+++ ◼ AN ENORMOUS NEW CACHE of photographs of the Blitz Club in colour has been discovered from the spring of 1980 when the UK media started to take an interest in the Tuesday-night antics of the nightlife posers at Covent Garden’s Blitz Club. They were to become celebrated as the Blitz Kids by some and as New Romantics by others. Until this moment it has been easy to count the number of surviving professional pictures ever taken inside the Blitz during its 20-month life – all of them in black-and-white – and the total doesn’t even approach 100.
Now a call to Shapers of the 80s by the British photographer Terry Smith has unearthed probably 300 more images, commissioned by Time magazine. Many of them are in glorious colour, shedding extra light on the creativity of the night-owls who were in the throes of transforming the fashion and pop landscape of Britain in the Swinging 80s.
Shapers of the 80s today showcases the first of four batches of Terry’s pictures capturing the Blitz in colour, while a selling exhibition of his black-and-white images is preparing to open on 7 June in St Leonards-on-Sea.
The Great Escape, 2011: Judith Frankland prepares to break out from Newcastle at dawn this morning within the 20kg baggage allowance. Photograph by Joanne Lodge
❚ MOST OF BRITAIN MAY BE SWELTERING in a historic autumn heatwave. Yet Judith Frankland, the ex-Blitz Kid fashion designer, flew out of Tyneside this morning to establish her business in Germany swathed in vital garments she couldn’t pack within the 20kg baggage allowance. “This is my idea for getting as many clothes onboard as possible,” she said. “I’m wearing three topcoats: first a black full-length fake-fur, then stuffing myself inside a black lightweight down to the ankles, then the grey mountain-goat shortie. On top, loads of jewels of course, and in the pockets loads more bling. Down below, I’m in leather biker’s pants, heavy and warm, plus Harley Davidson boots.”
Biker leathers, darling??? “No of course I’m not going bikey, don’t be daft! They are simply so warm and cost only 50p brand new in a car-boot sale. I know I’m going to get beeped at security for my jewellery — changing planes last time at Schiphol, my steel-tipped stilettos set off the alarm. But if they stop me, I’ll be prepared for them, like Maria von Trapp. I’m going to say I’m anorexic and feeling the cold.”
This is how an upstart style princess prepares herself for Berlin, plus new-look hair, cut last night and freshly rinsed pink. She means business. A modest container is already being shipped by Voovit, bringing Judith’s sewing machines, her dramatically retro promotional collection for The Woman Who Likes To Say Hello shown this year in Newcastle upon Tyne, plus a ton more bling (she does have a way with black baubles and gilded chain). Yes, this is the great adventure to build a new life for one of the wild children of the Swinging 80s whose best break came the month she graduated from Ravensbourne art college when David Bowie dropped in at the Blitz Club and chose to put her and her clothes in his landmark video for Ashes to Ashes. [And which Shapersofthe80s displays as the picture heading this website. The New Romantics were utterly in thrall to Bowie.]
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Having taken the temperature of Berlin on an exploratory trip this July, Judith has been scouting the smart district of Prenzlauer Berg for a workshop-cum-living quarters, with another eye on up-market boutiques through which to retail in the short-term.
Judith says: “My main plan is to create high fashion for women who love clothes that are beautiful but avant-garde and might even be called art. I’ve left England to seek fresh inspiration and shall be presenting my outfits next season in Paris in order to re-establish links with buyers who don’t visit London — from Japan and the Far East, for example.”
Judi’s lesson learnt in July: in Berlin an umbrella is no protection from the elements. Photograph by Shapersofthe80s
It is eight years since Judith’s previous bespoke design business blew up in her face. She has described on her blog at The Swelle Life how the American backer behind her Paris-based atelier suddenly got cold feet and hot-footed it back to the States, leaving Judith as the designer holding the baby. This more or less coincided with her mother’s health failing, whereupon Judith returned to Tyneside to care for her.
In Berlin, Judith has not been short of advice from friends made during her ten-year spell in Milan in the 90s designing and hosting nightclubs. Several friends are now relocated to Berlin, including photographer and videographer Sandro Martini. The Dutch costumier Eppo Dekker, who has a boutique called Prêt-à-Couture in Friedrichshain, has also been helping Judith make contacts in the city. Immediate plans include designing stage-wear for the underground performer Antal Nemeth.
“Meanwhile,” Judith says, “this weekend I’m heading down to a vintage Zupermarket run by the Sameheads brothers — they say rich ladies bring in their sparkly clothes for sale and nobody goes away unhappy.”
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Punk power: Judith Frankland models her own design Dare To Wear Fur from her collection for The Woman Who Likes to Say Hello. Photography by Denise Grayson. Above left, Pink Power, for the woman who holds her own in a man’s world. Illustration by Manny More
+++ ❚ THE GLOVES ARE OFF. Onetime Blitz Kid Judith Frankland aims to return to the couture fashion scene at London Fashion Week in September. During two decades spent abroad, she mixed bespoke design with nightclub promotion which in Italy won her membership of i guerrieri della notte — the warriors of the night.
Today in her fashion blog at The Swelle Life, she declares that ultimately “my passion is for fashion” as she unveils yet another outfit in her new collection designed for “The Woman Who Likes to Say Hello”.
She writes: “The seven outfits are part of a work in progress to be finished very soon in anticipation of presenting a small collection next Fashion Week in London. It is the first I have undertaken in eight years.”
Alongside Judith’s latest chapter in her progress back into fashion, Denise Grayson shoots her in the bold jacket (above) that eyeballs the woman who dares to wear fur (or at least, who dares to fake it).
Regular readers know Judith as one of the faces in the masthead atop Shapersofthe80s — grabbed from Bowie’s 1980 Ashes to Ashes video when she was dressing like a singing nun. So it’s no surprise that the new fur-woman silhouette evokes a more subversively punk spirit in contrast to previous separates in the new collection which combine power motifs with hints of romantic vulnerability. Manny More’s delicious illustration (above left) affirms the feminine bows and understated lace dress of a powerbroker’s outfit for the woman in a man’s boardroom — while the tightly knotted kipper tie provides a slap in the eye for the male chauvinist who is deceived by the notes of pink prettiness.
Judith’s designs demand high standards of tailoring and her ambition is to collaborate with an experienced cutter. She says: “I want to explore the possibilities this can create. I would love to work with a professional pattern cutter and, frankly, I feel they do not get the applause they deserve. We can all play with and drape fabric, but boy, it takes talent to bring that to life.”
In the short-term, Judith’s mini collection is likely to turn a few heads during Newcastle’s first Fashion Week (May 14–21), a citywide initiative to champion the Tyneside Business Improvement District. Then it’s London’s turn.
❚ POWER DRESSING FOR THE WOMAN determined to make her mark seemed to be the theme of Judith Frankland’s comeback collection unveiled in Newcastle upon Tyne this weekend. With seven outfits put together from separates all juxtaposed in an immaculately tailored riot of colour and texture, this was Frankland at full throttle. Former Blitz Kid Judith herself claimed her new look was for “The Woman Who Likes to Say Hello”. Here were corporate pinstripes, nipped waists, military chains, tight collars with kipper ties, and figure-hugging contours, softened with feminine ruffles, twisted sleeves, puffball shoulders, festooned skirts and gipsy prints. The mix of fabrics included wool suiting, lace, lamé, taffeta, cotton and duchess satin. One visitor at the preview summarised the contrast between a daring sense of the contemporary and elements of period drama as “woman in the boardroom aching to be romantic heroine”. Judith wants you to “interpret these pieces as you wish — take a skirt or a top and pair it with something you love in your wardrobe. I applaud experimentation and individuality”. Her collection is showing until Friday in a mixed show of women artists.
Boardroom bosses in kipper ties — The Woman Who Likes to Say Hello collection, by Judith Frankland
The governess and the hostess — The Woman Who Likes to Say Hello collection, by Judith Frankland
Top brass and Downton flapper — The Woman Who Likes to Say Hello collection, by Judith Frankland
Top brass detail: bowtie and waistcoat in blazer suiting, by Judith Frankland
Downton flapper detail: puffball sleeve in gold brocade, by Judith Frankland
❚ WE ALL REMEMBER DESIGNER Judith Frankland’s nun-like appearance in David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes video in 1980 alongside Steve Strange who was wearing her infamous black wedding dress. Tomorrow Judith unveils her first women’s collection in eight years at the Holy Biscuit gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, in a week-long show by a mixed group of women artists. She says her new outfits are designed for “The Woman Who Likes to say Hello!”
Judith’s flyer illustrated by Manny More
They are joyous explosions of colour that, she insists, “come from within my well travelled head” — and here we’re talking the shock tactics of an eternal punkette, whose own looks veer between the immaculate cool of revue star Bea Lillie and the fruitiness of dancer Carmen Miranda. At the height of the Blitz club’s notoriety, Judith’s playful yet tailored outfits adorned Steve Strange as vocalist with Visage to become some of the most distinctive styles of the New Romantics movement. Most memorable was the taffeta jacket with medieval flourishes on the cover for Fade to Grey.
Milanese night warrior: Judith during her Pussy Galore hostess era, 1989-96
Where did the last 30 years go for Judith? She has lived more lives than the rest of us ever will, in a whirl of bespoke design partnerships and nightclub promoting from Vancouver to LA to Milan to Paris, fuelled by acerbic wit and a mighty big heart. With such landmark clubs as Pussy Galore and Chocolat City, the Italians branded her one of “i guerrieri della notte” — the warriors of the night.
In the end she returned to Tyneside to look after her ailing mum, and only now has she found the time and energy to return to the fashion fray. Judith’s last business was based in Paris and that’s where she plans to return next year. The new Winter 2011/12 collection is a modest calling card that exploits a secret stash of “school-blazer fabrics” in stripes and vibrant colourways. Judith has suffused uniform wool suitings with a positively romantic glow.
With the left hand, she has been contributing to a smart new blog called The Swelle Life, run by writer-photographer Denise Grayson. Here in her own uninhibited confessional style, Judith pays generous tribute to the inspirational circle of friends she has acquired on her travels.
Judith’s nun look from 1980, left, echoed in 2011, right. After fashion, her second passion is the film The Sound of Music. “I hate revisiting the past,” she maintains, but for her Swelle Life blog, she couldn’t resist accessorising this vintage German skirt with her own nun’s collar and cuffs. Photographs by Derek Ridgers and Denise Grayson
From Judith’s 2002 collection while living in Paris: her apartment in rue Montorgueil just by Les Halles converted into a showroom during fashion week
“ I’m an upstart and a woman like many who loves — and in my case lives — fashion and the world that lurks around it, a world I have stepped in and out of all my life. I have an excitable, excruciatingly inquisitive mind; I never stop thinking, plotting and some would say talking! I am not a lover of the term ‘On trend’; I like to say ‘On form’. Micro mini to maxi. If it feels right on the day I’ll wear it — no sheep mentality for me. I mix bargain buys, charity shop finds and my own creations. ”
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MORE INTERESTING THAN MOST PEOPLE’S FANTASIES — THE SWINGING EIGHTIES 1978-1984
They didn’t call themselves New Romantics, or the Blitz Kids – but other people did.
“I’d find people at the Blitz who were possible only in my imagination. But they were real” — Stephen Jones, hatmaker, 1983. (Illustration courtesy Iain R Webb, 1983)
“The truth about those Blitz club people was more interesting than most people’s fantasies” — Steve Dagger, pop group manager, 1983
PRAISE INDEED!
“See David Johnson’s fabulously detailed website Shapers of the 80s to which I am hugely indebted” – Political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
“The (velvet) goldmine that is Shapers of the 80s” – Verdict of Chris O’Leary, respected author and blogger who analyses Bowie song by song at Pushing Ahead of the Dame
“The rather brilliant Shapers of the 80s website” – Dylan Jones in his Sweet Dreams paperback, 2021
A UNIQUE HISTORY
➢ WELCOME to the Swinging 80s ➢ THE BLOG POSTS on this front page report topical updates ➢ ROLL OVER THE MENU at page top to go deeper into the past ➢ FOR NEWS & MONTH BY MONTH SEARCH scroll down this sidebar
❏ Header artwork by Kat Starchild shows Blitz Kids Darla Jane Gilroy, Elise Brazier, Judi Frankland and Steve Strange, with David Bowie at centre in his 1980 video for Ashes to Ashes
VINCENT ON AIR 2024
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
SEARCH our 800 posts or ZOOM DOWN TO THE ARCHIVE INDEX
UNTOLD BLITZ STORIES
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
CHEWING THE FAT
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
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