Anyone fancy stepping into a time machine this weekend? We have chosen the 80’s era, all you need to do is visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. The 80’s music scene evidently inspired the catwalk……
10 July 2013 – 16 February 2014
Discover the creative explosion of London fashion in the 1980s in a major exhibition at the V&A. Through more than 85 outfits, Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s showcases the bold and exciting new looks by the most experimental young designers of the decade, including Betty Jackson, Katharine Hamnett, Wendy Dagworthy and John Galliano.
The exhibition traces the emerging theatricality in British fashion as the capital’s vibrant and eclectic club scene influenced a new generation of designers. Also celebrating iconic styles such as New Romantic and High Camp, and featuring outfits worn by Adam Ant and Leigh Bowery, the exhibition explores how the creative relationship between catwalk and club wear helped reinvent fashion, as reflected in magazines such as i-D and Blitz and venues including Heaven and Taboo.
Club
The ’80s saw the explosion of the London club scene. Specialist club ‘nights’ offered opportunities for dressing up in the company of a like-minded crowd. Stevie Stewart of BodyMap explained that ‘each group of people, whether they were fashion designers, musicians or dancers, filmmakers, living together and going out together had a passion for creating something new that was almost infectious’.
Early clubs such as Billy’s, Blitz and the Club for Heroes were small and attracted a selective crowd. As the decade progressed, venues such as the Camden Palace and one-off warehouse parties began to attract much larger audiences. Although less intimate, they perpetuated the creative link between music, club and catwalk. This symbiotic relationship remained the defining characteristic of 1980s style.
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop SEX introduced fetish and bondage wear to the club and music scene in the mid 1970s. These became an integral element of punk, the anarchic godparent to 1980s style.
Fetish re-emerged in a more glamorous form in the 1980s. The first of a new wave of clubs, Skin Two, opened in 1983. Brave clubbers wore full rubber outfits and fetish gear, making use of stretch synthetics, leather, rubber, buckles and straps, worn with stilettos or thigh-high boots. The look was enriched with Glam rock elements such as luxurious gold leather and flashy jewellery.
At Subway
Derek Ridgers
Black and white photograph
1986
© Derek Ridgers
High Camp
Designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery ran the notoriously camp nightclub Taboo, so called because ‘there is nothing you can’t do there’. He developed his extreme personal style by manipulating and adorning his own body, and using the club as a theatre for his exhibitionism.
The high camp club scene inspired and provoked clubbers, performers and designers to push their fashion, and their behavior, to the extreme. John Galliano recalled, ‘I was a club demon… in the mid-eighties, there was only one place to be. Taboo was the best’.
Trojan and Mark at Taboo
Derek Ridgers
Colour photograph
1986
© Derek Ridgers
The Face – Hell’s Angels, British Menswear Takes a Fight
The Face featured this outfit on a 1986 cover under the title, ‘Hell’s Angels, British menswear takes flight’. Wearing gold wings and laden with costume jewellery, the model resembled a modern day Icarus.
Front cover from The Face (Hell’s Angels Cover) no 77
September 1986
Lloyd Johnson gold jacket
© Eamonn Mccabe
Catwalk
In the early ’80s, London fashion began to create a stir internationally. Fashion shows took place in New York and Japan. One breakthrough event, titled ‘London Goes to Tokyo’, included many of the designers featured here and in the upstairs gallery.
The inventiveness of London design owed much to the excellence of the city’s arts education. Colleges such as St Martin’s, the Royal College of Art and Hornsey College of Art offered advanced training in the fundamentals of fashion design, while also encouraging individuality.
At night, young designers’ imaginations were sparked by a vibrant London club scene. John Galliano recalled, ‘Thursday and Friday at St Martin’s, the college was almost deserted. Everybody was at home working on their costumes for the weekend’. Designer Georgina Godley remembers, ‘Young London was all about taking risks and creating something out of nothing through passion and ambition’.
The Cloth, Summer Summit
The Sunday Telegraph said of designs by The Cloth, ‘their colours look so fresh that it is hard to believe the paint has dried’.
The Cloth, Summer Summit
Anita Corbin
1985
© Anita Corbin
Joseph Jumper
Joseph Ettedgui founded the chain of Joseph boutiques in London in 1977, stocking innovative designers such as Katharine Hamnett, John Galliano and BodyMap. He also created the Joseph Tricot knitwear label.
‘Tiger’ man’s jumper
Joseph Ettedgui
Wool
1985
Given by Martin Kamer
Museum no. T.90-2009
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Stay Alive in 85
Katharine Hamnett was one of the most well known designers of the 1980s. She pioneered the vogue for stylish, casual clothing made in crumpled cottons, parachute silks and stonewashed and stretch denim. Her designs were often based on utilitarian boiler suits and army fatigues.
In 1984, Hamnett caused a sensation at a fashion reception hosted by Margaret Thatcher by wearing a T-shirt that read, ‘58% Don’t Want Pershing’. Hamnett was protesting against the controversial siting of US Pershing missiles in the UK. Her T-shirts were a platform for her anti-war and Green politics.
Stay Alive in 85
Designed by Katherine Hamnett
Silk T-shirt
1984
Museum no. T.239-1992
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Sketch for Levi Strauss & Co. by John Galliano
In 1986, BLITZ magazine commissioned 22 designers to customise denim jackets provided by Levi Strauss & Co. Fashion Editor Iain R. Webb recalled, ‘The magazine gave us a stage on which to present our version of the world, an alternative way of looking at fashion… The pages of BLITZ were intended to inspire readers to experiment with fashion rather than go shopping’.
The project brought together an eclectic mix of designers. Some were well established, others emerging talents. The jackets were exhibited at the V&A, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre and Barney’s in New York.
Sketch for customised denim jacket, commissioned by BLITZ magazine
John Galliano
1986
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
‘BLITZ’ Denim jacket by Levi Strauss & Co
BLITZ magazine commissioned Vivienne Westwood to customise this denim jacket in 1986.
‘I was proud of my jacket. I like to take traditional things and push them into the future.’ Vivienne Westwood
Denim jacket, by Levi Strauss & Co, customised by Vivienne Westwood
1986
Museum no. T.200:1-2002
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
‘BLITZ’ Denim jacket by Levi Strauss & Co
BLITZ magazine commissioned Leigh Bowery to customise this denim jacket in 1986. It has fringes created from hundreds of golden hair grips, making the jacket extremely heavy.
Denim jacket by Levi Strauss & Co, customised by Leigh Bowery
1986
Museum no. T.525-1997
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Dress by Willy Brown
Brown described this dress as combining Regency and Bauhaus styles. The two-dimensional quality of the garment is enhanced by flattened side seams.
‘Peacock eye’ dress
Modern Classics (Willy Brown)
Cotton with hand painting
1980
Museum no. T.19-2012
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Fallen Angel suit
‘My fashion has been a constant evolution of ideas… All that experimental cutting led me to understand precisely how a jacket had been put together in the past; how to put it together correctly in the present and then, from that, I was led to dismantle it and reassemble it in a way that would point to the future.’
Galliano’s final year collection at St Martin’s School of Art was influenced by French revolutionary dress. But, like many art school students, Galliano also found inspiration in London’s night life. ‘The club scene fed me… Being with other creative people like Boy George was a crucial experience for me.’
Suit
John Galliano
‘Fallen Angel’ spring/summer 1986
Wool
1985
Given by Bouke de Vries
Museum no. T.223&A-1989
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
