Spandau Ballet, The Birth Of The New Romantics & 1980s Fashion

7th October 2014

Fashion can show a snapshot of a culture, a snapshot of a generation. This capability means that nothing tends to be left alone in the wake of fashion and it is particularly true for Vivienne Westwood. She has shown us all how culturally engaged her fashion is by parading models adorned with ‘Vote Yes’ to Scottish Independence badges at London Fashion Week, but it has not always been this way. Instead the beginning of her career saw Westwood help create a culture, the New Romantic culture, which saw bands like Spandau Ballet become global fashion icons as well as famous for their music. Their fashion, music and rise to fame have now been documented in a film, Soul Boys of the Western World, where we get a real insight into this culture in which fashion is such a major influence.

Westwood’s first catwalk collection changed the face of the music scene more drastically than she can ever hope to change the current political scene. Her 1981 ‘Pirate’ collection remodelled a punk obsessed era, blasting their studs and leather out of the water with romance and history. Quite literally reminiscent of pirates, this collection burst onto the London scene and was soon adopted by all those that frequented the super cool Blitz Club. The Blitz Club was a hub for newly emerging fashion and music, this mixture of Westwood and Blitz created the perfect snapshot of a generation trying to make their lives that bit more glamorous in a shattering economic downturn. It was at the heart of The Blitz Club that the band Spandau Ballet existed, and with the band catapulted into the heights of fame, Westwood’s fashion went also.

But Vivienne Westwood as a designer was not alone in finding notoriety through the New Romantic scene; Spandau Ballet called upon many Blitz Club regulars to dress their road to stardom and they were designers that to this day go down in fashion history. One of these Blitz Kids was the milliner Stephen Jones who continues to show at London Fashion Week, collaborate with Westwood and Galliano, and radicalises the world of hats. He made outlandish creations to top off Spandau Ballet’s stage outfits and joined them in the wild parties at The Blitz Club.

Then there was the time back in the eighties that Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp once bought a frilly shirt from a young guy – keen to put as much effort into his outfits as the whole scene was. However this shirt was not quite ordinary, with the designer having written his name in the collar. This young guy happened to go by the name John Galliano; it was the now shamed fashion designer fired from Dior in 2011 that had given Spandau Ballet one of his earliest designs.

The New Romantic fashion changed mainstream culture in a way that Westwood’s political badges in 2014 just can’t live up to, and Spandau Ballet, permanently draped in androgynous clothing and a beret or two, became the epitome of New Romantics.

SOUL BOYS OF THE WESTERN WORLD will be in cinemas across the UK & Ireland on Tuesday 30 September including a live satellite performance from the Royal Albert Hall by Spandau Ballet. Tickets are on sale now from www.spandauballetthemovie.com . The film is on general release from 3 October.

Facebook

Google

Twitter

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.