W ith ITV’s drama Joan on our screens and the bubble skirt back on the catwalks, the 80s are once again having a moment. An exhibition at London’s Fashion Museum, Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London , takes a different look – by going deep into the creative explosion on the dancefloors of the decade. It focuses on Taboo, a London club that lasted barely a year but was pivotal in the careers of people including the singer Boy George, the designers John Galliano and Katharine Hamnett, the choreographer Michael Clark and the performance artist Leigh Bowery , who started the club in 1985.
The exhibition charts the rise of this cohort, from bedsits (the first room is papered with the Star Trek wallpaper that Bowery had in his flat) to national TV. A section upstairs focuses on outfits created for acts such as Culture Club, Dead or Alive, Neneh Cherry and Bros to wear on Top of the Pops. Bowery was a performance artist who made his reputation with increasingly outlandish outfits worn at Taboo and other clubs.
He was painted by Lucian Freud, starred in an episode of The Clothes Show in 1986 and appeared in the window of the Anthony D’Offay gallery every day for a week in 1988. He looms large in the exhibition – and he is the focus of wider cultural interest, with an exhibition of his work planned at Tate Modern in February. There are numerous designs by Bowery here that have not been seen before, including a corseted dress he made for his friend Sue Tilley.
NJ Stevens.
