Fashion shoots were little known aspect of the practice of design studio Hipgnosis, whose co-founder Storm Thorgerson died on Thursday.
In line with the approach Thorgerson and his partner Aubrey Powell took with their raft of album sleeve commissions, the series of fashion spreads Hipgnosis produced for Club International in the early 70s were visually arresting and often high concept.
Tucked away at the back of the fourth issue of British soft-porn magazine Club International was a fashion shoot featuring clothing elements which denoted the crystallisation of the new art-directed glam aesthetic inaugurated by the release of Roxy Music’s first album a couple of months later.
The photographer was Karl Stoecker, the New Yorker who had been resident in the UK since the mid-60s and was about to come into his own with important contributions to Roxy’s visual identity across that LP and its successors For Your Pleasure and Stranded.
//Stetson, embroidered shirt and hand-tooled leather belt from The Emperor Of Wyoming. Photo: David Parkinson for Club International, February 1974.//
Billy Murphy’s boutique The Emperor Of Wyoming was an extremely important staging post not just in the story of British rock and roll fashion but also the development of the vintage scene in this country.
Opened by Murphy at 408 King’s Road in 1972, TEOW specialised in selected items of Westernwear and American clothing at a time when the pickings were slim for such garments in London.
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