5 6 Robert Smith bought a t-shirt from me which had Stratocaster guitars printed all over it. He wore it on The Cure’s Dutch tour in 1980. That was exciting. Besides Culture Club, what other singers and bands did you design clothes for in the 1980s? In 1982, I moved to another basement workshop. Basements were always cheap because they were inevitably damp. This Dickensian dump had electric meters mounted across an entire wall with swathes of electrical cables snaking down from the workshops above. They all mysteriously disappeared into the damp brickwork, only to reappear a few yards further on. Jonny Slut from the goth band Specimen worked for me then. He turned up at my workshop one day, at 18 years old, with the highest goth mohawk you’d ever seen and asked, “Got any jobs going?” Apart from printing, he could hem dresses, sew on buttons and make the best cup of tea ever. Once an international buyer from a New York store turned up in a taxi, power-dressed in a pastel pink suit with padded shoulders and big hair. She picked her way down the stairs, a large handbag swinging on a gilt chain. Obviously used to being greeted by gibbering sycophants, she was instead was handed a mug of tea and a digestive biscuit from Jonny. When she spotted the dress rail with all the printed clothes, she had spasms of joy. She simply adored everything and yanked pieces off the rail, clutched them to her heart, and crooned over them. Even though she was on a tight schedule, she had oodles of time to see all my printed clothes. She loved and adored me. She bought nearly everything in the studio because she was going to do an entire window display on 59th Street. Two seasons later, she walked straight past me at a fashion show like I was invisible. But that’s fashion for you. In 1984, George Michael’s producer came to me and commissioned a special look for Deon Estus, Wham!’s bassist, to launch his solo career and single, “Love Hurts.” Many musicians wore pieces from No. 143 my collections for photoshoots and record sleeves. Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet and Steve Norman, who plays saxophone, wore my 1985 collection for the video “Round and Round.” Other artists and groups who wore pieces were INXS, Bananarama, Alison Moyet, Jennie Matthias of The Belle Stars, Jody Watley of Shalamar, Depeche Mode, Jermaine Stewart, The Psychedelic Furs, Fàshiön, Kylie Minogue, Toyah Willcox, Nina Hagen, Kim Wilde, and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. I also designed garments for the legendary industrial band SPK with Graeme Revell. In May 2024, Miss Vanjie wore a Sex in Heaven t-shirt on RuPaul's Drag Race! She was so close to winning! Tell me about the Foundry Days? Living in London in the 1980s, there was a lot of racism and homophobia. National Front Skinheads prowled the streets in tribalistic gangs, looking for anyone who didn’t fit. Pakistanis, Indians, Jews, and gays got beaten up regularly. I had already been working on anti-racist prints when I met Boy George and the newly formed Culture Club. They asked me to work on a special look for them. I loved the idea that all the members were from different cultures and religious backgrounds. George is from an Irish Catholic background, Jon Moss, a Jewish family, Roy Hay, an English Protestant background, and Mikey Craig is from the Caribbean culture. Inspired, I created a cultural cocktail of offbeat imagery with religious undertones. The final Culture Club look, with vivid prints and patterns, had an overriding message: celebration of diversity, appreciation of each other’s cultures, and mutual respect. The garments were sold in a shop called The Foundry, in a back lane near Carnaby Street, where George ran the shop. Culture Club was photographed wearing the collection in The Face magazine, and George and I dressed up and posed outside the shop. When “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?” became a UK No. 1 single for three weeks in October 1982, the music, the look and ideology took off in a big way.
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