"[1] In the book London: After Fashion, Alistair O’Neill described the look as: “as odd a combination as Coward in Las Vegas, but it communicated a vision of Englishness just as brashly.
[3][4] Initially, the company focused on menswear and, a year after the brand's launch, Ken Probst writing in The New York Times noted the renewed interest in British fashion created by the success of Brideshead Revisited and Chariots of Fire.
The unexpected exuberance of the recolored plaids, the hand-woven Indian cottons embroidered with silk and the fabrics from the 1940s and 1950s contrasts with the unchanging designs of the British ‘look', resulting in an innovative fusion of opposing styles.
[5] Their women's designs would enjoy international popularity and influence in 1984 and '85, with Crolla's large cabbage rose prints being copied across the fashion spectrum, from Jean-Paul Gaultier to Ralph Lauren to more affordable mass-market manufacturers in the United States.
[5][13] Crolla won Bath Fashion Museum Dress of the Year in 1985 for a menswear outfit featuring a crushed shirt, velvet trousers and ikat mules.