I've been ferreting about in the attics again. After finding
the Kate Moss issue of The Face from 1990 up there, I did some more excavating and came up with this launch copy of the Next Directory from 1988.
To those of you who are in your twenties, the very idea that a mail order catalogue was able to change our expectations of retail & the way we shop could possibly seem hyperbolic. And if I said that that catalogue was produced by High Street behemoth (& third biggest retail chain in the UK) Next, you'd probably snort with laughter. But back in the pre-on-line retail, pre-democratisation of style 1980s, catalogue shopping was a very different beast.
Downmarket, dull, printed on flimsy paper & based around the installment payment method, mail order catalogue shopping had little connection with style or even customer service: it wasn't unusual to be given a window of 28 days for delivery.
And then along came retail genius George Davis and his Next Empire which launched in 1982. Next was known for everyday price points, a focus on excellent design, decent fabrics and very good tailoring, previously impossible to find on the High Street.
In 1988 he decided to address the moribund mail order world. He decided that the Next Directory cost would £3, the price of a book back then. It was an investment, a clear pitch at a quality audience, with its hardback covers, ribbon bookmarks and thick glossy paper stock.
There were real fabric swatches:
And a vast team of photographers, stylists and hair & make-up, many of whom would go on to become some of the most respected names in the industry:
Then there were the models:
And hello Yasmin le Bon:
I remember being so excited to receive my copy that I haunted the mail pigeonholes at my boarding school for a week. When it arrived I bunked class to sit and leaf through it, carefully marking out everything I wanted.
And if that sounds strange, remember fashion wasn't accessible then. There was no internet, so we relied on magazines and newspapers to bring us fashion news. The High Street was a wasteland and I relied on charity shops & vintage to try to copy what I saw in British W (then a short lived newspaper) and Vogue. There was no Grazia interpreting fashion or Topshop setting trends back then. So a glossy fashion catalogue was really, really big news.
Not that I could afford any of it. Clothes were still expensive, relatively. The idea of fast, cheap fashion hadn't happened yet and if you check the prices in the Directory they aren't far off what we pay now twenty years later.
Flicking through the Directory in 2010, on the tail end of the eighties fashion revival, it's refreshing to be reminded what 80s fashion actually looked like for normal people, rather than the filtered version served up these days.
There's classic aerobics workout gear:
I remember very clearly wanting this striped dress with a deep & desperate longing:
The obligatory 80s pinstriped power suits:
There were mens suits, all boxy shouders and double breasted,
and a look which epitomises the 80s for me: monochrome, riffing on the 1950s:
Ah my youth.
I've put a whole load of images up on my LLG archive flickr account
here
& in the US 
by Alison Lurie. It follows a hesitant American academic who blossoms as she explores London on a study trip. She also happens to fall in love.
set in a pea-souper fog in 1930's London. It is chilling, evocative and wonderful.
by Monica Ali, and 
by Zadie Smith.
is set between 1919-1940 and looks at the extension of London out into the suburbs. Its sequel 
looks at the years 1940-1948.
by Sarah Waters is also set during the Second World War.
On my bedside table is a small pewter figure of a horse. The style is called 'folk horse' - my parents bought it for me when I was a child, on a visit to Norway. He was nicknamed Little Hoss, and has always been a favourite possession.
However, what makes me smile everytime I glance at Little Hoss is not childhood memories, but more recent events . .
Last year, my little sister headed off to travel the world, and decided to take Little Hoss with her as a reminder of home (never having being able to maintain a clear distinction between my stuff and hers, in true younger sibling style!). We were sad to see her go, but knew she needed to get the wanderlust out of her system, so with a promise to stay in touch, she flew away.
The first photograph arrived on e-mail just a couple of days later, and they came in a steady stream for the next ten months. Little Hoss amidst cherry blossom in a Tokyo park; Little Hoss at Ankor Watt; Little Hoss relaxing on a sunlounger somewhere on a remote Thai island; Little Hoss on the back of a baby elephant in Sri Lanka - for every photo of my sister and her newfound friends, there was a photo of Little Hoss having just as much fun.
Little Hoss has returned to my bedside table now, and my sister is back in her north London flat, but both of them are different for their adventures. Little Hoss might have a few dints and scratches, but my sister is braver, more confident, probably happier - and everytime I see Little Hoss he makes me smile.