Crolla

Crolla was a niche British fashion label and boutique established by designer Scott Crolla and designer Georgina Godley in London's Mayfair. The store opened on Dover Street in 1981, at the beginning of the New Romantic cultural movement, and became associated with an unusually theatrical interpretation of English dress. Rather than abandoning tailoring, Crolla retained familiar garments and conservative silhouettes while reworking them in striking materials, including chintz, paisley, velvet, recolored checks, hand-woven Indian cottons, ikats, and fabrics sourced from earlier decades. The result was a deliberate tension between conventional construction and visually unexpected textiles. The label initially concentrated on menswear. Its range included suits, jackets, shirts, trousers, ties, waistcoats, and slippers, with the cut often remaining recognizably traditional even when the surface treatment was flamboyant. This approach placed Crolla within the renewed international interest in British fashion during the early 1980s, a period also shaped by the popularity of period-inflected cultural works such as Brideshead Revisited and Chariots of Fire. The brand's clientele and admirers included figures associated with music, fashion, and British public life, among them Boy George, Princess Diana, and Isabella Blow. Crolla's aesthetic stood apart from the austere palettes and sculptural modernism then associated with several influential Japanese labels. Its version of Englishness was more decorative, eccentric, and materially excessive. Scott Crolla described the design philosophy as serving people who were less interested in following fashion than in enjoying fabrics, characterizing the approach as a calculated disregard for conventional taste. This combination of established tailoring and exuberant textiles helped the label achieve influence beyond its relatively small commercial scale. Womenswear was introduced in 1984. The collection's large cabbage-rose prints became particularly visible and influential during 1984 and 1985, when similar floral treatments appeared across a much broader range of designer and mass-market fashion. Crolla therefore contributed to the period's revival of decorative historical references, even though the company itself remained a specialist operation rather than a mass-market brand. The partnership between Crolla and Godley ended in 1985, after which the original label no longer operated in the same form. The brand's cultural legacy continued through museums, fashion scholarship, and the later careers of its founders. Crolla received the Bath Fashion Museum Dress of the Year award in 1985 for a menswear ensemble combining a crushed shirt, velvet trousers, and ikat mules. Scott Crolla subsequently designed briefly for Callaghan and moved into interior design with Lionel Bourcelot, establishing Ether. Godley developed an approach she called sport couture, experimented with technical fabrics and exaggerated padded forms, advised fashion companies including Paul Smith and Missoni, and later worked with Habitat and Central Saint Martins. Crolla garments and designs entered museum collections, and the label was included in major exhibitions concerning 1980s fashion and Isabella Blow's wardrobe. Although defunct as an operating label, Crolla remains remembered for demonstrating how a small London fashion house could make traditional tailoring feel radical through fabric, print, and calculated stylistic contradiction.

Crolla emerged in London during a period when British fashion was rediscovering historical dress, decorative excess, and the possibilities of subcultural presentation. Scott Crolla and Georgina Godley founded the label and opened a boutique on Dover Street in Mayfair in 1981. The timing connected the business with the New Romantic movement, whose performers and followers challenged conventional distinctions between menswear, theatrical costume, historical reference, and everyday dress. The label first developed a menswear identity. Its garments were not radical because they rejected tailoring; instead, their innovation came from retaining familiar British forms while changing the materials and visual associations attached to them. Suits, jackets, shirts, trousers, waistcoats, ties, and slippers could be cut in chintz, paisley, velvet, richly colored checks, hand-woven Indian cottons, ikats, or textiles associated with the 1940s and 1950s. The method created an intentionally unstable impression: the silhouette could suggest conservative English clothing while the fabric disrupted expectations about restraint and utility. This strategy found an audience during the early 1980s revival of interest in British style. Contemporary commentary connected the label with the wider cultural enthusiasm for Englishness that followed the popularity of works such as Brideshead Revisited and Chariots of Fire. Crolla's visual language was also a counterpoint to the spare colors and architectural lines associated with important Japanese designers of the period. Instead of austerity, it offered surface, ornament, historical memory, and humor. Boy George, Princess Diana, and Isabella Blow were among the notable people associated with the brand's following. Godley and Crolla expanded into womenswear in 1984. The women's collections received international attention in 1984 and 1985, particularly for their large cabbage-rose prints. The motif became sufficiently influential that related floral treatments were adopted or echoed by designers across the fashion industry and by less expensive manufacturers. This influence exceeded the scale of the boutique and helped establish Crolla as one of the distinctive specialist labels of the decade. The partnership between the two designers dissolved in 1985. Their subsequent careers followed different paths but preserved elements of the experimentation associated with Crolla. Godley developed sport couture using technical fabrics such as Gore-Tex and Lycra, and explored exaggerated padded forms in her Lump and Bump work. She later advised Paul Smith and Missoni, worked with the interiors retailer Habitat, and taught at Central Saint Martins. Crolla designed briefly for Callaghan before moving into interior design with Lionel Bourcelot and establishing Ether; early clients included Vivienne Tam. Crolla received the Bath Fashion Museum's 1985 Dress of the Year recognition for a menswear outfit consisting of a crushed shirt, velvet trousers, and ikat mules. The award reflected the label's ability to turn material juxtaposition into a coherent fashion statement. Although the original business did not continue as a major operating house, its work remained relevant to historians and museums. Both founders had clothing in museum holdings, and Crolla was represented in the Victoria and Albert Museum's 2013 exhibition From Club to Catwalk, which examined 1980s fashion and culture. The label also appeared in an Isabella Blow exhibition at Somerset House running from November 2013 to March 2014. Crolla's lasting importance lies less in commercial scale than in its influence on the idea that English tailoring could be made contemporary through irreverent fabric choices and a calculated refusal of standard taste.

1. 2013Included in From Club to Catwalk

   Crolla was represented in the Victoria and Albert Museum's retrospective of 1980s fashion and culture.

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2. 2013Included in Isabella Blow wardrobe exhibition

   Crolla appeared among the early fashion pieces in an exhibition about Isabella Blow at Somerset House.

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3. 1985Partnership dissolves and Dress of the Year is awarded

   The partnership between Crolla and Godley ended. In the same year, Crolla won Bath Fashion Museum's Dress of the Year for a menswear outfit featuring a crushed shirt, velvet trousers, and ikat mules.

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4. 1984Womenswear added

   Crolla expanded beyond its initial menswear focus and introduced womenswear, including the large cabbage-rose prints that became closely associated with the label.

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5. 1981Dover Street boutique opens

   Scott Crolla and Georgina Godley opened the Crolla boutique on Dover Street in Mayfair, London, as the New Romantic movement was emerging.

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A specialist British fashion label combining conservative tailoring with exuberant, unconventional, and often vintage or furnishing-derived fabrics. Crolla positioned itself against uniform fashion conformity through material richness, eccentric English references, and deliberate clashes between traditional form and unexpected surface.

• Crolla menswear tailoringMenswear1981

  The original core of the label consisted of suits, jackets, trousers, shirts, waistcoats, ties, and related accessories. Crolla used traditional or conservative cuts but made them from visually assertive textiles such as chintz, paisley, velvet, recolored checks, hand-woven Indian cottons, ikats, and vintage fabrics. The combination preserved the codes of British tailoring while disrupting expectations about what formal menswear should look and feel like.

• Crolla womenswearWomenswear1984

  Introduced in 1984, the womenswear collection extended Crolla's interest in decorative historical fabrics and unexpected combinations. Its large cabbage-rose prints became particularly influential during 1984 and 1985 and were subsequently echoed across designer and mass-market fashion. The collection helped give the label international visibility beyond its original menswear reputation.

• Crolla accessoriesAccessories1981

  Accessories included ties, slippers, and footwear elements such as the ikat mules featured in the label's award-winning 1985 outfit. These pieces applied the same principle as the clothing: recognizable traditional forms were recast through richly patterned, tactile, or historically suggestive materials.

• 1985End the Crolla-Godley partnershipOther

  After the label's early period of menswear and womenswear development, the working partnership between its two founders came to an end.

  What changed. Scott Crolla and Georgina Godley dissolved their partnership in 1985 and pursued separate design and advisory careers.

  Aftermath. Godley moved toward sport couture, technical fabrics, consulting, interiors, and teaching, while Crolla briefly designed for Callaghan and later entered interior design through Ether.

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• 1984Expand from menswear into womenswearStrategy

  Crolla had initially built its identity around menswear tailoring and unusual fabrics. The early 1980s market and the label's growing visibility created an opportunity to broaden its design language.

  What changed. The partnership introduced a womenswear collection in 1984, including large cabbage-rose prints that became a prominent part of the label's public identity.

  Aftermath. The womenswear designs gained international attention in 1984 and 1985 and influenced floral treatments adopted elsewhere in the fashion market.

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• 2013Crolla included in the V&A exhibition From Club to Catwalk

  The Victoria and Albert Museum included Crolla among the fashion labels represented in its retrospective on 1980s British fashion and culture.

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• 2013Crolla garments shown in Isabella Blow exhibition

  Crolla appeared among the early pieces presented in an exhibition on Isabella Blow's life and wardrobe at Somerset House, held from November 2013 to March 2014.

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1. Crolla
2. Scott Crolla and Georgina Godley portrait, National Portrait Gallery