Few could have predicted that the well-bred daughter of a Lancashire baronet would become a leading figure in an industry so far from the rural idyll of her childhood — the fashion business. Yet equipped with steely determination and an innate sense of style, Annette Worsley-Taylor emerged as the so-called “godmother of British fashion” and co-founded London Fashion Week.
She helped to drag the UK industry from the cavernous rag trade vaults of Olympia in the 1970s into the modern world of catwalk shows. In the process she started the careers of many fashion glitterati — from Jasper Conran to Wendy Dagworthy. The industry she helped to build is now, according to the British Fashion Council, worth £26 billion to Britain’s economy.
Born in 1944