Fashion is not just about couture, ready-to-wear and big name
designers. It’s also about putting a look together, about style,
about making a point, about belonging.
For a museum, it’s difficult to capture this phenomenon because
by it is nature it is fleeting; it is here today and gone tomorrow.
But one way to capture this is through photography.
Not just photographs taken for glossy fashion magazines but
images produced for all sorts of other purposes, to be published in
the music press, for example, in skate magazines, and even family
snapshots.
So in the re-vamped Fashion Museum we have set aside an area to
display fashion through images.
'1977' is the first of these displays.
Thirty years ago this year, punk and new wave bands played music
and wore clothes that expressed their identity and demanded
attention.
The images in this exhibition were taken by young, talented
photographers all making their names by capturing the energetic and
edgy cultural explosion known as punk.
Their photographs were printed in the music press of the day
- NME, Melody Maker and Sounds - and helped both to record
what was happening musically and to disseminate new ideas about
dressing and behaving.
The display features photographs of the following punk and new
wave bands:
The Clash, Johnny Rotten, Ari Up, The Jam, Debbie Harry, Johnny
Thunders and the Heartbreakers,
The Only Ones, Buzzcocks,
The Ramones, The Rezillos,
X-Ray Spex, Tom Robinson Band,
Ian Dury, Hugh Cornwell,
Elvis Costello, Gaye Advert,
Don Letts, Siouxie and the Banshees, Paul Weller.
The photographs are by:
Jorgen Angel
Howard Barlow
Caroline Coon
Kevin Cummins
Ian Dickson
Erica Echenberg
Jill Furmanovsky
Chris Gabrin
Doug McKenzie
Pennie Smith
Ray Stevenson
John Tygier