We start with the Vikings and the early frontiers of style. But soon the 'rules of fashion' become a force for control, with strict class laws governing everything from the colours you could wear, to the pointiness of your shoes.

Gender-defying fashionistas first started to capture the popular imagination in Elizabethan England. Shakespeare's plays see male actors dressing as female characters dressing as male characters. And rebellious Mary Frith defies gender norms winning a £20 bet by riding from Charing Cross to Shoreditch dressed as man.

We see the rise of the actress as a fashion icon in the 18th century. Frances Abington becomes known as the 'fashion doctor' and grows to fame as the first celebrity stylist. However, fears about working class people dressing above their station quickly become a national obsession.

New ideas and inventions revolutionised fashion in the 19th century, turning it into a modern mechanised industry. 'Fast fashion' had begun with repercussions still felt today in terms of sustainability, sweat shops and fair trade. But women's rights are championed by campaigner Amelia Bloomer who argued that females could wear the trousers too.

In Harlem, prohibition sparks the rise of the 'speakeasy' and jazz music leads to the Lindy Hop and the Charleston. Tight-fitting corsets are out and there's a new trend for loose fitting clothing that frees the body to dance. We see the birth of the flapper, personified by Josephine Baker, who later goes on to become a key player in WWII, smuggling messages to the French resistance hidden in her underwear.

Fashion and music combine in the 20th century to spark a style rebellion. The Zoot suit, sported by Malcolm X, brightly coloured and massively oversized, was seen as an anti-American statement and eventually banned in LA. Blue jeans, teamed with a leather jacket and white t-shirt, became the quintessential uniform for Marlon Brando, James Dean and a legion of biker gangs. The rise of the teenage rebel had begun.