David Bowie: a fashion legacy
If a more stylish man than David Bowie ever fell to earth then we haven’t met him. Bowie, whose death from cancer was revealed just four days after his 69th birthday on 12 January 2016, was an original. His influence and legacy in music is undisputed but second, or perhaps equal, to that was the impact he had, and continues to have, on fashion.
Somewhat poignantly never more, when gender fluidity is being celebrated with not one but two Pantone Colours of the Year and high profile figures are rejecting traditional gender constraints, is Bowie more relevant. He was exploring this theme more than 40 years ago and it was his early 1970s collaborations with Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto that solidified Bowie’s androgynous appeal.
These early ensembles, created for his Ziggy Stardust tour, included a one-legged knitted jumpsuit, a voluminous silver and black all-in-one and a short playsuit adorned in woodland animals (that Kate Moss went on to wear to collect Bowie’s Honorary Brit Award in 2014), and they have provided some of the most enduring images of his career. Their influence was evident on the catwalk as recently Spring last year at Dior Haute Couture and Jean-Paul Gaultier visited the theme in Spring 2013 in a very literal translation.
Bowie’s sharp suits have driven many a menswear show too. His mid-70s Thin White Duke persona, with his distinctive slicked-back orange hair, was referenced by Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent in Spring 2014 and also by Dries Van Noten in Autumn 2011. The mid-70s film The Man Who Fell to Earth, which featured the now iconic image of Bowie in a Fedora hat, provided the inspiration for Alber Elbaz’s Lanvin men’s show in Autumn 2011.
But the tailoring didn’t just appear on the men’s catwalk. In Spring 2010 Givenchy reprised a distinctive Freddie Burretti jacket Bowie had worn in 1973 and Miu Miu’s Autumn 2012 womenswear owed a debt to Bowie’s blue-suited Life on Mars incarnation from 1971.
In addition to the content of countless catwalk shows, Bowie has provided the musical backdrop too and mostly that’s been one song. “Fashion” was released on his Scary Monsters album in 1980. There are various theories about its meaning, but it’s widely believed to have been Bowie poking fun at the highly stylised emerging New Romantic movement of the time. Ironically the New Romantics too, borrowed heavily from Bowie (as did endless other artists who came later from Suede in the 90s to Lady Gaga in the 00s).
It is no wonder that the V&A dedicated an entire, sell-out show to Bowie’s style in 2013 (that Yamamoto one-legged jumpsuit was recreated especially, the original having long-since perished). That show introduced a new generation to the genius that was Bowie and plays a part in ensuring that, although Bowie the man may have left us all too soon, his cultural legacy will live on for years to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA27aQZCQMk
