Super Sharp
A couple of yeas ago I was in the Caribbean with friends reminiscing about the music we grew up on; our playlist included So Solid Crew, Ms. Dynamite, Shola Ama, Tina Moore and DJ Luck and Mc Neat. Over the music our conversation turned to the things we would wear when we snuck out to raves. We weren’t the original participants of the garage scene, it would have been our older brothers and sisters, yet it was the sounds they listened to and what they wore that filtered down and gave us an initial insight into UK garage as it formed and we followed closely behind.
I would watch as my brother would turn in the mirror adjusting the collar on his shirt with a side stance as he played tapes which had been passed around his friends at college. Little bits of tissue may be stuck in the top holes of the tape if he had recorded over it.
My friend recalled her sister’s Moschino collection, whereas I remember the ‘Looney Tunes’ cartoon characters on clothes being sought after. Under the denim was a cartoon so when you rolled back the sleeves you would have the print underneath, and to go on a school trip, if you had that you’d be the most popular person.
When it was our time, clothes were fitted; we wore pedal pushers, gold hoop earrings and all of us had ‘the Croydon facelift’ of hair scraped high into a ponytail with baby curls slicked down around the face. Unlike now perhaps, make up took a backstage to the clothes, although there were some some ill-fated experiments with lip liner. The strangest fashion accessory I remember was the clown pendant, a thick gold chain with a large, heavy, dangling clown covered in multi coloured gems. This was the holy grail.
This had a clear indication of how you were going to make it through your school days. Whilst this was our look, for our time in garage, everyone I have spoken to feels nostalgic about the clothes they wore; every new revival of the garage scene feels the like the original to its audiences.
As homegrown US designers such as, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren dominated the early 90’s hip hop scene in the US, there has been a revival of interest in design houses such as Gucci; promoted by the more recent wave of rap and trap stars since. Judean Lowe, Course Leader of Fashion Business and Retail at the Fashion Retail Academy, and self proclaimed garage girl states, “It was all about what you wore,” Lowe refers to the prominence of Italian designer labels who were the mainstay of the garage scene.
It was all about Moschino, Dolce & Gabbana and Iceberg. But it was just as much the participants as the creators who flexed the best threads. “That was all for the flossing lot,” recalls one friend explaining the need to have the best and show the best at all costs. Our own encounter with the scene and its fashion didn’t have that same level of finesse, but for the original 90’s ravers, back then it was all about looking Super Sharp.
‘Super Sharp’ is the title given to the exhibition by curator Tory Turk and Saul Milton, one half of production act Chase and Status. Held at The Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion, ‘Super Sharp’ put a spotlight on the 90’s garage and jungle style where an obsession with Italian designers came to dominate the scene.
“It’s Italian brands, it was always Italian brands. At the time that was the resurgence of those brands and they were becoming more accessible. In the way that we have access to everything now through the internet, back then you were seeing things through magazines, you had access to runway shows, the Supers [models] …You had things like the Clothes Show on Sunday. I remember sitting down and religiously watching. Every single Sunday after that I used to sketch stuff. I remember at that stage I used to buy fashion magazines and cut stuff out and put them in a sketchbook to plan my outfits” (Lowe. J: 2018)
The point of the garage rave was to let your hair down and flex what you had worked hard all week to acquire. Dubstep artist Skream recalls the time as being about living a champagne life on a lemonade wage, even the term ‘champagne spray’ resonates with me. Lowe agrees it was about the vibe, it was about what you wore and it was about drinking. “It was all about flossing; you would be in a club and you would have to have a bottle of champagne by default. Or a bottle of brandy; it had to be a Courvoisier or a Hennessey - you couldn’t have a no name brand.” (Lowe. J: 2018)
My understanding of this particular period and for those who visited the exhibition really comes from the first hand accounts of those who were there. Quotes and excerpts of conversations are stencilled on the walls throughout, from garage and jungle enthusiasts alongside artists, producers and authors. Each with differing, yet parallel opinions of the importance of the sound and style that would be impossible to glean from the few objects on display alone.
Through these texts, Turk has enabled a new wave of garage and jungle enthusiasts to be schooled on how garage and jungle fashion was not exclusive to this time or born out of the scene, but in fact reflective of the stylistic approach to dressing spurned from the reggae and dancehall scene of the 1980s, and it was the 1980’s that saw the commercial viability of designer fashion with an increased level of promotion. (Stencil: 2013)
Elliot Griffin of Martel raved about the exhibition, whilst he expected there to be more images and had no expectation that garments would be featured, I personally had expected a greater number of garments. Yet there was a mutual feeling that the exhibition was successful in giving an overview of the scene; especially through a considered integration of fashion and music by allowing visitors to listen to curated tracks through headphones. “I thought it was sick that there was a microphone which you could use to record your experiences” (Griffin, E: 2018)
Griffin is part of a new generation of garage and jungle heads visiting events in his home town of Brighton, although he highlights the sound as being heavier now, more bassline and characterised by artists such as Darksy, My Nu Leng and Crucast. Like myself, Elliot was introduced to garage and jungle by his older brother who used to make mixtapes and frequented the early raves. It was his brother that bought him his first Moschino shirt and whilst many of Elliot’s contemporaries reference an ‘anything goes’ attitude in regards to what they wear now, he affiliates with the distinguished style of making an effort that characterised the early years. In fact, he goes as far as emulating this attitude by wearing specific labels, expensive tracksuits, and never taking off his jacket; implying the outfit as a whole, forms a stylistic vision.
Yet, even as a newer member of the scene he reiterates that such garments don’t function merely to display a ‘sharp look’, nor are they specific to promoting exclusivity, they form a marker of membership into the community. “I’ve made friends from seeing people wearing Moschino. In Brighton, no one fucks with garage, let alone spends hundreds of pounds on the fashion” (Griffin, E: 2018).
So seeing that other person with the Iceberg logo, or buttoned up Moschino makes them an instantly recognisable member of the community and you know what their vibe is.
Morgan de Toi was the shop for garage girls, and Lowe would head to its flagship store at the lower end of Bond Street, now the scene and its style has found itself documented and reimagined online and these clothes are collectors items.
Seth Bradley was a huge collector and I remember him posting the rare Moschino picks on Facebook until he eventually opened ZONE7STYLE on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch; an archive, paying homage to clothes integral to subcultural style, celebrities alongside aficionados would come to view, hire or buy pieces.
Since ZONE7STYLE style closed its doors, younger fans have taken up trading online through sites such as eBay and Depop. Wavey Garms, a Facebook site set up in 2013 for enthusiasts has a specific focus on vintage and niche streetwear and is touted as being hugely influential to what people wear. Wavey have released a book, held pop-up events, thrown their own garage, jungle and grime raves, and opened a shop in Peckham to cater to their followers in excess of 85,000. Griffin uses Depop to scout for the old Moschino classics. He’s currently after the lips shirt featured in the exhibition.
Talking to Lowe, we mused over the looks but how so many had gone unrecorded. This was a time before phone cameras, before the internet; no matter how sharp your look was, no-one was carting a big camera around the club. (2018)
So the display cases which featured photos taken at raves, printed in a quick and easy format of 6x4 with a gloss finish, could easily have been dug out from a shoebox under the bed, and perhaps they were. So another reason perhaps to thank those few photographers who captured the scene and curators like Turk enabling people to engage with the sounds and style they grew up on.
The opening view itself being a case in point.
Like a reunion, I bumped into familiar faces including Seth from ZONE7STYLE and was keen to find out what he thought. He mentioned how hard it is to put on an exhibition and how much planning goes into producing one, even on a relatively small scale at the Fashion Space gallery, allowing for just a few garments to be displayed. Garments which were suspended in frames and constructed to look like the record trolleys DJs use to cart their vinyl around in an appropriate style of presentation for clothes which contain so much history of UK bass culture.
My attention turned to one of the frames which started to sway as a guy tugged on a rare shirt with concentrated interest. Visitors to the exhibition started to take up my attention, giving me as much visual insight into being Super Sharp as the exhibition itself; matching two pieces were the flavour of the night, full Moschino and head to toe Versace, alongside a mother and baby in a matching black vinyl Adidas shell suit with red, gold and green stripes. The people who had turned up rose to the occasion. Many knew each other as they chatted away and arms were tugged to make introductions. In the bar next door, champagne flutes were being filled as a DJ blasted jungle tracks.
As I turned to my left I saw students, industry honchos and a few academics from London College of Fashion dancing away and within half an hour the private view had turned into a rave, and rightly so.
Turk managed to recreate the buzz of garage raves for a host of participants, enthusiasts and garage novices. What the exhibition needed was a bigger space in which a larger range of objects could be displayed and that seemed to be the plan. Super Sharp was a feature of things to come in the ongoing series Return II Jungle, in which Milton of Chase and Status presents over a thousand pieces as part of a definitive look at the scene’s visual identity.
References:
Dazed and Confused [online]
Fashion Space Gallery, Super Sharp.
http://www.fashionspacegallery.com/exhibition/super-sharp/
Stanfill, S. (2013) Club to Catwalk: 80’s Fashion . V&A publishing: London