Buzzin Electronic Music

Noughtie Nightlife
9 September – 2 October 2010
Rich Mix: Bethnal Green Rd, E1 6LA

Focusing on the fashion, faces and attitudes of cult London club nights, Noughtie Nightlife celebrates the first decade of the new century through the images that tell the story, taken by the photographers who were there.

Curator Antony Price, himself a photographer, DJ and London College of Fashion research lecturer, has produced a show that encapsulates the feelings and creativity of the Noughties London club scene through a range of photographs taken by prominent club, trend and fashion photographers including Billa Baldwin, Ellis Scott, Matthew Brindle/Thom Will (www.MEGAMEGAMEGA.com), Christopher James (www.weknowwhatyoudidlastnight.com), Rory DCS, James Unsworth, Alex Warren, Rai Royal, Wade Fletcher and Mr Hartnett/Suzy Del Campo/David Swindells (PYMCA). The exhibition provides both a recent retrospective and a contemporary archive of 21st century youth culture and style, focusing on the influence of music and clubbing on fashion and vice versa.

Noughtie Nightlife, an LCF research funded project, demonstrates the power and importance of nightlife club photography as a medium in itself, documenting youth culture, style and attitude. The collection of images collated by Price will go on to be archived at London College of Fashion for future generations of students studying across the six colleges of University of the Arts London.

In Ted Polhemus’ 1996 street style manual, Style Surfing: What to Wear in the 3rd Millennium, the post-modern looks of the day were defined as beyond categorisation, “I just surf right out of my wardrobe, becoming whoever or whatever I want to be. I am a figment of my own imagination.” Taking this statement as a basis for exploration, Noughtie Nightlife documents the hybrid mix ‘n’ match style tribe that emerged through the multitude of fashion-dress up and performance-influenced nights, such as Kash Point, Nag Nag Nag, Trash, Anti-Social, All You Can Eat, Durrr, Smash & Grab, Boombox, Circus, secretsundaze and Caligula. The scene was vivid, bold and daring, inclusive of a rich diversity of social classes, ethnicities and backgrounds and influenced some of London’s most notable fashion talent of the last ten years, with the University of the Arts London providing a breeding ground for the designers, promoters, DJ’s, protagonists and clientele that frequented and produced these innovative Noughties club nights.

Plundering the styles and trends of yesteryear, today’s youth cultures are easily the most affluent in terms of disposable income and access to information. With the revolutionary rise of the internet from the late 1990s, trading and sharing of ideas and influences became as easy as the click of a button. The digital revolution enabled everyone to capture images and video and paste the results straight onto social networking sites such as MySpace, You Tube and latterly Facebook. It was suddenly possible to dissect the night – to see who was where, with whom and what they were wearing. As the pace of technology speeds up exponentially so does the ability to reflect, analyse and critique the period we have just lived through.

From high fashion to customisation and sportswear, London’s party scene has always been the world’s premier example of cutting-edge fashion, music and street-style crossover. In documenting fashion at clubs, taking-in characters dressed to impress, those who are simply expressing themselves and those who follow function first, the exhibition serves as an extensive image library of the capital’s mixture of youth movements and influences, providing rich material for analysis and critique for the realms of styling, photographic, cultural and sociological research.

Exclusive written features by Louise Hemmings will accompany the exhibit, along with a series of events including the Private View on 9th September that will then become open to the public for an exclusive audiovisual set by Anomalous Visuals and DJ set by Jim Warboy.  On Wednesday 22nd September Noughtie Nightlife will host an afternoon of talks with guest speakers including Ted Polhemus and David Swindells (PYMCA) – tickets will be available for £10 from the Rich Mix box office. Press comp tickets available on request.

For further information visit www.pigeonsandpeacocks.com/noughtienightlife