The shop fronts of Regent Street, London are urging us to party like it’s 1922. Apparently if you wear an off-white linen jacket and two tone correspondent shoes, then you will attain the old money entitlement of Tom Buchanan and the romantic spark of Jay Gatsby. It’s a tired old sell and the public doesn’t seem to be buying. But a couple of miles away, there’s a whole other sartorial call.
The Victoria and Albert Musieum is hosting David Bowie Is, a most wonderful exhibition. You put your headphones on and you walk into a zone full of costumes, artwork and primarily, ideas. So many of them. The guy was riffing on Weimar decadence, kabuki theatre, European mime and Beat literature. Every time you turn a corner, there’s another roar of sound and a head-full of inspiration.
There’s the set of keys to his Berlin apartment and some paintings of Iggy. Even a letter from Christopher Isherwood. The Bowie wallpaper design is well hung and the pierrot outfit from ‘Ashes To Ashes’ causes a jolt of recognition.
From 1969 to 1983, he was unassailable. A new musical approach, a style and a regime change every six months. The lifestyle was perilous, but the ideas prevailed and it’s extraordinary to see how well this turbulence was archived. The entire ensemble from the ‘Life On Mars’ video. Notebooks and drawings, the Metropolis-inspired designs for a Diamond Dogs tour that didn’t quite emerge. And the saxophone from the ‘Pin Ups’ shoot. Various notes that envisaged the legend of Ziggy Stardust, observed from many perspectives.
My visit coincided with an English half-term holiday and so a load of liberal parents were taking their kids around, gazing at the polymorphous images, gamely trying to explain the scattershot method of a significant artist. Y’know, I think he blew their minds.
