Finally getting around to posting a few shots I snapped from when I visited the Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textiles Museum a few weeks ago. The exhibit documents the wildly vivid, creative and fertile post-punk, post-New Romantic period when edgy nightlife bled into and informed street fashion and youth subcultures (and the emerging style press like i-D magazine) and ultimately high fashion. Outlaws locates the epicentre of this scene as Taboo, the hedonistic and anarchic anything-goes club night organised by freaky and inspired drag terrorist / performance artist Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994) in London’s Leicester Square from 1985. (Bowery is definitely enjoying a cultural moment: a major retrospective exhibit devoted to him opens on 27 February at Tate Modern). Anyway, some of the names and reference points you’ll encounter at the exhibit include Bad boy of dance Michael Clark. Judy Blame. Princess Julia. Pam Hogg. Boy George. Mark Moore of S’Express. Scarlett Cannon. John Galliano. Neneh Cherry. Sue Tilley. Susanne Bartsch. Lana Pellay. Kinky Gerlinky. Lloyd Johnson. Kensington Market. The show closes on 9 March so don’t delay!
