Date: 6 April 1981
Originally published in: Evening Post Echo (UK)
Written by: Stuart Morrison
Chart-topping Kim Wilde ignores expensive fashion boutiques when she shops for clothes. Instead, the blonde Hertfordshire bombshell struts into her nearest Oxfam shop.
But it’s not the dresses which catch her eye… 20-year-old Kim likes to browse through the jackets and shirts on the men’s coathangers. Kim, daughter of fifties idol Marty Wilde, lives with her family at Tewin, near Welwyn Garden City. Today, she’s nudging the No 1 slot on the BBC record charts. Yet only a year ago, she was a student at the Hertfordshire College of Art and Design in St Albans. It was while she was on a one-year foundation course that she discovered the second hand clothes shops in the city centre – and went on a spending spree!
Shop
“There are quite a few second-hand places in St Albans”, she said. “When I get a chance, I always shop there. The women’s wear always goes a lot quicker than the men’s wear, so I always have a quick mosey to see what’s worth buying. It’s more the clothes that attract me than the prices.”
Millions of viewers have already seen Kim wear one of the jackets she bought in the St. Albans Oxfam shop – on BBC TV’s Top of the Pops. “The jacket you see me wearing on the video film is one that I bought for only a few pounds”, she said.
Her sudden rise to fame with her first record, Kids in America, all happened by chance. Pop producer Mickie Most was impressed by her voice and looks when he saw her at a recording session in London. Kim was singing backing vocals on a song written by her musician brother Ricki at the RAK recording studios. The result was her hit song, currently the second biggest selling single in the country.
Now the former art student faces a gruelling schedule over the next few weeks, in which she’ll record an album, a follow-up single and tour the television studios of Europe to promote her hit.
