As someone who grew up in London, I’ve always been innately attracted to the club scene – particularly the fashion elements of it. Fashion’s bond with alt-club culture/the club kid has always remained steadfast, and this is shown through the revival of some exquisite illustrations by Tony Viramontesgo featuring ‘80s high profile designers and icons that frequented the scene (both in person and through their art) including Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace, Simon Le Bon, Roger Taylor, Leslie Winer and more, along with the Club To Catwalk exhibition that is running at the V&A until Feburary 2014.
The exhibition highlights the upsurge in popularity of the ‘80s alt-club scene, and how it, by default, played a pivotal role in moulding and defining the trends in pop culture. What we essentially see today as street-style to catwalk it had the same and the inverse effect.
The decade highlighted various prominent names in the fashion industry such as Katharine Hamnett, Betty Jackson and John Galliano; names who are considered as pioneers in correlating the world of fashion and nightlife.
Style in the late 1980s had transformed into a relentless influential hype (which does make me kinda nostalgic for that era), mainly due to the presence of the world renowned fashion designers that dominated every dance club in the city. Apart from the designs of popular clothes designers, club goers were also becoming fond of parading new looks inspired by various music artists around the globe…and this essentially became a platform for couturiers to show off their club creations on the catwalks.
Of course, the mainstream music scene was also inversely affected by this – it is hard for us to even pinpoint a defined aesthetic since the year 2000 – essentially the 80s and 90s (and all of the decades before) shaped pop culture and all references seem to tie back to that (in pop music at least).
The Face (which someone desperately needs to bring back as a publication) pioneered the transcendence between fashion and music in print media and created a physically and historical sense of belonging for the two fields, and resulting in a mainstream trickle effect where clothing such as denims and blouses/shirts from M&S (the epitome of high street at the time) replicated the looks from the club scene.
How the club-kid fashion culture has evolved into a set of entrepreneurial tastemakers (Daniel Lismore, Jodie Harsh, Matthew Camp), and how global talent such a Amanda Lepore have set the bench mark for this is going to be the most exciting evolution to watch and experience.