Hi Chris,

Im currently writing my university dissertation on fashion and music between 1975 – 1985. Can you tell me a little bit about your style and look during the early 80s. It’d be a great help – it’s due in Feb 11th.

Thanks a lot!

Jenna

Dear Jenna
I hope this is not too late. Personally I went through the lot. In 69 I was a skinhead brogues, suit, Ben Sherman, Brutus, Jaytex shirts but by the early seventies, I had the longest hair in the school, but still had a Harrington jacket and DM’s on. We used to wear these flares called Loon Pants, which you could buy for 99p. Then Roxy Music came along, so it was sewing bits of leopard fabric on our Levis then back to Dr Martens, which we used to dye – this was about 1974. I also had a satin bomber jacket, glitter t shirts. We used to “get” stuff from Biba, which was an incredible shop in Kensington. I had some knee length suede patchwork boots from Ravel. I still have them, they are in quite good condition. We wore tank tops from Chelsea Girl. We used to modify our clothes, sewing patches on, bleaching jeans, jean jackets and so on. Then I got into the casual soul boy look and had these really baggy soul trousers. We used to get a lot of stuff from second hand shops, mainly suits and trousers. We also used to wear bowling shirts, which we “got” from a shop called Flip in Covent Garden. We liked the American Graffiti look with those high school college jackets that had numbers on. On the front cover of “One Step Beyond” I have got a black bowling shirt which had Chris sewn on it. This was already like that. I have some dogtooth trousers on, which I had modified, as they were 12″ baggies but I got the sewing machine out, because I was sick of that look already. [Bedders and I always wanted to get some 24″ soul baggies – as advertised in the NME]. As the years went on and we travelled the world, we absorbed various styles, for example Hawaiian shirts. We were the first people to wear black combat jackets in the UK. We got them in LA. Before that everyone wore green ones – they were all you could get. We started getting suits made. For some reason I grew my hair again. Actually it was a bet with Thommo on who could grow their hair longest. Which I won sadly. So I was wearing white 501’s with matching jacket check out the “Yesterdays Men” video, what a disaster. Well it was the mid 80’s , love..
CB