From an article by Mark Holgate in Vogue:
It’s hard to imagine, but Blitz (the bar), with its Dig for Victory World War II posters, kitschy red gingham tablecloths, and wooden bar sticky from spilt beer - faithfully recreated for the exhibition - wasn’t the most obvious place for a fashion revolution to happen, yet this sartorial Winter Palace, reimagined as Blitz (the club night) changed everything. If punk was a gob in the face, then New Romanticism was putting on a tiara and forgetting you were penniless. Its favoured look - theatrical, historical, bending your gender to whatever you wanted it to be, with the absolute emphasis on individualism - still resonates today.
It certainly does!
And so it was that Hils, John-John and I - "80s Kids", all - trolled off yesterday (Saturday) for swanky High Street Kensington to the Design Museum to see its new flagship exhibition, Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s.
Oh, the memories flooded in...
Among the hundreds of fascinating, and carefully-curated, items on show - including many from personal and private collections, never usually on display - were some fabulous outfits belonging to the original club-goers, such as leather garments owned by Steve Strange, a blue tartan suit designed and worn by Chris Sullivan, an outfit designed by David Holah (the co-founder of Bodymap) for Lesley Chilkes, and ensembles created and worn by Fiona Dealey (a major contributor to the exhibition):
There were cases full of flyers, scrapbooks, photos and memorabilia of that formative era - not least Gary Kemp's handwritten lyrics for the club's "house band" Spandau Ballet's To Cut A Long Story Short [see here for that!], as well as individual focus on some of the influential style magazines - including first editions - that emerged out of this uniquely stylish era, such as The Face, i:D, New Sounds New Styles and the rest.
Back to the fashions... A selection of the fantabulosa hats created for Blitz regulars by a fellow patron, milliner Stephen Jones were prominently displayed alongside photos of their inimitable wearers:
Darla Jane Gilroy's outfit from when she joined Steve Strange and fellow regulars Judi Frankland and Elise Brazier in David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes video was among my faves on show - and we had gasps at seeing the covers of some of the most familiar LP and 7" singles that made the early '80s so special on display on one bookshelf! [How many do you recognise/did you own, dear reader? I still have a number in my collection to this day...]
[click any photo to embiggen]
The recreation of the club itself - with some cleverly-done animation from original photos that made it appear as if the familiar punters were actually dancing to the music played by a similarly-AI-generated Rusty Egan in the DJ booth - was brilliantly executed, and some of our most-treasured classics of the day were playing, here and in the audio-visual area of the exhibition.
Here are just a few of the tracks that were playing yesterday, as they were back on the dancefloor at the Blitz:
Also featured was a rather faboo excerpt of a film that brings together many of the key players from the Blitz club - including Boy George, Marilyn, Gary Kemp, Midge Ure, Andy Polaris, Robert Elms, Princess Julia, Stephen Jones, Darla-Jane Gilroy and Michele Clapton - to talk about their own recollections, which I found fascinating:
[NB you can view the whole thing here]And the last word, of course, goes to Rusty Egan:
“I don’t think Blitz invented the 80s.That was Margaret Thatcher. She was the one who created Del Boy with his Filofax. What I did was to put together a soundtrack, where everything fell into place.”
Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s is on at the Design Museum until 29th March 2026. Don't miss it!
Watch the promotional trailer:
More Blitz Kids/New Romantics here, here, here and here and here - and our visit to a similar exhibition from the early 80s club scene, Leigh Bowery's Taboo here.
