Sees the pictures of herself, Every magazine on every shelf... The May issue of VOGUE is a real treat for Bowie fans and fashion freaks alike. Not only does the front cover of this edition have a nicely-timed Aladdin Sane flash across the face of Kate Moss, but it also boasts a six page pictorial feature of Kate wearing a few of the more memorable items of clothing from David's seventies wardrobe.
These incredible shots of Ms Moss were taken by the quite brilliant Nick Knight, and the timeless look of the outfits on Kate belies the fact that they are around thirty years old. For reference purposes, the mag has an impressive spread of the clothes modelled by the original owner.
From left to right: Blue three piece by Freddie Burretti, 1973; Black waistcoat and trousers by Ola The pictures of Kate would be enough in themselves, but this issue doesn't stop there. The magazine also has a two-page spread reproducing an e-mail conversation/two-way interview between David and designer Hedi Slimane... Hedi designed the clothes for the Heathen shows. The correspondence took place back in February, and here's a bit of one of David's contributions:
Since I was a teenager, the city of Berlin stood for a kind of Europeanism that appealed, more than anything because of the association with both Dada and Expressionism. I was immensely influenced by both when I was younger and frequently tried to pull elements of both into my own work. A good example of the Dada input would be the Saturday Night Live sequence, around 1980, in which I re-worked Tristan Tzara?s Cabaret Voltaire skits into song performances. So much fun? One sequence had me dressed as a pipe-smoking Chinese airline stewardess, dragging a huge fake pink poodle on a leash. The dog had a TV monitor inside its mouth on which the real-time performance was playing.
It's all quite fascinating stuff, and BowieNet members can read the whole thing by clicking here. You should be able to find a copy of VOGUE in all decent newsagents from Monday... if not earlier!
Hudson and white shirt by Paul Smith, 1976; Knitted asymmetric costume and wrist/ankle bands by
Kansai Yamamoto, 1973. All pictures of Kate by Nick Knight. Dodgy PhotoShop montage by Blammo.
