Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.

Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the Radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit bbc.co.uk-radio4.

My cast away this week is the fashion designer, Professor Wendy Dagworthy.

During her time as head of fashion at both Central St. Martin's and the Royal College of Art,

she has taught students who've gone on to great success, Stella McCartney, Erdem and Antonio Barardi among them.

Her skill lies partly in understanding the significance of say,

a well-cut pattern or a nicely turned seam,

but also the warp and weft of a notoriously fickle industry.

At just 23, she herself was the toast of the catwalks,

with her own label selling round the world and worn by the likes of Brian Ferry,

Boy George and Mick Jagger.

Dubbed the high priestess of fashion, her creative talent, however,

wasn't recession proof and her business went under in the late 80s.

Given that reinvention is the lifeblood of fashion,

it seems she was tailor-made for a new direction.

Collecting her OBE in 2011 for services to the fashion industry,

she wore a perspex hat designed by a former pupil.

She says, we want students to take risks, like we did when we were younger,

because there were no set rules.

There was no one to follow. You just did it yourself.

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