Paul Gorman is…

Exclusive installation shots from North: Identity, Photography, Fashion

Jan 5th, 2017

//Mannequin, New Power Studio, Autumn/Winter 2010 – Spring/Summer 2012. Wall: Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, 1995-2001, Jason Evans//

//Set design, Tony Hornecker, 2016. Film: Stylist Simon Foxton discusses growing up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, produced in collaboration with SHOWstudio, 2016//

I am very grateful to curators Adam Murray and Lou Stoppard for these exclusive installation shots from their exciting exhibition North: Identity, Photography, Fashion, which opens in a couple of hours at Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery.

Exploring the influence of England’s northern cities and landscape on fashion and visual culture, the show presents the work of such vital image-makers as Alasdair McLellan – who has created his first film installation for public display at North – as well as Jamie Hawkesworth, Glen Luchford and Nick Knight.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Angie Bowie, Freddie Burretti, City Lights Studio, Ola Hudson, Kansai Yamamoto: My essay on the important factors in David Bowie’s style changes 1972-76 now live on SHOWStudio

Mar 25th, 2016

oooh

My essay on David Bowie’s style changes 1972-76 is now on Oooh Fashion!, SHOWStudio’s current celebration of the late performer which also includes rare footage of Nick Knight’s photo-shoots for the 1993 album Black Tie White Noise and the 2003 British Vogue session of Kate Moss in Bowie stagewear.

oooh3

//Still from film of Nick Knight’s December 2002 London Black Tie White Noise shoot on SHOWStudio’s David Bowie: Oooh Fashion!//

oooh4

//Kate Moss in the Life On Mars Freddie Burretti suit from the film of the 2003 British Vogue shoot, also on David Bowie: Oooh Fashion!//

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fabulousness: Rarely-seen footage of Kansai Yamamoto’s game-changing 1971 King’s Road catwalk show

Mar 19th, 2016

yam14yam5IMG_2164

“It was a spectacular coup de théâtre – Kansai’s models came on moving. They leapt, ran, whirled like dervishes, danced, flung out their arms so that the brilliant colours meshed and merged into a kaleidoscopic cartoon of colour. Kansai himself, black-clothed and masked, moved across the stage like a Samurai warrior, tearing off layers and layers of clothes, stripping down the beautiful, pyramidal outer garments, right down to the vests and body paint. Kansai’s clothes épatent les couturiers.”

Harpers & Queen, July 1971

As fuzzy as they are, the two precious video clips at the end of this post convey the game-changing nature of  Kansai Yamamoto’s theatrical introduction of avant-garde Japanese fashion design to these shores at the dawn of the 70s.

They also reveal the extent to which the late David Bowie subsequently drew on Yamamoto’s flamboyance and daring when presenting Ziggy Stardust on stage.

Several of the designs were worn by Bowie in performance during live promotion, in particular of the Aladdin Sane album, and he also adopted the sleight-of-hand layered costume reveals, the emphatic postures of the models and even the flame-red hair colouring as seen on the huge wig worn in the first excerpt below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Be Reasonable: Fashion’s finest discuss McLaren & Westwood’s influence at first public screening of 80s catwalk footage

Nov 5th, 2015
benloudean

//Ben Reardon, Lou Stoppard + Dean Mayo Davies. Photos: Diane Pernet, Nik Hartley + SHOWstudio//

buffsav1

//Stills from Savages and Nostalgia Of Mud McLaren/Westwood catwalk collections, staged October 1981 and March 1982 respectively. Courtesy Malcolm McLaren Estate//

The cream of British fashion journalism – Dean Mayo Davies, Ben Reardon and Lou Stoppard – will be discussing the indomitable body of design work produced by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at tomorrow’s event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

‘Gorman sidesteps the obvious’: Praise from Gwarizm for my contribution to PRINT @ SHOWStudio

Aug 6th, 2015

gwarizm

It’s flattering to receive praise from a tastemaker of the standing of Gary Warnett, who has posted on his Gwarizm blog about my recent cult magazine chat with SHOWStudio editor Lou Stoppard for her Print project.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lipstick: Read Perry Ogden on the style magazine he launched at Eton in 1979

Aug 3rd, 2015

 

148192_960n

//Front cover, Lipstick, 1979//

The next instalment of SHOWStudio’s cult magazine series PRINT is an interview with photographer Perry Ogden about the extraordinary circumstances which led him to launch the style magazine Lipstick while he was an 18-year-old attendee at Eton College.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , ,

PRINT @SHOWStudio: Interviewed by Lou Stoppard and shots from my magazine archive

Jul 21st, 2015

print3

The launch of SHOWStudio’s new series PRINT features an interview with me by editor Lou Stoppard about my magazine archive.

There is also a section dedicated to images from the archive, including front covers, spreads and ads.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Print @ ShowStudio: Lou Stoppard on the abiding allure of inspirational and off-the-map magazines

Jun 26th, 2015

21.40_Jean_Harlow_p.40_115 copy 33.05_grandroyal_beastie207 copy 13.00_h&q_them_p.208_209176 copy ClubInte_malcolm_p58_59_135

//Magazines from my archive (clockwise from top left): Creem, August 1974; Grand Royal #3, 1995; Club International, August 1973; Harpers & Queen, October 1976//

2.40_afdark_sep74_cover167 benisdead_retrohell_cove204

//After Dark, September 1974; Ben Is Dead #26, 1996//

I’m one of the contributors to Print, writer Lou Stoppard’s forthcoming celebration of the great fashion and music magazines of the past and present.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last few days of Punk @ SHOWStudio: Why this exhibition is true to the wit, elegance and design skills of the McLaren/Westwood partnership

Nov 18th, 2013

//One wall of the ShowStudio Punk exhibition//

In the period 1972-78 when the body of the partnership’s punk fashions were created, Malcolm McLaren’s art education and development as a largely conceptual visual artist was applied with Vivienne Westwood’s intuitive and sophisticated technical skills.

The resultant potency of the work was achieved by such factors as: balance in the proportions; deft use of juxtaposition; confidence in realisation; jarring harmony in the use of colour; wit in the application of motifs; and astute sense of framing, particularly of text and visual imagery.

Excerpt from introduction to my review of the McLaren/Westwood designs in the Costume Institute collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, summer 2013.

Precision, deftness, balance, harmony, these are terms unjustly omitted from the standard  critical lexicon applied to punk’s central design aesthetics as conceived and realised by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and their coterie.

Which is why Punk @ ShowStudio, the elegant exhibition which is now moving into its final week at photographer Nick Knight’s Belgravia gallery, is to be applauded, since it avoids the run-of-the-mill in favour of recognition of the importance of these qualities.

“I was very impressed. It was inspiring to see what I like to call ‘the origins of Punk’ as opposed to the usual well documented ‘greatest hits of Punk’,” the collector/archivist/author Paul Burgess wrote to me recently.

//Part of Judy Blame's contribution to the exhibition//

Read more about Punk @ ShowStudio here.
The exhibition is open every day 11am-6pm until Friday at 19 Motcomb Street, London SW1X 8LB.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Coming this week: Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered Carnaby Echoes + Nick Knight’s PUNK at Showstudio

Sep 1st, 2013

//Clockwise from top left: Cover, Helen And Desire, 1970; George O'Dowd, photo: Richard Bevan, 2013; Carnaby Street book and Palisades swing tag, 1970 and 1966; front cover, Anarchy In The UK newsprint fanzine, 1976//

I’m involved in a couple of events which open in London this week: artist Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered project Carnaby Echoes in the West End and photographer Nick Knight’s exhibition Punk at his Showstudio space in SW1.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,