From neon slogan T-shirts to hot pink eyeshadow, clubland fashion is shimmying
off the dancefloor and on to the shop floor. The flourishing London club
scene centred on nights such as Boombox in East London is the crucible for a
crazy, dressed-up Eighties-meets-Nineties look hitting the mainstream with
the impact of a thumping bassline.
You can try closing your eyes and hoping it will all go away and leave you and
your Marni smocks in peace, but the trend has already reached tipping point.
Or, as Steve Slocombe, founder of the club kids’ fashion bible, Super
Super magazine, puts it: “The colour genie is out of the bottle.”
Outside Boombox at 11.30 on a Sunday night, the doorman is dressed like a
cross between a chessboard and Darth Vader in drag. He is sporting a
floor-length sci-fi coat in tiny squares of black and white plastic, and
heavy eyeliner. Rewind almost 20 years to 1988, when Leigh Bowery, the
cabaret artiste and regular on the underground club scene, performed in a
similar checked coat, with the addition of some fake-eyeball-effect glasses.
The Boombox doorman’s coat was designed by Gareth Pugh, the acclaimed enfant
horrible of British fashion, many of whose fetishistic designs are
inspired by the eccentric costumes that Bowery would wear to the London
clubs The Blitz and Taboo in the Eighties.
Images of Bowery in his surreal creations feature alongside footage of
fashion shows by the cult Eighties label Bodymap in the exhibition The
Secret Public: The Last Days of The British Underground 1978-1988 at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, which invites parallels between
the influence of nightlife on fashion then and now.
“I’m definitely inspired by the club scene,” says Henry Holland, a young
British designer. “People are into dressing up again, as they were in the
Eighties, but the look has evolved. They take ideas from that era and add on
bits from other periods.”
In the early Eighties creatives, artists, designers and exhibitionists
including Boy George and the dancer Michael Clark descended on The Blitz in
bizarre outfits ranging from drag to nun costumes that gradually inspired
much of the fashion of the time, as well as designers such as John Galliano
and Kim Jones. Now, as well as stylists, artists and the kaleidoscopically
attired club kids, an edgy crowd of designers including Christopher Kane,
Gareth Pugh, Marios Schwab and Giles Deacon converge on Boombox and are
developing a quirky style that is being picked up by major international
brands and the high street. The big difference is that, unlike the early
Eighties when trends stayed underground for much longer, in the MySpace era
they move into the mainstream in a matter of months. Stefan Kalmar, a
curator at the ICA, says: “The media culture sheds light on new scenes as
soon as they appear.”
The escapist DIY aesthetic that characterised the Eighties underground scene
explored at the ICA prevails at London clubs such as Antisocial and All You
Can Eat, even though the clothes are not all Eighties-influenced. Popular
items of clothing include orange wigs, ski goggles and jackets, loudly
patterned tracksuits, gold or fluorescent leggings, Timmy Mallett specs with
the glass missing, hi-top trainers, neon body paint and Adam Ant-style
make-up. Yes, all at once. And yes, Timmy Mallett seems to be a style icon,
along with Sue Pollard and Jimmy Savile.
Steve Slocombe says: “There are definite echoes of the Eighties club scene,
but this is the supermarket of style: it’s the Seventies, Eighties and
Nineties all in one outfit – sometimes even in one item.”
At a party hosted by Pop magazine at London Fashion Week, the
photographer Oggy Jordan agreed that “there is a really strong identity to
London club kids. The look is part new romantic, part punk, part goth, part
nu-rave/electro and part hip-hop/ bling, which mixed together produces a
unique look. It is centered around the Shoreditch scene (made up of fashion
students and creatives) and the gay scene. The gay scene is a big part of
it, and in London it is much more integrated than anywhere else in the
world.”
The nu-rave element is one of the strongest influences and is sweeping
into the mainstream. The teen television drama Skins featured a
nu-rave scene with characters wearing neon hooded tops; and Topshop is
stocking a “save the rave” slogan T-shirt and other rave items.
Slocombe says that this is the most interesting fashion movement for years,
and is a reaction against depressing realities – as it was in the Eighties,
he claims.
Mandi Lennard, a press officer who looks after Gareth Pugh and Henry Holland,
adds: “Many people on this scene were brought up believing that the future
would be bright and shiny and exciting. It’s the future now and it’s not
really like that. They are reinventing it how they thought it would be.”
While Kalmar contends that the look lacks the political agenda of the Eighties
underground, it is not without social significance. This could be the
beginning of a new phase of antifashion – the goal being to liberate
yourself from the bourgeois concept of “good taste”.
In a culture of increasing trophy consumerism, culminating in the WAGs and
Louis Vuitton launching a £23,484 bag, the cheap individuality of what Super
Super calls maxi-maximalism (ie, piling on everything at once) and
sartorial Prozac brights makes a refreshing change: the elements may be
retro but the mix feels new.
Christopher Kane and Karen Walker both used club-style neon in their current
collections, and there is no doubt that major designers will be aware of
fashions on the London club scene – after all, the Boombox clan hosted a
party last Milan Fashion Week.
Balenciaga’s autumn/winter 2007 show featured loudly patterned jackets and
Adam Ant-style make-up, and for this season Miuccia Prada has created bright
neon handbags. While her autumn/winter 2007 collection isn’t exactly
clubwear, its mismatched mix of lumpy fake-fur coats and plastic spangled
skirts certainly shunned the tyranny of good taste. Last season she
pronounced herself “bored of retro prettiness”, and this season “fed up of
couture, fed up of volume, fed up of everything”.
Fashion-wise, where Miuccia Prada boldy goes, the rest of us usually follow.
If she is ready to throw off the shackles of safe good taste, we should be
braced for a brave new fashion world.
The Secret Public: The Last Days of The British Underground 1978-1988
is at the ICA until May 6
Club style then
Places: Billy’s; The Blitz; Taboo
People: Leigh Bowery; Steve Strange; Boy George; Adam Ant
Fashion: Bodymap catsuit; Adam Ant-style stripes of make-up
Music: Spandau Ballet; Visage
Club style now
Places: Chalk at The Scala; Boombox at The Hoxton Bar and Grill; All
You Can Eat at Electrowerkz
People: Carrie Mundane, designer whose clothes interpret computer
graphics; DJ Jodie Harsh; designer Henry Holland
Fashion: American Apparel gold lamé leggings; Barry M fluorescent nail
varnish
Music: Crystal Castle’s remix of Atlantis to Interzone by
the Klaxons; Electro booty; grime; baile (Brazilian) funk
Club fashion for squares
OK, so the Boombox scene is about dressing without rules, but ideology
schmideology – you want to incorporate a few rave references, not resemble a
raving idiot.
Ditch the “It” bag in favour of a computer-generated print shopper from
Topshop. Or any cotton shopper. Also forget the Louis Vuitton leather
laundrette bag: one drag queen at Boombox was spotted with a real laundrette
bag.
Give yourself instant edge by swapping last year’s giant Jackie O shades for
wacky sunglasses (and overcome your fear of the word wacky) – try Cutler and
Gross’s pink neon shades or Ray-Ban Wayfarers with a white frame.
Avoid all-over neon. Instead try neon accessories such as asos.coms’s neon
acrylic bangle, or kitsch plastic jewellery such as Tatty Devine’s record
earrings.
You don’t have to draw a lightning stripe on your face to look, er, striking.
Swap nude lipstick for hot coral or pink, and safe taupe eyeshadow for
electric yellow or blue. Just don’t wear both at once.
Revel in not being a size zero – remember, Leigh Bowery was horizontally
challenged. Club fashion is about celebrating diversity, not starving
yourself.
Or . . . wear your whole wardrobe at once and shake your derriere like you
just don’t care about looking good.
