No history-defining look is complete without hair and make-up, a sentiment that London’s ‘Blitz Kids’ pioneered to the extreme during the late 1970s and 1980s. Spearheading this movement was Australian performance artist and fashion designer Leigh Bowery, who had a strictly enforced code of entrance for his short-lived but infamous Soho nightclub, Taboo: ‘Dress as if your life depends on it, or don’t bother.’
Yesterday (4 October 2024) Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London opened at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey, paying tribute to Taboo and those who inhabited the world around it. Alongside Bowery, they included the likes of John Galliano, Pam Hogg, Stephen Jones and Judy Blame; musicians Steve Strange, Rusty Egan and Boy George; dancer and choreographer Michael Clark; and clubbing royalty Princess Julia, Philip Salon and Susanne Bartsch.
