Review- Oh! You pretty things: The story of fashion and music: Image

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0278xxg

The above link shows a short clip to one scene of the documentary. I chose to show you this clip as it is my favourite by far, purely because of the humour to it. It also heavily portrays how bands influenced trends onto ordinary people much like today. This clip zooms in on the 1980s band 'Dexys midnight runners', fan of theirs Neil talks about how his mother used to make Dexy style inspired knitted hats for his school friends from which he kept the money and spent it on the bands records!
This episodes documentary of  'Oh! You pretty things' main focus was 'Image'. The 3 main images I discovered or better known as subcultures was; 'Punk' being adapted into the 'New Romantics' by becoming much more flamboyant in music and fashion style. 'The Blitz'  a group of young people who frequented the weekly Blitz club-night in Covent garden 1979-80 were credited for the launching of the New Romantics. The Blitz shortly found themselves bored with the punk genre and introduced Roxy music, and David Bowie nights to the club, in hope of finding something new and exciting. People soon took to wearing bizarre home-made costumes and emphasised make-up, creating a highly androgynous appearance. This become home of the New Romantics movement.


'Geek Chic' was a second newly introduced subculture, which came to our attention due to the band 'Orchestral Manoeuvres in the dark' (OMD). They were discovered when they brought out their hit 'Enola Gay' selling 5 million copies. The song was ironic really as it was actually the name of a plane which had dropped an atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Which therefore meant people were dancing to death. OMDs style was in fact extremely plain and ordinary. They aimed to buy boring clothes from your everyday high street store. Their common look was monochrome shirts, sensible side partings and a 'nice' tie. Their desire was not to create a popular followed, fashion although they did... they brought on the birth of Geek Chic!

The final subculture of the 80s was 'Hip hop/house'. This was influenced by 'Soul II Soul'. Jazzy B was the mind behind them, aspiring to create a fresh, new, vibrant style. He wanted that balance between casual and formal. For those who couldn't get enough of casual clothing he inspired baggy trousers, oversized t-shirts and trainers for an overall street look. For those with a more formal aesthetic he adapted business suits, giving them that edge that most envied.

My overall feelings towards the documentary compared to the previous ones I have seen, is that I didn't personally find it as interesting and as informing on all aspects. I gathered a lot of information on subcultures as you can see from the above, therefore if you are interested on subcultures of the 1980s then this documentary is for you! However other topics such as trends and designers, the documentary was not so helpful for.