POSTMODERN BRICOLAGE:

REACTION AGAINST MODERNIST DESIGN IN

THE FASHIONS OF LEIGH BOWERY, 1980-1994
by
Donald J. Jackson

Despite his short-lived life, the designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery left a

significant impact on the world of fashion. Much attention has been paid to the legacy Bowery

has left upon the fashion industry by way of his inspiration for other designers; styles and

silhouettes signature to Bowery’s avant-garde tastes show up frequently on the runway in the

collections of Alexander McQueen, Maison Margiela, and Rick Owens.1 While he had unique

vision in design, he was not a man removed from the influence of time and space. In his private

journal, Leigh wrote “We’re all responding to the same environment, which tends to produce the

same effects.”2 Through an analysis of the accounts of Leigh’s interests, personality, and

background from the people that were close to him in life, this paper looks to highlight his

sources of inspiration and the ways in which they responded to Modernist ideals of dress.

Born in the year 1961, Leigh Bowery was raised in Sunshine, Victoria, a small suburb

outside of the Australian city of Melbourne. Post-war suburban Australia, like many western

nations in the 1960s, highly valued ideals of hard work, nuclear family, and consumerism.3 In an

interview with Sue Tilley, a close friend of Leigh’s and the author of his biography, Leigh’s

1
Daniel Rodgers, "Seven Times Leigh Bowery Inspired the Runway," Dazed, March 26, 2021,
https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/52312/1/leigh-bowery-taboo-artist-influence-runway-london-nightlife-
mcqueen-rick-owens.
2
Museum of Contemporary Art, Take A Bowery: The Art and (Larger Than) Life of Leigh Bowery, (Sydney:
Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004), 165.

3
Ibid., 12.

1
father Tom said that as parents, he and his wife “always tried to buy things that were tasteful, not

gaudy, and of lasting quality.”4 Given this statement, one could mistakenly assume that Leigh’s

designs are a reaction to a set of parents that were unfashionable, or did not partake in the

fashion system of the time. In an interview shortly after moving to London in the early 1980s,

Leigh said the following:

Everyone says I’ve got a really perverse idea of beauty. My mother used to say that when
I first started messing around with fashion. But I looked in this photograph album and
there she was in the sixties with white lipstick and these funny black eyelashes. I thought,
“Oh, what an ugly looking person.” She really had plump thighs crammed into a mini and
she thought she owned the world. And she thought I looked ugly! 5
Based on this quote, it is clear to see that Leigh’s parents were not removed from the fashion

system, despite what his father’s quote may have suggested. Instead, Tom’s ideals of being

“tasteful” and “not gaudy” are likely used as representations of being in-style and not standing

out, in contrast to the style that his son would later adopt as a model, designer, and performance

artist. As writer Hilton Als put it in a 1998 article from The New Yorker, “the bright sharpness of

[his parents’] 1960s Mod [had] gone sitting-room boring.”6 The classic style of twentieth century

Modernist dressing, with its simplicity and casual nature, thus became the concept that Leigh and

many other postmodernists sought to challenge.

The Body and Ideals of Beauty

Modernist ideals of the bodies, with long columnar frames and small waistlines, have

been around since at least the late 1910s with the popularity of the shift dress. As highlighted by

4
Robert Violette, ed., Leigh Bowery, (London: Violette Editions, 1998), 58.

5
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 13.
6
Ibid.

2
an online exhibition from The Museum at FIT and the FIT School of Graduate Studies,

The Roaring Twenties and The Swinging Sixties, these ideals of modernism lasted well into the

century, with the silhouette of sixties A-line dresses being similar in shape.7 Critical of the

fashionable ideals that had been created by the generation of his parents, Leigh wrote the

following in his private diary: “I believe that fashion (where all girls have clear skin blue eyes,

blonde blow waved hair + a size 10 figure, and where all men, have clear skin, a moustaches

[sic], short blow waved hair and masculine physique + appearance) STINKS.”8 Rejecting these

values, on the same page he says, “I do/not want to look like a [sic] all-American fresh-faced,

clean-cut kid.”9 Having been a larger individual for most of his childhood, particularly in height

and weight, these values appeared outmoded when it came to Leigh’s designs. In a later

interview with Jonathan Ross, Leigh said he looked at his body “like a canvas,” being built upon

rather than streamlined or changed.10 As his wife Nicola Bateman Bowery described it, “Every

outfit Leigh made went beyond the boundaries of convention. He padded and added, distorted

and thwarted what a body could do.”11

Although the shape of the human body was important to his design history, it was most

prominently featured after he became a model and muse to the British figurative painter

Lucian Freud. By posing nude for the world to see, the photographs and paintings give an insight

into the body that lies underneath of Leigh’s fantastical clothes, and how starkly it differs from

7
The Museum at FIT, "The Roaring Twenties and The Swinging Sixties," Fashion Institute of Technology, accessed
May 10, 2022, https://exhibitions.fitnyc.edu/roaring-20s-and-swinging-60s/exhibition/.
8
MCA, Take A Bowery, 165.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., 7.
11
Ibid.

3
that of the Modernist ideal (figure one). He said, “I was very nervous about my naked body,

when the idea of sitting for a picture for Lucian first came up, not only because I’m an unusually

big heifer carting around sixteen or seventeen stones, but because of some of my body

modifications.”12 Despite his initial discomfort with showing his body, his wife states that he

admired his large body, particularly the size and shape of his legs.13 With the fashions of the

1980s creating a new ideal female body with large, broad shoulders, Leigh’s figure is able to

meet that ideal. A photograph of him by friend Kate Garner highlights a dress by Leigh that is

typical of the eighties’ aesthetic with its shoulder pads, but even further exaggerated with

Leigh’s broad shoulders (figure two).

In keeping with the excess aesthetic of the post-modern eighties, Leigh was able to

further stretch the fashionable body through an unconventional technique – the addition of

another human body. For a performance known commonly as “Birth,” he used his wife’s full

body underneath the clothes he was wearing to create the body of a heavy-set, pregnant woman

(figure three).14

Pre-Modern Influences

To reject Modernism, Leigh often looked to the past for style inspiration. According to

Cerith Wyn Evans, a Welsh artist and close friend of Leigh’s, he was known to frequent

museums for inspiration, seeing exhibitions such as one on the Nottingham lacemaking

industry.15 Going back to the Kate Garner photo, it is clear to see the influence that pre-Modern

12
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 24.
13
MCA, Take A Bowery, 8.
14
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 156.
15
MCA, Take A Bowery, 50.

4
fashionable dress had on his style. The blue dress he wears, although clearly a product of the

1980s, harkens back to the late nineteenth century with its large leg-of-mutton sleeves (figures

two and four). Another common revival from the late nineteenth century in Leigh’s design is the

bustle. A comparison of the silhouette of the dress worn by Leigh in Fergus Greer’s 1991

photograph with that of an 1880s gown from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection makes it

clear to see the parallels (figure five and six). The bustle shows up multiple times in Leigh’s

designs, including in the “Annie Versary” photographs taken by Johnny Rozsa in 1896. In the

same way that Leigh would use his wife’s body to supplement his own, he used the same

technique to create false undergarments. In one instance, instead of wearing a true bustle under a

dress he designed, his friend Mark Erskine-Pullin functioned as a living bustle.16

Erskine-Pullin was significant to the inspiration behind Leigh’s nineteenth century style

in another way – he was the famed male corsetiere known as Mr. Pearl. While the modern

woman wore a minimally restrictive bra, the two collaborated on intricate corsetry for some of

Leigh’s outfits, according to Nicola Bateman Bowery.17 The modern woman was also very

capable of dressing herself; Modern clothes could be stepped into or thrown over the head. In

contrast, the woman of the nineteenth century required assistance from a lady’s maid to get

dressed. Perhaps intentionally, Leigh’s garments were so complicated in design that Nicola

needed to serve as assistant to help him dress.18

16
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 19.
17
MCA, Take A Bowery, 8.
18
Ibid., 7.

5
 The nineteenth century was not the only historic era of interest for Leigh. In his diary, he

left behind sketches for looks that are reminiscent of the Renaissance (figures seven and eight).

He references to this period through garments like the knee breeches, materials like velvet, and

techniques such as slashing.19

Subcultural Influences

Writing in his diary, Leigh one said the following:

If I could, I would only wear the clothes I like with my hair up, & make-up. The
frustration I feel when I see how plain & ugly & conformist I look, overrides the
diffidence & insecurity of wearing & looking the way I really want. I know I hate having
to use public transport or walk in a melee, if I’m dressed ‘up’, but believe me, that’s
heaven compared to being plain.20
From this quote, it is not hard to gather that he dreaded the conventional and derided the

conformity expected of him from his upbringing. Growing up as a child in the sixties, his

exposure to mass media like television, popular magazines, and film allowed for him to further

explore the unique interests that would later influence his stylings. Reacting against conformity,

it is unsurprising that he would be drawn to the anti-fashion elements of counterculture.21 As he

once said, “There is hardly anything that I forbid myself to do and I always want to do more

extreme things and be in contact with more extreme people and ideas and practices.”22

One group that he appears to draw from are the hippies of the late sixties and early

seventies. The rise of the hippies, and their bricolage aesthetic, was a direct reaction against the

commercialism and simplicity of the Mod aesthetic (and Modernism as a whole). One of Leigh’s

19
MCA, Take A Bowery, 157-158.
20
Ibid., 14.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid., 21.

6
biggest criticisms of the fashion industry was the role that money played in the creative process.

Only early in his career did he put his creations up for sale to the public, in a partnership with

fashion designer friend, Rachel Auburn. As his friend Sue Tilley put it, he was not the best

businessperson. She said that “he spent more making the clothes than he sold them for.” Instead,

he chose to design clothes for himself and friends, with the only major exception being his work

with the Michael Clark dance company.23 His focus on artistry and community and criticism of

capitalism were not the only elements of the hippies that he adopted. The hippies adopted

elements of world dress, and Leigh, too, looked to the world for design inspiration.

Cerith Wyn Evans says that Leigh was an avid reader as a child and would obsess over

National Geographic. He further suggests that the extreme proportions seen in Leigh’s designs

could have stemmed from seeing the dress of Africa and adopting elements of it.24 Much like the

hippies, Leigh was also drawn to the culture of the Indian subcontinent. In a conversation with

Nicola Bateman Bowery, Evans said “the Bangladeshi community in the East End [of London]

would have fuelled Leigh’s fascination with this level of super-psychedelic kitsch.”25 Leigh’s

“Paki from Outer Space” look initially refers to the Indian subcontinent through its name alone,

suggesting a Pakistani origin. In a photograph of the look from 1983, the green jumpsuit he

wears bears an Indian paisley print, he wears a Bindi to represent his third eye, and his skin is

painted blue in reference to the Hindu god Shiva (figure nine).26 Similar to the hippies, Leigh

looked to secondhand markets and thrift stores for design inspiration, picking up old corsets to

23
MCA, Take A Bowery, 18, 43.
24
Ibid., 52.

25
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 151.
26
MCA, Take A Bowery, 40.

7
take them apart and understand their construction. In a rejection of the fashion system, he would

also buy vintage or out-of-style fabrics at inexpensive prices to incorporate into his looks.27 An

ensemble worn by Leigh for a performance at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London is

reminiscent of the stylings of Janis Joplin, particularly on the cover of her final album, Pearl

(figures ten and eleven). In his Shiva makeup, Leigh sits perched on a chair in his ankle-length

red dress, much like Joplin. The thrifted, hippie aesthetic is easier to see in another photograph of

the look from 1991. Leigh pairs the outfit with chunky, mismatched costume jewelry and a

vintage fur coat that appears unkempt and dirty at the ankle. Although he wears a short heel, the

shoe gives the impression of its wearer being barefoot (figure twelve).

Leigh was heavily influenced by other subcultural groups, including glam rockers like

David Bowie of the late seventies and goths of the early eighties. Two significant influences

were the punks and the New Romantics.28 As Cerith Wyn Evans said of his friend, “Leigh was a

huge admirer of Vivienne Westwood.”29 Active since the 1970s, Westwood initially focused on

designing clothing for a punk clientele at her London boutique, SEX, specializing in leather

fetish gear and distressed jumpers.30 A t-shirt from the late 1970s from Westwood highlights the

punks’ fascination with raw sexuality and the human body (figure thirteen). With Leigh’s interest

in female forms (like breasts) and open sexuality, it is unsurprising to see why he would be

drawn to Westwood’s designs or the punk movement. Leigh would later adopt a fashion symbol

27
MCA, Take A Bowery, 82.

28
Ibid., 14.
29
Ibid., 43.
30
"Vivienne Westwood: Punk, New Romantic and Beyond," The Victoria & Albert Museum, accessed May 10,
2022. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/vivienne-westwood-punk-new-romantic-and-beyond.

8
of the punk movement, the safety pin, and wear them pierced through his cheeks as an homage

(figure fourteen).31 Nazi imagery often appears on punk clothing as a form of political protest

against fascism, such as a t-shirt from Vivienne Westwood from the late seventies featuring a

swastika and the word “destroy” in bold print (figure fifteen). Leigh Bowery was also known to

adopt Nazi imagery, in part because of his radicalized left-wing ideology, but also as a shock

mechanic.32 He used a swastika printed fabric in the creation of a blouse, and also created a cape

that bears the image of Adolf Hitler.33 Most notably, he would sometimes wear a Nazi helmet in

different looks, such as the punk one seen in figure fourteen. He would later wear this same

helmet with his famed “Metropolitan” dress to the opening of the Lucian Freud exhibition at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which featured paintings of Bowery.34

As the New Romantic movement came to prominence, both Bowery and Westwood

adopted elements of the style into their own. In addition to their eccentric use of makeup, New

Romantics were largely interested in nineteenth century Dandy style, with its casual coolness and

feminine masculinity. While Westwood adopted this style more literally for men, it did later

inspire her to create her “Mini-Crini” collection in 1985, which would later set the stage for

Bowery to create his exaggerated, historically inspired silhouettes.35

31
MCA, Take A Bowery, 153.

32
MCA, Take A Bowery, 17; Violette, Leigh Bowery, 12.
33
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 41; René Zechlin, ed., Leigh Bowery: Beautified Provocation, (Hannover:
Heidelberg Kunstverein Hannover, 2008), 66.
34
MCA, Take A Bowery, 46.

35
V&A, “Vivienne Westwood.”

9
 Other Cultural Influences

The Viennese Actionists were another influence on Leigh Bowery’s designs. The

performances of these artists touched on themes and images of gore, bodily harm, pain

endurance, and fitness.36 Although Bowery would incorporate elements of this in his later

performances, he subtly incorporated it into his style of design. In contrast with the comfort of

Modern design, Leigh would find ways to make his designs uncomfortable or painful for the

sake of fashion. His friend Sue Tilley once said, “Leigh’s capacity to bear pain was phenomenal.

He would go out with one eye covered up, or both eyes so that he could only see a blur, wearing

ten-inch heels and his body distorted with gaffer tape or incredibly tight corsets.”37 He was also

able to incorporate some elements of Viennese Actionism into his punk aesthetic, including the

cheek and nipple piercings that are found in some of his looks (figures nine and fourteen).

Given his interest in abstract silhouettes, one could speculate that Leigh Bowery

drew inspiration from his Japanese avant-garde designer contemporaries – Yohji Yamamoto, Rei

Kawakubo, and Issey Miyake. Although nothing has been found yet to link him directly to these

designers, one immediate link could be to the way they look to rethink the body, particularly

Kawakubo and Bowery’s use of “unflattering” padding. However, a link can be seen between the

two in the way in which Leigh Bowery was able to make a name for himself with the Tokyo

crowd. In conjunction with nightlife celebutante Susanne Bartsch, he presented a runway show

in Tokyo of avant-garde looks in 1984.38 Four years later, he would partner with Japanese

36
MCA, Take A Bowery, 22.
37
Ibid., 49.
38
Ibid., 17.

10
department store Parco to perform as a window mannequin in their Tokyo store. In the store,

Nicola pretended to inspect the dress on the mannequin, pulling at it until it completely

unraveled to reveal Leigh’s nude body. In addition to its playful element, it highlights the

construction and deconstruction element that was significant to some of the aforementioned

Japanese designers.39

39
Violette, Leigh Bowery, 23.

11
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Leigh Bowery posing in Lucian Freud’s studio. Photo by Bruce Bernard.
From Leigh Bowery by Robert Violette, ed., pg. 154.

12
Figure 2. Leigh Bowery in a blue dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves.
Leigh Bowery, Drip Head. Photo by Kate Garner, 1986.

13
Figure 3. Leigh Bowery and Nicola Bateman Bowery in the “Birth” costume inspired by Dawn Davenport
from the film Female Trouble, Bar Industria. Photo by Donald Urquhart, 1993. From
Take A Bowery: The Art and (Larger Than) Life of Leigh Bowery by the Museum of Contemporary Art, pg.
142.

14
Figure 4. Dress, American, c. 1895. Cotton. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009, gift of the
Jason and Peggy Westerfield Collection, 1969, 2009.300.932.

15
Figure 5. Leigh Bowery in a checkered, bustle dress. Session IV, Look 17. Photo by Fergus Greer/
Michael Hoppen Gallery, 1991.

16
Figure 6. Dress, American, c. 1885. Silk, rhinestones, metal. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection, gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009, gift of
Miss C. W. Howe, 1933, 2009.300.84a, b.

17
Figure 7. Two sketches by Leigh Bowery featuring historic silhouettes. From
Take A Bowery: The Art and (Larger Than) Life of Leigh Bowery by the
Museum of Contemporary Art, pg. 157.

18
Figure 8. A sketch by Leigh Bowery featuring Renaissance slashing. From
Take A Bowery: The Art and (Larger Than) Life of Leigh Bowery by the
Museum of Contemporary Art, pg. 158.

19
Figure 9. The “Paki from Outer Space” look worn by Leigh Bowery. Leigh Bowery. Photo by Sheila Rock,
c. 1983.

20
Figure 10. Leigh Bowery at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London. Photo by Nils Jorgensen/Rex Pictures, 1988.
From Leigh Bowery by Robert Violette, ed., pg. 113.

21
Figure 11. Janis Joplin on the cover of her 1971 album, Pearl. Photo by Barry Feinstein/Columbia Records, 1970.

22
Figure 12. Leigh Bowery in a red dress and fur coat with “barefoot” heel. Session IV, Look 18.
Photo by Fergus Greer/Michael Hoppen Gallery, 1991. From
Take A Bowery: The Art and (Larger Than) Life of Leigh Bowery by the
Museum of Contemporary Art, pg. 111.

23
Figure 13. Vivienne Westwood (British, 1941-). "Tits" T-shirt, 1976-1980. Cotton.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute, the Richard Martin Bequest and
Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2006, 2006.253.15.

24
Figure 14. Leigh Bowery wearing Nazi helmet and safety-pin piercings. Session VIII, Look 37. Photo by
Fergus Greer/Michael Hoppen Gallery.

25
Figure 15. Vivienne Westwood (British, 1941-). "Destroy" T-shirt, 1976-1980. Cotton.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Costume Institute, the Richard Martin Bequest and
Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2006, 2006.253.2.

26
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27