Vivienne Westwood

Susan Baker's passion for historical fashion led her to discover - and become entranced by - one of the UK's most iconic fashion designers...

- INTERVIEW EMMA LONGSTAFF

I started collecting historical costume in the 1990s. I'm fascinated by the way social change is reflected in the clothes people wear. The earliest pieces in my collection date to the late 1700s - sack back gowns with open fronts. They're made of silk woven in Spitalfields by refugee Huguenot silk weavers, who fled religious persecution in France and settled in London.

I’ve collected fashion from across the decades: everything from the kind of muslin dresses seen in Jane Austen adaptations to 1920s flapper dresses, to the bold geometric designs of the 1960s, influenced by the space age. Originally, what I bought depended on what was available and what I could afford. I was systematic in the way I approached my collecting: everything was arranged in chronological order on rails in the spare room.

It’s much easier to find things made in the later 20th century, but when it came to the 1970s, I wasn't sure what approach to take. Disco didn't interest me at all, but I'd found some pieces by Laura Ashley - dresses from the earliest days of the company, when she was cutting out fabric and sewing on her kitchen table in Wales. Then in 2004, I went to a Vivienne Westwood retrospective at the V&A in London and felt a connection immediately.