- When that tea towel was stitched
to that little black Gucci dress
I had no idea the reaction that was gonna come.
[cheering]
- [Announcer] The Spice Girls!
- Let me tell you about the Union Jack dress.
The 90s is very much like the 60s,
it has a real strong flavor.
The music was great, the fashion was great.
You had the Calvin Klein simplicity,
you had the tracksuits, Kate Moss, Oasis,
you had the Spice Girls.
It was really, really flourishing time in so many ways.
Life was really getting started for me, it was brilliant.
[upbeat music]
- You've got the new single. - That is true.
- Called "Wannabe", high hopes?
- We're trying to be realistic about it,
but we are optimistic as well.
The first Spice album came out in the end of 1996.
And it'd done incredibly well.
And we were in a whirlwind of promo fun,
and we were gonna do the BRITs,
which is like the American Grammys.
It felt like everything we'd worked for
led up to that moment.
And we were up for a few awards, which was really exciting.
And I remember this little black Gucci dress
got presented to me, saying, you could wear this.
It was almost like, actually,
a 1950s Marilyn shaped swimming costume.
Tom Ford was working with Gucci at that time.
And he made it sexy.
Looking at that vintage construction.
I thought, well maybe it's just a bit
not really saying much.
I've always tried to kind of put my finger
to the wind and feel what's going on right now.
And if I feel it, maybe you'll feel it, and we'll connect.
So I remember thinking, why don't you,
it's the BRITs, British flag.
And I don't know if this is true,
but you're not meant to cut up a flag.
I know in the olden days you could go be sent to the tower.
And so I found a tea towel.
[camera clicking]
My sister did it 'cause she was better at sewing than I am.
But I remember showing it to a stylist
and she said to me, you can't wear that.
She actually said, you cannot wear that, it's racist.
It's National Front.
Now that is an extreme party that existed in Britain
that was very racist.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
No, stop.
We celebrate all cultures.
So that's why I put the peace sign on the back.
And then I had the red boots.
My father was a mechanic, and I had car spray
from the garage, and sprayed it red to match.
So the length of the dress is the sexuality
and the big bobber boots is saying,
you know what, you're not gonna mess with me either.
- The all-conquering Spice Girls!
- And then the actual performance
we had our backs to the audience,
so then you could see the peace sign,
I was quite pleased.
It's a really high-pressured moment.
And I think we found power in each other.
That was the whole point of the group.
And then we walked down and we sang "Wannabe",
and then suddenly we went into "Who Do You Think You Are".
It was very very sassy, it had a lot of attitude.
When you perform you get a very caffeinated buzz from it.
It's like, wow, this is electric.
And that night was the first time
we performed at a really big event.
I wanted to get my lines right,
I wanted to get my dance moves right,
I wanted to deliver.
I wasn't thinking about the end result.
[cheering]
I woke up the next morning and the picture of me
in that dress was on the front page of every newspaper.
That dress really became the identity
of what girl power stood for.
People would wear their own version of it.
Suddenly you started seeing the British flag
on a lot of fashion.
It came back to that thing of being proud of who we are.
So it's funny [laughing].
I've always been like a secret fashion designer.
- Geri Halliwell, otherwise known as Ginger Spice,
has announced she's left the Spice Girls.
- When I left the Spice Girls it was like
a bit of a marriage, for me.
It's like any relationship,
you really want to just press the reset button.
So I did an auction for charity
with all my outfits from the Spice Girls.
The last piece is the Union Jack dress,
the Gucci little dress with a tea towel on it.
There was a secret bidder on the telephone,
I didn't know who it was.
And it turned out to be The Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas.
They paid 41,000 pounds.
And sold!
Which turned out to be a world record
for a piece of pop memorabilia.
Wow!
And then there was a period where
I was just doing my solo career.
It did pretty good.
And, see this British modesty.
It did pretty good.
And actually my first solo song
there is a moment where I'm Ginger in a coffin.
It's quite funny.
You see the British flag sort of pull up
and there's the Ginger.
So 2007 we decided the Spice Girls
wanted to get back together.
And this time the tour was going
to be dressed by the designer Cavalli.
Their clothes are sexy, flamboyant, fabulous, quite opulent.
They definitely like the glamour.
And so like okay, let's do that.
[camera clicking]
For me wearing the Union Jack dress
I'm always quite mindful because it's had such a moment.
To sort of really try and recapture that moment,
is it really gonna work?
We really needed to sort of turn the volume up on it.
And Cavalli did that with crystals.
[dynamic music]
And then it was me going, can we make it shorter?
[laughing]
I'm sort of in my mid to late 30s, at that time.
I think it's quite a hard age to be.
You sort of still want to say, yeah, I'm still sexy,
I've still got a figure, look.
You haven't quite found the stoic-ness of
a mature woman, but you're not the teenage bravado anymore.
Where do you belong?
And that dress, the Cavalli dress,
absolutely epitomizes everything I was feeling.
[camera clicking]
When you put the Union Jack dress on
it's like wearing the crown for that moment,
or you're a bride for that moment.
That special feeling, it's your birthday.
The wonderful thing was that
the Spice Girls fans have grown up with us.
So it was lovely for every country that we went to
we'd see girls and guys in the Union Jack dress.
It's almost like a uniform, unifying us all.
From 2007 to 2019 a lot happened.
There's lots of discomfort and restlessness in the world.
It was coming on the back of the Me Too movement.
It was quite dark.
And actually the Spice Girls have always
stood for positivity and lightness.
And sometimes you just need that.
And suddenly the idea came back again
that perhaps we should do some more shows.
But let's move it forward.
The way I dress has always reflected
how I feel about myself at that time.
And I had children, I got married.
I felt a sense of power in developing
the dress into something different,
something even more timeless.
A complete queen's gown.
For me it shows the evolution of being a woman.
As you grow older, this is the gift of age,
you suddenly feel confident to cover up.
It's really odd.
When I was in my early 20s, the skirt's up to here,
and I've got my big bobber boots,
and it's like, here I am.
And then as I've grown into a woman, it's like actually,
I can just be still, I can just be here.
This is enough.
And it felt quite empowering just to
walk on with a dress and say,
do you know what, I've grown up.
It felt like the power of a woman.
It felt the evolution of girl power.
And this is a good lesson to me.
I always tell myself this, is one,
to really trust your instinct.
I got told not to wear that dress.
It's wonderful 22 years later to still
see people in a Union Jack dress.
That pride, that power.
That never goes out of fashion.
Thanks for watching.
We filmed that before the Coronavirus outbreak.
Now we really wanna help.
Especially the vulnerable and the elderly.
If you'd like to help, please donate to ageuk.
Every little bit helps.
So thank you.
Take care.