This Exhibition Unearths the Forgotten London Designers of the Eighties
Clubs are quite often tucked away on inconspicuous roads or dark alleys that aren’t likely to be passed before opening hours. Rarely are they in a tangerine and hot pink museum building.
But if you walk into the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey, you’ll come across an essence of Taboo: the legendary West End nightclub started by Leigh Bowery, where much of London’s subculture and LGBT scene in the eighties stemmed. (This time, without sticky floors.)
This club comes as part of the Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition, curated by Martin Green and NJ Stevenson as a celebration of the art, fashion and culture that derived from that space.
“We both saw the Fitzrovia Chapel exhibition about Leigh Bowery and it made us think about the bigger story around that community,” says Stevenson, as Green and her walk me around the exhibition a few days after opening.
It starts in an emulation of Bowery’s and artist Trojan’s old flat, finished with the Star Trek wallpaper that lined the walls of their abode in Stepney Green. Within this room you can find mementos of the creatives that made up Taboo.
“These have been lent by Richard Torry,” says Stevenson, as she points to a sketch of a hodgepodge of a person. “They [Bowery, Trojan and their friends] used to go to Richard's, who lived on Compton Street, Soho and play consequences. He kept all of them. You can't tell who did the head or who did the leg or whatever, but they're great snippets of that time. There's one of Margaret Thatcher there, and [pointing to a different sketch] one of a gay Catholic priest!”
If you, like me, weren’t around to witness the club for yourself, you may be surprised to see the attire that was adopted by its visitors. While you’ll likely be able to pinpoint what gets worn out-out in today’s age, the clothes on display can’t be easily categorised. Most were deeply personal to the wearer, and many of the pieces in the exhibit haven’t been unearthed since the days they were first worn. Green and Stevenson delved into the back of wardrobes and deep into attics to find the exhibitions contents.
“Clubs were kind of like the social media of the time,” says Stevenson. “That's where everyone went to find out what was going on [culturally].”
Deeper into the exhibition, you will find make-shift market stalls were many of the Taboo designers – including Pam Hogg, Red or Dead and BodyMap – would sell their designs, the Bond Street-adjacent stores, like Browns, that would stock the designers like John Galliano (you might of heard of him), as well as how new magazines of the time, like The Face and i-D, brought the clothes to pop-stars and the public.
“At that time, brands didn't mean anything,” says Green. “People [musicians, actors and creatives] were going to these designers, they weren't going to Gucci because they were for handbags, nor were they going to Dior because that was French fashion. It was different; this was a street thing.”
The central, and most striking, point of the space is the recreated Taboo dancefloor, filled with Adel Rootstein mannequins that showcase real characters from the scene. Clothes designed and worn by Leigh Bowery alongside outfits worn by Dave Cabaret, Nicola Bowery, Trojan and Sue Tilley feature.
It’s here where I eavesdrop on a conversation between a couple of visitors, who are reminiscing about their own memories of that time. I’ve never heard two people seem so happy to recount a memory of public puking.
“God, that was such a fun night!” says one of them. Thankfully, they’ll be leaving this experience with their stomach contents intact.
The Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibition is at the Fashion and Textile Museum until 9 March 2025.
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