Lately, my mind has been wandering back to the year I lived in London.

It's the ever more frequent newsclips of Prince William and Kate that keep dragging me there, for in 1981, the city was awash with celebration for another upcoming royal wedding -- of Prince Charles to Lady Diana.  

The American College in London was the school I attended that year, studying Fashion Design and Merchandising -- but pursuing a degree in Fashion had not been my first choice.

I'd taken several advanced Biology classes in high school and my first plan for college was to study Marine Biology. When I struggled with commitment to university life, I next chose to study Interior Design. My mother talked me into Fashion Design instead.  

I went along.  I liked clothes. I didn't spend much time imagining a future schedule filled with this line of work, although I should have. 

Thirty years later, teased into action this week by this generation's royal wedding hoopla,  I went searching for my packed-away journals and photo albums, from my time living in London. 

This unearthing was done with some reluctance, for you see, I was a mess in 1981. I was considered pretty by some, but I hadn't realized I was smart yet. I wasn't smart yet. I was bulimic, and definitely lost, with no idea who to find. I had no sense of adulthood, of autonomy, of peace. My time in London was emotionally the worst.

But now, I realize it was also a beginning. It was my first separation from the powerful personality of my mother, and it was my first move away from the unhealthy version of conformity that certain parts of the South, and I, had put on myself.  

Is it because I've moved so many times that it was easy to have an entire era tucked away and unlooked at? 

                                                                    ~ 

 The school dorms were far from campus, nearest to the Earls Court tube station, mostly filled with young American girl-women, but several young women were there from other countries. The boys and men were housed elsewhere. No one was English, that I recall. 

 To walk home from the Tube, Old Brompton Rd. had to be crossed, then  down Redcliffe Gardens we went, past the apartment Lady Diana lived in with flatmates, for the first couple of months I was there. Then, around the corner, through the park, to our dorms. Our building was indistinguishable from the others in the row, to novice eyes. At the beginning of each semester, new calls from the street in American accent rose up: 

Which one is it again!?

Hey Roommate, stick your head out the window so I know where you are!

The view from my dorm window towards Earls Court... 

...and the view towards King's Road and Chelsea.

This was the direction straggling edges of  a mob came from, during the 1981 Brixton riots, while spilling northwest into our area. Bobbies had arrived at the dorm at some point early on, barricading our doors and standing guard.

For most of us the riots were exciting, not having a clue about violent life, but when the girl from Tehran was found under her bed in a terror, our frivolousness and naivete sank in. That was a somber, quiet evening. 

One of the many permanent differences to my spirit arrived that day.

                                                                    ~ 

 It's hard to imagine London in 1981 without thinking of the endless kiosks, the displays in stores, filled with kitschy souvenirs in celebration of the engagement of Charles and Di, but the most clever gimmicks in my mind were Cardboard Charles and Cardboard Diana. They were life-sized busts that sat propped in rear-seat windows in so many of London's cars that year. Royal grins were plastered on their faces while an upraised cardboard arm, hand in royal-waving position, swung its greeting in metronome fashion as the car passed by. Maybe the deluxe version aced The Royal Hand Turn, but I never saw one of those.

Are Cardboard William and Cardboard Kate waving all over London now?

The only wedding souvenir I could bring myself to indulge in was this postcard, just edgy enough to consider purchasing. We fashion students were completely scornful of any of the collectibles -- Diana was just a shy teenager at the time, Charles, an old goat.

"Thirty-two?  An-cieeent!" we crowed. 

He's won my respect over the years with his various sustainable businesses and practices, but then, not so much.

('Charles has never looked so good' was my first thought when I unearthed this.)

 I found no other evidence among my mementos of the ubiquitous nuptial hawking, just exciting shots like these...

Buckingham Palace ~ June 1981, one month before the wedding. No wedding streamers in sight. 

The Changing of the Guard.

Canada Gate, an entrance to The Green Park. 

One of the only architecture-free shots I have, and one of my favorites. She looks so happy. Slightly fuzzy, but happy.

                                                                    ~ 

 Leaving a very deep impression on me was the music I first heard in early Eighties' London: 

Bob Marley singing No Woman, No Cry  and  Get up, Stand Up (there's a great protest song)...

Joe Jackson and his Jumpin' Jive with that effervescent swing. Hep, hep... 

Adam and the Ants, a punk/rock/theatre band in late 70s, early 80s' London was played most frequently on the radio. Their bandleader, Adam Ant, had headlined for the Sex Pistols at their first concert in 1975 with his then band, Bazooka Joe. Immediately following that show, he changed musical paths after being inspired by punk's most famous musical group. Adam Ant, and many others, followed Sid Vicious et al to a whole new genre of rebellious angst, although no one was ever quite like Sid.

Punks.

I never was one, and I had no idea at the time, but punks were to be one of the biggest, and healthiest, influences on me to emerge from that strange, novel year.  After months of just staring at punks from a safe distance, I tried to photograph groups of them hanging out at various spots, but I was so scared of being beat up, or even noticed, that it took awhile to gear up for a focused shot.

Finally, I ventured this shot from afar on King's Road.  I'm surprised my shaking hands pulled off this clear an image. 

 I've cropped as far as I can (with my skills) while still retaining any clarity, I was that far away.

 I was entranced at the rebellion in these youth:  mohawks, wild colors, outrageous piercings, ripped fabric. Leather, pleather, plaid upon plaid oh-dear-god...uneven hems!

Until this point, it was a completely foreign concept for me to imagine NOT glamming up for the day....and I definitely had even hems. I was a girl ready for the Eighties.

As a teen in Atlanta, I was more influenced in dress and outlook by the Georgia Peach image I was so often told I exuded (I feel nauseous admitting this), most often by young men with desirous agendas, than my progressive upbringing knew how to handle. There was just no guidance in this area. Would I have listened if there was?

I was filled with the naive, youthful, reckless, power of being attractive. I was also trapped and controlled by unhealthy, unsustainable, methods of maintaining beauty that took years to cleanse from my psyche, complete with the most unpleasant form of ensuring thinness -- bulimia. 

At my London graduation ceremony.

I remember crying one day prior to this photo, when I had stepped on the scale. I had 'ballooned' to 98 pounds.  

"I'll be enormous at graduation!" I wailed.

 The influence of the punks had yet to make its presence known. 

                                                                         ~

Soon after the English graduation ceremony, with one semester left back in Georgia to complete graduation requirements, I flew home -- one day before Charles and Diana's wedding. I got up that first morning home before dawn and watched the ceremony on television. I thought then that Diana looked less happy than one might hope for on her wedding day.  

That last semester consisted solely of completing my final project: creating a line of clothing for the final runway show of my college years. My final runway show to date, actually.

I began to design my collection, compiling fabrics, considering coherence and surprise, layering textures:  the sumptuousness of velvets and soft corduroy against the crispness of starched white cotton, teal-blue nubby wool...

I was submerged in the sensations of my recent experiences.

I felt bold.

This immersion into creative sensation, free of censorship, was my first step in shedding my sorry slides into self-destruction, although this only occurred to me in 2011, while finally revisiting these momentos of London.

The final drawing of my collection emerged.

 (Only now do I notice the leg-warmer missing its foot...)

Weeks later, after sewing and sewing, I got an A on my final collection. I also got a few conservative Southern Tsk tsks from some not-so-anonymous corners...

Before I'd gone to England, I would have been mortified at such disapproval by the outside world (I already didn't mind my mother's disapproval), but hearing it now, I loved it...it meant I'd struck a chord.

A feisty, discordant, note.

The influence of the punks had begun. 

                                                                         ~

The postcard image courtesy of :  Bunch of Artists.

All other images are mine.