From shocking performances to extraordinary costumes, how performance artist and style icon Bowery, and his fellow "outlaws and fashion renegades", birthed a bizarre creative movement – and blazed a trail of chaos. The 1980s: it was the decade of Thatcherism in the UK, and Reaganomics in the US. Generation X came of age; MTV showcased hot new talent like Madonna and Prince.
Amid street protests and strikes, consumerism found an anthem in the movie Wall Street's memorable mantra: "Greed is good". And Joan Collins' shoulder pads on Dynasty got bigger and bigger. Meanwhile, in London, a small group of flamboyant young hedonists were stirring a cultural melting pot.
Audacious and experimental in their creativity and lifestyles, they would later be lauded as fashion trailblazers and creative visionaries. But for a few years in the 1980s, they were just having the time of their lives. Holly Johnson, singer of Frankie Goes to Hollywood , recalls, in the book Outlaws , his desired style for a night out clubbing: "Marc Bolan's androgyny and David Bowie's bird of paradise Ziggy Stardust creation were huge influences – it was a very theatrical look and that’s what we aspired to as teenagers.
We didn't want to look like everyone else, we wanted to look fabulous." The book ties in with a new exhibition, Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of Leigh Bowery's 1980s London , at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. And Johnson is just one of those recalling the styles, sounds and escapades o.
