For Thinking the Sloane Ranger Style Was Never Fashionable?

[itsnotmeitsu]

I write as someone who lived in South Kensington in the late '70s. I was born a year earlier than Princess Diana, and used (not knowingly) the same hairdresser. I do think she was a fashion icon because of her media presence, but as a women aged 18/19 at the end of the 70s I would never have dressed as a Sloane Ranger with the piecrust blouses, etc. Punks were everywhere in London at that time.

I don't think Diana was ever a trendsetter, or paved a way for other women, but what she did have was charisma, and she used that for the benefit of others.

The Lady Di blouse was definitely a thing amongst my friends, although I was only 11 at the time, I had one from the market. If fashion is what the masses were wearing, then it was fashionable. Copies made and sold at all price points.

Even that sapphire engagement ring was just about the only style there was at the time.

I would never have dressed as a Sloane Ranger with the piecrust blouses, etc. Punks were everywhere in London at that time.
Seriously? Because you wouldn't wear it means it wasn't fashion?

(I don't think Diana was ever a trendsetter, or paved a way for other women, but what she did have was charisma, and she used that for the benefit of others.*

But women followed what she did, what is that if not trend setting??

I wore fake pearls, pie crust collars all of it..

I suppose there have always been different sub-cultures happening simultaneously. Although of course there was nothing sub about Sloaney style. It was very much the Establishment. I was only a tot at that time so don't have your view of being there at the time. It seems to me though that even today a lot of UC young men and women dress similarly to their parents. I'm thinking tweed blazers and pearls, so for them it's not so much about being fashionable rather than signaling their social class.

Might not have set trends in Kensington but certainly did in the NW!

The people I knew who were buying copies on the market were most definitely not Sloanes.

I was a student and there was a kind of style that subverted the Sloane look as part of a punk / new romantic style.

I think lots of us wore ruffs and a good few had dress shirts with bow ties to go with black skirts. Definitely a Laura Ashley style was popular. We all wore pearls, pretty blouses and sweet cardigans with little round pearlised buttons.

Definitely not in fashion in my part of London. Imitating a royal? No way!

This might seriously annoy you OP but the "Diana" look is back on the rise in the Tik Tok generation.

Huge pie crust collars, oversized sweatshirts with cycling shorts, chinos with tshirts and blazers...its all on the ups.

I work for a luxury fashion retailer and we're even blogging about these trends now.

Sorry! 😂😂😂

It is horrible though - all that style of clothing I mean.

Nothing against Diana as a person I just don’t like 80s / Sloaney clothes. Or anything 80s really - the decade style forgot!

Her wedding sparked a decade or more of meringue. 1970s dresses were quite streamlined by comparison

I’m a similar age and live in the Midlands and yes it was a thing here.

At the time, we said that about the 70s! @GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing! I remember the phrase!
Not all of us were punks. Wearing clear, bright colours, pearls, frills, flat court shoes, coloured tights..it was different to the knee length brown crimplene dresses and tan tights worn by older women.
Diana was a style icon.

Sloan Ranger described a specific subset of the upper middle class and minor aristocracy - the ones who were a jolly, braying, hunting and shooting types, who were spiritually in the countryside even if they lived in London. It began in Tatler, where other tribes were described.

It caught the public imagination in the early 80s as Diana (who was referred to in the book the column spawned as PoWess) was so much in the headlines and dressed exactly as one.

It was never meant to describe everyone's style, so for that reason I think YABU

What was describes as Sloane style was certainly much in evidence in the early 80s, especially pie crust collars, pearls and ruffles shirts (overlap with by New Romantics, who were also very much in evidence at the time)

I found a photo of my primary school teachers recently and the reception teacher used to wear the big hair, pie crust collars turned up with pearls. It clearly was a fashion.

I was three when Di got married and recall women wearing puffy blouses, midi skirts and knee high boots a lot. I also remember punks with coloured hair and dramatic eye make up. This was in a very bog standard town.

I do recall at about four years old disliking Di's haircut and not liking her clothes. I wondered why she didn't grow her hair long. Mine was always cut into a bob which I hated so (at four) I couldn't fathom anyone voluntarily wearing it short!

As a fellow Gen Xer, I would say Sloane definitely was a fashion and a trend. Just not the only one at that time.

@SpindleWhorl

I was a student and there was a kind of style that subverted the Sloane look as part of a punk / new romantic style.

This is exactly what my little group did. White frilly blouse, combat jacket, pixie boots, shawl tied round the waist and we were good to go.

Duran Duran influenced our ‘style’ more than Diana ever did.

I’m a few years younger but I had a lady Di style pie crust blouse, the kitten heels I had at 13 were called Lady Di heels, I had a lady Di haircut.

My cousin, much closer to her in age and living in London at the time dressed in the Sloane ranger style clothing.

She was big. Everywhere. A fashion icon.

Lived in Kensington in 1979/80 just pre Diana and there were a ton of navy blue polka dot skirts and velvet headbands - Laura Ashley was everywhere. The pie crust collars, pearls and brights came a bit later.

Something I do recall in about 1981 though was a young chap, grad trainee, at the bank I was working at arrive in a scruffy barbour and my first thought was "gosh he must be really skint if he can't afford a coat for town". That was the turning point really when the look was adopted more widely and generally aped.

To be honest my work uniform was navy skirt, cotton shirt - collar up, pie crust or not, navy cardigan with nice buttons, jewel coloured scarf. Out of work, a more casual skirt, jewel coloured Jersey and matching tights. Or a Laura Ashley dress in pink or turquoise and everyone had the LA pleat front, puff sleeved shirt with the frilled collar.

Oh I loved those days - wore the headband into my mid thirties and have never dropped the pearls!

I was 11 when they married. I was the “poor relation” at a smart private boarding school. The Sloane Ranger Handbook was basically my guide to my schoolmates’ lives, so very different from my own! We all wore frilly collars, midi dirndl skirts, padded Alice bands, pearls, ballet flats (best from Bertie), Benetton jumpers knotted over the shoulders etc etc etc. Definitely a uniform in the early to mid eighties

And Laura Ashley frocks for Gatecrasher Balls and Barbour jackets and Hunter wellies….

Nobody in my primary school class had long hair between 83-86. Absolutely down to her hair!

I was 17/18 in 1980/81and definitely wore a pie crust shirt then, it was all part of the new romantic frilly stuff.