Fringe benefits (further thoughts on new romanticism)

So-called New Romanticism has been much on my mind of late. (a) because I’ve just secured tickets to see ABC perform the entire Lexicon of Love with full orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in April, and I’m wondering if I still fit into my gold lame jockstrap; (b) I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book called Bonfire of the Brands by a chap called Neil Boorman. Boorman was a brand fetishist, obsessed with constructing himself and judging others according to labels. He then underwent a Damascene conversion, saw how he was being hoodwinked by the black arts of marketing, and decided to destroy his colossal cache of branded schmuter in a public conflagration. What’s really interesting about the book is Boorman’s insights into how his identity and sense of self-worth had been built up over the years through the props of apparel. Like some scarecrow constructed out of designer dreams, he was entirely what he wore. He traced this tendency back to playground peer pressure, and turning up to school in the early 90s wearing the wrong brand of sneakers. The shame, the ostracism, from that moment he would always wear the right labels, so he would always be loved.

This set me thinking. Ten years older than Boorman, I had a very different experience, and wonder how much of what I’m about emerged from the crucible of pop cultural influence. So indulge me as I sprawl on the couch for a few sessions. Romance is about to get ‘New’, and all about Me (sorry).

Let me whisk you back to Croydon 1981, and what may have been my equivalent of Boorman’s defining moment. Whilst his milieu was the trainer tribes of street style (sic.), it just so happened that when I emerged into fully-formed fashion awareness the role models flitting glamorously before me subscribed to and encouraged a very different mindset. Discerning dissent, rather than tribal conformity, was the creed I signed up to, and this may also have had far-reaching effects.

‘New Romanticism’ was my moment. A Croydon-lite version of it, adopted long after the real innovators had moved on, but still resplendent with the originary spirit, which made it different from most style cults then or since. From Teddy Boys to Hoodies, most youth style cults prescribe uniforms of identification and identity. To ‘be’ and ‘belong’ depends on adopting tribal insignia. Length of coat, cut of hair, latest label, or coat worn inside out, upside down, or with the sales tag still dangling from it (yawn), the majority of movements encouraged cults of conformity. Mod was slightly different and more sophisticated (constantly moving on, yet still a cult, albeit for the cognoscenti); Punk ripped it up and started again, but was still easily emulated. ‘New Romanticism’ took the elitism of Mod, the extravagance of Punk and made dressing up less about belonging as escaping. It was anti-tribal, defined by an urgent need to actively avoid what the twerp next to you was wearing. This meant going to extremes, but that’s what the 80s were about (and Christ knows how we got away with it). The question was not what shall I wear, but who shall I be (Cossack, lounge lizard, dandy highwayman?) If two outfits were the same that night, you’d failed.

Yes, I know it all went horribly wrong. As the 80s became the 80s proper all this inventiveness and attitude somehow came to sanction mullets, far too much hair product and the triumph of style over substance (abuse). But I do wonder, if Boorman took his identity from this playground baptism into brands, whether I became a difficult little swine, a dedicated cynic and non-conformist (I’m not sure I even want to be labeled these things), partly because of the parade of powder, pout and pose that flounced past me at that moment. Its creed: dream, but also dissent; display but also discern. Can this unstable vinaigrette of sentimental cynicism I’ve been shaking and slopping before you derive from the mere accidental epiphany of a fringe flopped tantalisingly across a suburban TV screen nearly 30 years ago? I'm not talking about dressing up (I long gave up that lark), but some deeper vestige of this attitude that remained when I wiped the blusher off for the very last time? To be explored further…