Beyond the legwarmers: 80's fashion remembered

IT’S A common misconception that the Eighties were all about shoulder pads and leg warmers, Dynasty and Duran Duran.

Of course such things featured in the decade, but just as punk burst from of the bloated prog rock and flares of the Seventies, the Eighties’ subculture was all about cutting-edge clubbing.

And clubbing was all about the clothes. Forget disco — Eighties club expression came out of the art schools and fashion colleges, in tiny sweaty club nights that would in time become legendary, staffed by fashion freaks who had become household names by the end of the decade. Boy George began his career as a club cloakroom attendant, sometimes dressed as a gothic nun. Steve Strange was a doorman of the most intimidating kind.