Liquid Sky was a store, but it’s more accurate to call it a scene. From the time the retailer opened its Broome Street location in 1990, eventually relocating to Layfette in 1992, it was the epicentre of New York’s creative subculture – a watering hole for ravers and skaters; teenagers and celebrities; hedonistic party monsters and dedicated artists who hung out inside its spaceship-like interiors and tried on clothes with the signature Astrogirl logo (an antennaed alien with a heart-shaped crotch) in inflatable dressing rooms. By the time Liquid Sky closed in 2003, it was already the stuff of legend – a New York institution that, like CBGB’s and Studio 54 before it, came to epitomise a particular time in the city’s history.
This month, Liquid Sky’s founders Claudia Rey (aka Rey Zorro) and Carlos Slinger (aka DJ Soul Slinger), with publisher and writer Marc Santo (who hung around the fashion store in its heyday) have launched a book, also called Liquid Sky, that documents its history. The 300-plus page tome contains hundreds of never-before-published photographs and interviews with key characters from the Liquid Sky scene, including Chloë Sevigny (who worked as a sales clerk) and other artists, musicians and club kids who hung around the store.
