They were the ultimate fun 1980’s girl group, performing their hits while jumping around in modest dungarees, sporting bold red lipstick and wild hair.
But Bananarama singer Keren Woodward, 69, said she would be worried about having a teenage daughter with many female popstars these days dancing on stage in their underwear.
Ms Woodward, who has a 37-year-old son, said: ‘I can’t get my head around what some of the singers wear these days.
‘If that’s what they want to wear that’s fine, if that’s their choice, but I’m not sure it always is.
‘I have friends who have teenage daughters and these girls already have terrible body image and insecurities and I don’t think that kind of woman on stage helps with that.’
One of the original members of Bananarama, Keren Woodward (left) says she’s proud that the trio ‘became pin-ups without being overtly sexy’
Miley Cyrus pictured wearing a cut-out dress at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles
For over a decade, international female pop stars have performed in front of young fans wearing revealing clothing.
In contrast, Ms Woodward said: ‘We [Bananarama] became a sex symbol in donkey jackets.’
She continued: ‘We didn’t have stylists or make-up artists working with us, we just dressed the way we did when we went to the club.
‘We would buy fabric from the market and run up three outfits that looked similar.
‘I’m proud of the fact that we became pin-ups without being overtly sexy. It wouldn’t happen now.’
Last year Beyonce wore a carousel of petite outfits on her Renaissance World Tour including a bumble bee bodice with thigh-high boots and long gloves.
Miley Cyrus appeared in nude-coloured underwear and performed a sexually suggestive dance on Robin Thicke in 2013 during the MTV Music Awards.
Ms Woodward praised this year’s Brit Award winner, Raye, for being a ‘fantastic role model’ and said: ‘Everything about her, her style, her lyrics, her presentation – she uses her platform for all the right reasons’.
Bananarama hold the world’s highest number of chart entries by an all-female group with 32 top 40 singles in the UK charts.
Formed in London in 1980, the girl group was made up of Ms Woodward, Sara Dallin and Siobhan Fahey before she left in 1988 to start her own band, Shakespears Sister.
Ms Woodward was in a 27-year relationship with Wham’s Andrew Ridgeley, 61, from 1990 before they separated in 2017.
Earlier this month Bananarama released Glorious: The Ultimate Collection and are set to play the London Palladium in April.