Style is independent of fashion. Those who have style can indeed accept or ignore fashion. For them fashion is not something to be followed, it is rather something to be set, to select from or totally reject. Style is spontaneous, inborn. It is the gloriously deliberate, unpremeditated but divine gift of the few.
             Spotlight on style, Vogue, 1 September 1976
             Pre-empting the moment when punk clashed with the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Vogue used the A-word. 'You'll be wearing a positive anarchy of costume both cleverer and simpler than anything you've worn in your life,' said Vogue in its first directive of the 1970s. 'You are one of a kind, unique in fashion. Forget rules - you make them, you break them.' Anarchy arrived after a process of wild experimentation, the shock of glam rock, the rise of platforms, the plummeting of skirts and the ultimate role reversal: men wearing make-up. The 1970s opened with a celebration of decoration and ended in a sinuous bodyline. Anarchy smeared under the surface, exploding mid-way, with a flash of perpendicular hair, safety pins and bondage trousers. By January 1970 one thing was clear: the spacesuit was not going to take off.
             In the summer of 1970 the miniskirt reached the point of no return. Crotch skimming started to look tired and out of date. 'The long skirt is here - and the first vogue with not a short skirt in sight, and more leg than ever,' annonced Vogue in its 'Eye View of a Nice Sence of Proportion' in August; 'Jean Muir's new collection says it all.' The Muir midi had fluidity, breezed just above the calf and came to a halt 3 inches below the knee. Meanwhile, Ossie Clark staged a 'fashion happening' at Chelsea Town Hall - 'more a spring dance than a show' - with music by Steve Miller, Juicy Lucy and Hot Rats. The models wore Celia Birtwell prints, wild hair, sparkling green eye shadow and carmine lipstick.
             Under the editorship of Beatrix Miller, British Vogue nurtured British desig...