The Clothes Show

BBC series (1986-1998)

The Clothes Show was first broadcast on 13 October 1986, with *Breakfast Time'''s Selina Scott and designer Jeff Banks as its first hosts. The show combined reports from the catwalks with items on how to achieve a catwalk-type look on a reasonable budget. Selina and Jeff were later joined by Caryn Franklin (a former Fashion Editor and co-Editor of international style magazine *i-D''), who took over as Banks' main co-host after Scott left.

Such was the success of the show that in 1989 the annual Clothes Show Live event was launched at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre, and later a magazine was produced to accompany the programme. The programme continued on the BBC until April 1998, with other presenters over the years including Margherita Taylor, Tim Vincent, Richard Jobson and Brenda Emmanus. Series producers included Collette Foster and Jane Lomas, who had been a presenter on the earliest shows. James Strong, Mike Prince, Mark Westcott and Ann Wilson were among the directors. The Clothes Show Live event continued to be held annually in Birmingham at the beginning of each December until 2016, and was last held in Liverpool in July 2017.

Theme tune

The show's original theme music in 1986 was the Shep Pettibone remix of Five Star's then-recent hit "Find the Time". From 1987 onwards the theme tune was an excerpt from Arthur Baker's remix of the Pet Shop Boys' song "In The Night" which can be found on the 1986 Disco album. The original version of the song was on the b-side of the 1985 single "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)".

In 1995 Pet Shop Boys were asked by the BBC to remix the theme tune for a revamped version of the show. This new version, which was entirely instrumental, appeared as a A-side and B-side to the 1996 single "Before" and can now be found on the 2001 reissue of their 1996 album Bilingual and on their Format b-side compilation album.

Saint Etienne were also asked to produce a theme tune for the show, but it was turned down. Their theme was eventually released on the fanclub-only album Built on Sand.

UKTV Style/Really series (2006–2009)

On 7 August 2006, The Sun reported that The Clothes Show was to be resurrected after eight years and would be shown on UKTV Style, hosted by Louise Redknapp, Caryn Franklin and Brendan Courtney. The programme moved from UKTV Style to a new channel called Really in 2009.

YouTube series (2013)

The people behind Clothes Show Live brought the show back as "Clothes Show TV" in 2013 http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG10101041/The-Clothes-Show-returns.html https://www.youtube.com/user/clothesshowtv. The organisation continued to publish short videos on YouTube until 2018.

References

References

1. (14 March 2015). "BBC One - The Clothes Show 1986 - YouTube".
2. "The Clothes Show returns - Telegraph". Fashion.telegraph.co.uk.
3. Francesca Craggs. (2013-01-10). "The Clothes Show: A whole new genre for TV". Chronicle Live.
4. (2001-08-03). "New fashion series for BBC | News | Broadcast". Broadcastnow.co.uk.
5. (14 March 2015). "BBC One - The Clothes Show 1986 - YouTube".
6. (18 July 2010). "Five Star - Find The Time (Shep Pettibone Remix) - YouTube".
7. "BBC - Cult - Classic TV - The Clothes Show". BBC.