This sheet of designs is one of three which are signed and dated by Bruce Oldfield and come from his collection for Autumn 1980. They are typical of his style, featuring the broad shoulders and tapered silhouette that came to define women’s fashion of the 1980s, and which was adopted by high-profile figures.

Born in 1950 to an Irish mother and Jamaican father, Bruce Oldfield was orphaned as a small child. He was brought up by the seamstress, Violet Masters, from whom his love of designing and making clothes originated. Bruce Oldfield trained at Ravensbourne College of Art and St Martin’s College of Art in the early 1970s. Following his graduation, he was invited to design collections for Henri Bendel department store in New York. Returning to London he was commissioned to design the costumes for Charlotte Rampling in the 1974 film Un Taxi Mauve, directed by Yves Boisset. In 1975 he launched his own label. The Bruce Oldfield label initially designed and made Ready-To-Wear collections and it wasn’t until 1978 that Oldfield began making couture clothes. A couturier to both celebrity and royalty, Bruce Oldfield is known for his dramatic and glamorous designs. He has designed outfits for Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross and Joan Collins. He is particularly known, however, for the dresses he made for Diana, Princess of Wales, during the 1980s. In 2015, Oldfield collaborated with the high street department store, John Lewis, creating the label Bruce by Bruce Oldfield. In 1990 Oldfield was awarded an OBE for his services to the fashion industry.