The Cloth, Summer Summit (1985) by Anita Corbin
The 1980s are synonymous with shoulder pads, leg warmers and poodle perms. In fact, it’s universally acknowledged that this is the era that style taste and good taste forgot. Club to Catwalk, a new exhibition at the V&A, is aiming to re-dress the balance, providing a comprehensive overview of London’s creative club culture and the impact that it had on fashion across the globe.
London was well placed to initiate a fashion revolution. London Fashion Week was established in 1984 and the Clothes Show (which first aired in October 1986) disseminated fashion to the masses, inspired by the flamboyant creations from young designers at the city’s art and fashion colleges. For them, dressing up was a way of life.
Trojan and Mark at Taboo, 1986. Image courtesy Derek Ridgers
Curator Claire Wilcox has divided the exhibition space into two distinct areas – Catwalk and Club. In ‘Catwalk’ Katharine Hammett’s slogan t-shirts and Betty Jackson’s vibrant prints sit alongside menswear ensembles from John Galliano. But there is also an emphasis on those designers who didn’t make it through – including Chrisse Walsh and John Flett.
London fashion was a very different industry than it is today, as a quote from Wendy Dagworthy highlights. ‘I never had an official launch. I never thought ‘Right, I’m going to start my own label’. A refreshing anecdote, considering the online and offline hype and hysteria that now accompanies fashion shows and product launches, and a reminder that many of the designers showcased were in it for love and fun, not fame and money.
Upstairs, Club takes inspiration from London’s vibrant and eclectic club scene. Nights at Taboo, Billy’s and Blitz actively encouraged creative and theatrical attire; club-goers who were deemed unimaginative could, and often were, refused entry. The club scene spawned multiple subcultures, from the Adam Ant led New Romantics, the rockabilly and Brando-inspired Hard Times and Glam Fetish, a glam-rock mash-up that incorporated rubber and leather.
Jonathan Batcaye, 1983. Image courtesy Derek Ridgers
Static fashion exhibitions often struggle to convey mood and emotion, the mannequins and clothes seem to be frozen in time and are difficult to contextualise. Thankfully, the V&A mostly overcomes this, utilising some excellent archive footage from catwalk shows to club scenes. Visual artist Jeffrey Hinton has also created a pop-up club space that mixes visual and audio clips and comes close to recreating the heady scenes. According to Wilcox, members of the team kept getting lost, ‘ only to be found in there, dancing away’.
The crossover designers, and one of the highlights of the exhibition, are BodyMap, whose designs were born in the streets and sharpened in the studio. Founders Stevie Stewart and David Holah found inspiration everywhere, from Dr Seuss to Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish and contemporary graphics, and created garments that eschewed fashion in favour of a ‘look’ and a distinctive personal style. If there’s one lesson to take away from this reinterpretation of the 1980s that might just be it: mix it up, create it yourself and do it your way.
Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s is showing at the V&A until February 16 2014.
This post originally appeared on Running In Heels.
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