The Fashion and Textile Museum in London presents Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London, an exhibition spotlighting the iconic nightclub Taboo, founded by designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery in 1985.

The year is 1986. The setting is the intensely gaudy interior of Taboo, a newly opened basement discotheque in Leicester Square. The people are clad in kitsch wigs, gimp masks and garish make-up. Taboo’s impresario, Leigh Bowery, glides into frame on towering platform shoes and a tailored dress, his face hidden behind a Rorschach of colour. Bowery summons us into his tattered world of vice.

Until the opening of Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London in October, the opening scene of Lana Pellay’s Pistol in My Pocket music video was one of the last impressions of Taboo. The Fashion and Textile Museum’s exhibition unearths Bowery’s legacy and spotlights Taboo as a motivating catalyst for the fashion designers, writers, performers and filmmakers that have since emerged and revolutionised contemporary arts. The exhibition, as co-curator NJ Stevenson describes it, is “more outrageous, more extravagant, more fabulous, more obscene, more crazy than anything else.” Bowery would want nothing less.

Opening in 1985, Taboo flirted with transgressions. The door policy—dress as though your life depends on it or don’t bother—was law. It dared its clientele, including Boy George, John Galliano and George Michael, to self-express in the most absurd and theatrical ways. The club’s psychedelic lighting and cramped dancefloor encouraged such defiant sexual conventions that ‘polysexual’ became a well-known descriptor for both the club and its owner. On the club’s subcultural approach to aesthetics and sex, Stevenson remarks, “There were no restrictions. It was a space where you behaved in whatever way you wanted to.”

Bowery's taste for deviance began in his youth in the stiflingly small Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, where he itched for anything more than small-town drab. Infatuated with London’s New Romantics and the alternative club scene spilling from his copies of The New Musical Express, Bowery decided to move to London at the ripe age of 19, with little more than a portable sewing machine in his bag. Between nights spent working at Burger King and partying at Blitz, he descended onto the fringes of London’s club circuit. He also took up a market stall at 49/53 Kensington High Street, past the smokers and metalheads, . to sell clothes alongside friend Rachel Auburn. Inspired by the rebellious attitudes of earlier punk movements and the excesses of glam rock, Bowery’s early creations knocked off Vivienne Westwood icons. The availability of squats, low-cost council flats and student grants provided Bowery with the financial freedom to experiment without the pressure of commercial viability. "Young designers were supported by figures like Joan Burstein, who owned the boutique Browns. She would attend graduate shows and invite promising young graduates to display their collections in the boutique’s windows," Stevenson illuminates. "For instance, John Galliano got his first step on the ladder of success when Burstein showcased his graduate collection in Browns' window.” Bowery’s passion for design was quickly overshadowed by the demands of mass garment-making. He decided he ought to pay homage to the very thing that attracted him to London: the nightlife.

“It was Bacchanalia. It was complete and utter mayhem,” Stevenson tells me when asked about Taboo’s comings and goings. The only acceptable badges of honour after leaving were lipsticked kisses from fraternising in bathroom stalls or patchwork bruises inflicted by the mayhem of the dancefloor. Bowery orchestrated this madness, sometimes hoisting individuals over his shoulders, spinning them around, and throwing them back into the crowd. Other times, “A particular track would come on. Say, for example, ‘Pistol in My Pocket’. Dancer Michael Clark would choreograph dances and everyone would learn them at home. Then at night, they'd get up and perform them on the dance floor.” The choreography was designed to bewilder. Stevenson recalls a bizarre combination of ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ and the Nazi salute. Though provocative and absurd, she describes it as akin to marking one’s territory or swearing fealty to Taboo’s community. “Without fail, everyone would end up on the floor. People have told me that if you didn’t wake up the next day with bruises and cuts, you didn’t have a good time.”

Fashion was also a talking point. “People would go along, taking note of what everyone else was wearing. They’d think I need to up my game. The following week, they'd return, one-upping their previous look. There was a real competitive spirit about how you looked and people were constantly pushing those boundaries,” Stevenson tells me. Underwhelmingly dressed guests were stopped by doorman Mark Vaultier, who would hold up a mirror and pose the question, “Would you let yourself in?”. Bowery was a servant to the outlandish, with several of his most memorable looks verging on grotesque. He would incise his own cheeks to insert safety-pin piercings and gaffer tape his body to assume a feminine silhouette with a full ‘bust’. He could be identified from afar by the flame-like extravagance of his spiked headpieces. Up close, his eyes and lips—dramatised cartoonishly with black face paint—were unnerving.

Bowery’s subversive style electrified the pages of i-D and The Face. In one spread, his figure is drenched in Plasticide make-up and gemstones, appearing more like a bejewelled deity than a human. These magazines, and media in general, were instrumental in nurturing Bowery’s cult of obscurity, especially as he relished being misunderstood. It was Bowery’s persona that led swarms of television crews, photographers and journalists to Taboo’s doors, with the general public similarly bewildered by his luridness. After one of these photographers exposed the use of ecstasy in the club, the Westminster Council forced Taboo to close its doors. It had only been running for 18 months.

Soon after the close, Bowery followed his calling for the stage. During a 1990 AIDS benefit cabaret at Fridge, Bowery turned his back to the audience and sprayed an enema into the crowd. As part of a performance at Kinky Gerlinky in 1994, Bowery ‘gave birth’ to his wife Nicola Bowery—she burst through his tights coated in stage blood and sausage links. Sue Tilley’s biography features a conversation she had with the provocateur where he stated, “If I have to ask, ‘Is this idea too sick?’ I know I’m on the right track.” For his AW09 collection, McQueen's design discernment borrowed heavily from Bowery's use of the body in eliciting sexual revulsion. The models' lips were slathered in blood-red lacquer, imitating Bowery's signature sex doll get-up. Rick Owens' 2015 human backpack collection was inspired by a photograph of the harness Bowery used to secure Nicola to his midsection during his 'Birthing' performance.

Bowery’s exploits have been described as sleazy, campy, and bitchy. Such epithets fall short when describing his magnitude, though. In the 1986 documentary South of Watford, he ponders, “Am I part of British fashion? Am I part of anything? Am I part of the universe?” The Fashion Museum’s exhibition, which has drawn significant crowds and generated a newfound interest in the multi-hyphenate, can speak for itself. 

The Fashion and Textile Museum’s exhibit opens with a recreation of Bowery’s apartment—often broken into by neighbourhood thugs. Star Trek wallpaper clashes with UV lights in a carnival of intensely coloured furniture and maximalist decor. In the recreation,  visitors can stand before a mirror where Bowery predictably applied drops of Copydex to his scalp in mimesis of trailing raindrops. They can also ruminate in a similar spot to where Bowery and close friend Sue Tilley catalogued their shoplifted spoils after days of manning clothing stalls at the Kensington Markets.

The Fashion and Textile Museum's models of the Kensington Markets similarly rearticulate the provocative, anti-establishment tone of the original. The three-story indoor markets, located on Kensington High Street, served as a crucible for subcultures and alternative fashion. The likes of Pam Hogg, BodyMap, and Red or Dead challenged the status quo—whether through their use of the newly developed viscose fabric in edgy designs or DIY punk-inspired tatters. The exhibition showcases an array of pieces, including a bishop's mitre paired with a silver, low-cut blouse, hot pants accessorised with belts running down the mannequin’s legs à la Jean Paul Gaultier, and a tailored dress rearranging the Union Jack. “Nobody was particularly concerned about having a business plan. It was far more about embracing creativity, doing whatever they wanted, having fun, and enjoying the freedom and independence of not working for someone else,” Stevenson opines.

A tableau vivant of Adel Roostein mannequins is arranged on the museum’s simulation of Taboo’s dancefloor. Designed by David Cabaret, the mannequins imitate the club’s habitués, lounging under the mirrorball’s swirling atmosphere. Some of the garments, designed by BodyMap and John Crancher (among others), were loaned out by their original owners. Highlights include a red and green spotted coat with an exaggerated collar made for Michael Clark by Bowery himself. The exhibit also contains a recording of Lana Pellay trying on the cobalt coat she donned in the Pistol In My Pocket music video, designed by Bowery. David Cabaret’s infamous Bumps Outfit, a fusion of sci-fi and pop art featuring a monochrome catsuit panelled and stuffed with foam, is also on display.

"Tell them I've gone to Papua New Guinea," were Bowery’s instructions to his closest friends to prevent news of his AIDS-related illness and subsequent hospitalisation. This phrase became the title of a 2022 exhibition at Fitzrovia Chapel, which inspired Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London. While thirty years have passed since Bowery's death, his legacy still endures. As the Fashion and Textile Museum's exhibit proves, his influence has seeped into every facet of the arts. Rest assured, he would have taken great pleasure in his influence.

Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London continues at Fashion and Textile Museum, London, until 8 March 2025. Tickets available