Stephen Linard, fashion designer who designed clothes for Blitz Kid David Bowie, Boy George And Spandau Ballet, died on March 10 at the age of 64 after enduring painful cancer in recent months. David Johnson recalls the life and career of the man he knew:
The press dubbed them the New Romantics and Blitz Kids and declared the ’80s the Age of Pose. Art school teacher Rosetta Brooks compared their consciously shaped poses to “street theater, which ultimately boils down to continuous performance with Gilbert and George as (individualist) post-punk incarnations in one person.” He believed that every poser was ready. Stepping forward, ticking all the boxes above, is fashion student Stephen Linard; Born 26 March 1959, he is a flamboyant Canvey Island boy who attended Southend School of Art (1975-78) and aspires to make a statement in every street or room he graces. .
Arriving at St Martin’s School of Art in London (1978-81), Linard pushed the limits of excess. Every year, sophomores staged an Alternative Fashion Show, but in May 1980 the university’s extremely freshmen middle-class students were left disarmed when Linard sent out his sensational Neon Gothic collection – Space 1999’s stunning collision of ritualistic Gothic with masonic looks. It was displayed in stores serving the Masonic Hall, just opposite the Blitz Club, the coolest nightclub in the capital.
The audience erupted with cheers. Strutting down the catwalk to the Human League came the then-unknown George O’Dowd, wearing a sharp grosgrain suit with a dog collar, a flowing post-punk mullet, Michele Clapton and Myra Falconer with a resurrected pallor beneath their shaved heads. With Fiona Dealey and Julia Fodor (now Princess Julia). While their robes were decorated with religious motifs, they also had a strange elegance. Finally, along came the talented Lee Sheldrick, who wore all white like a “space age pope” and modeled a white silk grosgrain suit with his head shaved bald to become the incarnation of the Vampire Nosferatu. There was much echo of the series’ title being adopted by the emerging Gothic movement.
A year later, Linard was determined to present men’s clothing for his diploma collection, despite the efforts of the head of the fashion department to insist on women’s clothing. In fact, he threatened to expel Linard from the university until strong internal protests in support of Linard’s pursuit of men’s clothing prevailed. Titled Reluctant Emigrés, modeled by six of his handsome clubbing friends, his collection featured sumptuously flowing cashmere coats, patchwork pinstripe trousers and city shirts, reflecting the Edwardian aura of impeccable tailoring punctuated by sharp detailing.
As Fleet Street’s Suzy Menkes put it in print, Linard’s street-savvy youngsters made a breathless impact. Historians Alan J. Flux and Daryl F. Mallett also wrote: “The clothes were an immediate hit, thoroughly masculine in a completely new way, and exciting in a way that only the truly innovative could be.” Linard gained a first-class Honors degree.
After graduation, the fashion press welcomed her. Her outrageous fashion details set the tone for two dozen of the edgiest Blitz Kids who shaped the New Romantics silhouette from the Blitz onwards. Most importantly, Linard changed his own look daily, from foppish Fauntleroy dandy to Endangered Species outfit made of animal skin to cowboy with gilt from hat to toe. Linard admitted: “The competition pushed you, especially Lee Sheldrick, to the fore. In the Warren Street slum [where they lived] You can change what you wear on Tuesday eight times to try to outdo everyone else in the Blitz.
Inspiration was everywhere. “The Blitz was an art students club,” Linard said in 2020. It was a block full of artists: Brian Clarke, Zandra Rhodes, Molly Parkin, Antony Price, Duggie Fields, Kevin Whitney and us, because it was halfway between Central School and St Martin’s. People who said ‘Oh you Blitz Kids don’t do anything’ were talking nonsense because we all did it. “We were the ones who published our work in glossy magazines long before others.”
Linard’s styles were always sought after by contemporary pop stars, from Spandau Ballet, Boy George, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Haysi Fantayzee and The Slits to U2, the Bee Gees, Womack & Womack, and even Cliff Richard and Johnny Mathis. to the great god David Bowie himself.
In 1982, the Railway Children collection of striped Edwardian coats and dresses for school girls became the first of Linard’s two womenswear collections. He was one of six budding British designers taken to Paris by Blitz Club host Steve Strange to help launch his album Anvil and also to show that Brits can be just as stylish as the French at Europe’s hippest nightclub, Le Palace.
Meanwhile, Linard’s reputation in the international fashion world continued to grow. 1983 brought the Angels with Dirty Faces collection, inspired by the Bogart-Cagney gangster film set during the depression era of the ’30s. It was both beautiful and touching and sold worldwide. That year, the hippest magazine of the day, New York, headlined a special fashion section called “The Brits Are Here”, singling out five of the UK’s leading stars as Jean Muir, Zandra Rhodes, Katharine Hamnett, Vivienne Westwood and Stephen Linard: “the best of young designers” “one of the most creative.”
From 1983 to ’86, Stephen lived in Tokyo designing for fashion giant Jun Co, and his salary, which he liked to boast, exceeded that of prime minister Margaret Thatcher. From 1989 until recently Stephen was a key player in the design team at Savile Row’s respected men’s haberdasher Drake’s.
As recently as 2018, Laird Borrelli-Persson wrote in Vogue online: “Stephen Linard deserves credit for many innovations in fashion and his presentation that we take for granted… From the Blitz Kids, whose dandy attitude had a huge influence on 1980s style one, his early work was marked not only by irreverence but also by a strong sense of expression… Linard insists that his aim was not to provoke outrage. ‘I was doing couture work and, as Sonia Rykiel says, ‘just making clothes’.”
A solo exhibition consisting of an archive of drawings, photographs and clothing titled “Total Fashion Victim” will be held from September to October 2023 in St Leonard’s-on-Sea, where he has lived since 2020 with many other former Blitz Kids. Available until 2023. Total Fashion Victim was the name of the one-night stand that Linard hosted at the Wag Club in the 1980s.
David Johnson is a freelance journalist. This piece first appeared on the website shapersofthe80s.com