BOY 1982
THE NEW MAIL ORDER. THE BOY CATALOGUE CIRCA 1982. IT'S SICK (WHEN SICK MEANT SICK AS INACTUAL SICK) AND IT'S DOPE (WHEN DOPE MEANT DOPE AS IN ACTUALDOPE). IT IS A PUNK, NEW WAVE,GOTH, POP ART, POP CULTURE,MASH UP MASTERPIECE.
The Boy logo. Just wow. It has to be one of the great symbols of what JK Rowling called the dark arts (along with the cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and two pints of snakebite and black lined up on the bar).
The one shouldered jumpsuit! The partly revealed male chest will silence any builders wolf-whistles. The print looks like someone threw up on a Cy Twombly. Tree pose and pineapple hair barely even worth a mention!
How do you tell if your Seditionaries Spiderman boots are from Boy? The open toe! See an original ad here. The original boots had an exposed steel toe cap but all expense is spared here!
It doesn't get a lot darker or artier than this alleyway encounter. Two models, two pairs of court shoes, two pairs of fishnets, and four cans of hairspray. Published somewhere circa 1982, this catalogue is full of such evil magic.
The Boy collections pretty much designed themselves. They might have started with a Westwood McLaren template but then just kept adding elements, keeping those that worked, and adding more on top. The 1982 new addition was bats!
And sometimes, aside from all the mad prints and statements and visual collisions, Boy is just brilliant. This dress shot against the metal lift shutter is historic. And so Celine!