× We met with a fashion theorist Elizabeth Wilson in the archives of the London College of Fashion. In her seminal work Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and modernity published in 1985, Elizabeth spoke of the history of utopian dress as a history of humanity’s pursuit of liberation through clothes. Much of what Elizabeth describes as a sartorial dream of early socialists, feminists and other political activists (see the whole story in our Time machine section) has become truth: today people can wear absolutely anything they want, at least in Western cultures. Clothes are comfortable and hygienic, people are hiding their identities,statuses and backgrounds under gender neutral apparels and outfits of austerity and conformity. However, what once was seen as positive and encouraging has turned into a kind of “depressing” reality where people avoid any deviance and “have opted for comfort instead of beauty”. Ironically, the work of Wilson was written in the 80’s, possibly the last decade of fashion flamboyance, that was abruptly changed by the dullness of mass market giants producing grey t-shirts and marginal designers producing the same grey t-shirts but 10 times more expensive. Here is a piece of our interview with Elizabeth on the conformity of contemporary fashion and critique of utopianism.