Fashion's debt to black magic

In the week President Obama commissioned a suit from Ozwald Boateng, this exhibition of men’s fashion photography reminds us of the time the designer shocked the Mayfair establishment.

Co-curated by the UK’s leading fashion stylist, Simon Foxton, When You’re a Boy — the title is a lyric from David Bowie song Boys Keep Swinging — features works by his photographer-collaborators including Nick Knight, Alasdair McLellan and Jason Evans. Breathtakingly upbeat and often witty, the show documents the launch of the male model industry and black models, and the influence of gay subcultures, which all transformed the mainstream.

Foxton illustrates the inspirations for his 25-year career through his scrapbooks, which include memorabilia, homo-erotic porn and ethnographic and vintage portraits of black men — all tracing back to the radical magazine photography of the late Seventies and illustrated in a wall of rule-breaking portraits from i-D, The Face, and Arena Homme Plus magazines. Influences range from Grace Jones (black lip-gloss) to Cecil Beaton.

By banishing white walls and partitions, Foxton transforms the gallery into a dance studio or a narcissistic club — places that fed new racial and sexual identities into the fashion industry. He presents imaginative customised street fashions and young black British males parodying Britain’s traditions: Jason Evans’s "Strictly" series (1991) poses models in hunting jackets and plus fours on suburban London streets.

By contrast, the Nineties saw fashion transformed by Wall Street into a new suits conservatism, represented by black models. But a decade later, playfulness dominates — and Nick Knight’s notably clean, studio shots include his iconic, cinematic costumes for the "Minotaur" collaboration with John Galliano in 2007. This entertaining, significant cultural history of post-modern peacocks is long overdue and tailor-made for the Bowie soundtrack.
Until 4 October. Information: www.photonet.org.uk.

When You're a Boy