesty. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. I can imagine everybody walking up the King's Road really modestly. Because that's what I thought.

I wanted to convey that message of liberation, wearing the headscarf, but with a Harley. And it was brilliant. But the Arabs didn't understand it. But then you've got Janine, who you mentioned earlier, or Rachel, I think it was. Jennifer. Yes.

They understood it very well. So what's your customer base like? Well, it's really varied. I could have an Indonesian customer and then American and French. But I think most of them are kind of professionals. Powerful women, I would say. You know, they know how to dress.

They've got a certain style about them. They've got their own personal take on fashion. And they come to me with input and then I give them input too. So it's like we work together. Oh, fabulous, I love that It's interesting what you said as well about accessories

because I saw, there was a documentary on Mulberry I think, it was Mulberry handbags the shop and a lot of people were very obviously modestly dressed but the handbags were the big thing and they'd have one in each colour I think that goes back to what Ellie was saying as well

about people customising their uniforms and always putting, like, we can't help but put our own little spin on whatever it is. You know, we used to do that at school. You'd have to, you know... And it's much more accepted now because it used to be you couldn't join the police if you had certain tattoos. And they might still draw the line

if you had, like, swastikas all over both arms. And on your forehead. Yeah. But on the whole it's so much more laid back now and it's accepted that a police officer might turn up at your door with you know tattoos on their neck or something that would be totally frowned upon even ten years ago.

It's a lot more relaxed now. It's just as well isn't it really with the variety of style tribes that we've got out there. And also the tats. I mean, in the North East, everyone's got... I'm the only person I know from the North East who hasn't got a tattoo. Is it a regional thing, do you think? It's definitely massive in the North East.

I don't know. I couldn't kind of stick my life in it, but it is a huge kind of massive cultural thing there. Is it a rite of passage, or is it something people grow up and stick with? I think it is, as a culture, it's increased a lot over recent years. I mean, definitely since I was a teenager, most people wouldn't have had them.

And now, you know, all of my little cousins are heavily tattooed. One of them's a tattoo artist. I think that's a whole other conversation. It sort of makes sense, doesn't it? I'd rather have a work of art. I think it's so hard to, you know, to transpose anything beautiful on skin that's that delicate.

I think it's not good enough. I think tattoos aren't good enough. Grayson Perry said though, didn't he, that proportionally the man who spends £1,000 having a sleeve done is investing more than a banker who buys himself a Rothko because, you know, it means more to him. I love Grayson Perry.

As an art statement, it's an interesting idea. Is there anything else anybody didn't get to that we want to cover? It was really fascinating. I wish we could go on forever. You can come back, but just do it again. We should just do this panel. This is the programme now. The best tattoo in the world, by the way,

was what I carved on Adam's back. Oh, with the sword? With a Stanley knife. Was it a Stanley knife? That was real. Not in the film. I did it in reality. I remember watching that when I was about 13 or something

and it freaked me out. I said, this is in real life. In real life. Gave Adam a tattoo with a Stanley knife. F-U-C-K, right across his back. Wow. He fainted nearly afterwards. He was so ill.

You would? It's in his book, yeah. It's still there, presumably? Yes, it's scarred. Oh. It's a good tattoo, though. Did you agree on the word in advance, or...? I didn't tell him what I was doing.

Oh, my God. Oh, bless him. Poor lad. Poor Adam. Oh, God. But he survived. Oh, my God. Oh, bless him. Poor lad. Poor Adam. Oh, God. But he survived. Yeah, he survived. Oh, he did.

Hello, Luke. This is producer Luke. All right. You all happy? Yeah. Sarah, you had a good time. We could go on forever. That was fun.

Good. Thank you so much, everybody. You're welcome. Thank you. Yay! Thank you. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.