There is a thing called London style, outsiders sometimes call it fashion but Londoners use it for something else, more often than not as the fine point of a social rapier and a thoroughly legitimate means of self promotion in a city at a time when overt showing off was despised. The much repaired Oxford shoes of the QCs, the dandruff velvet collar on the coat of the wine merchant. The clanking Gucci spurs of the City's serious money boys, the tracksuits of the chronically unfit. This is a version of the English language that Londoners save for one another, a language of signs and symbols written in fabric and flesh and general distaste, a language designed to repel, kill, put down, fleece, con, intimidate and attract. No other city has the variety of hairstyles male and female that parade the streets of London. The bouffant, the duck arse, the white wings of power swept over the ears, the coxcomb punk, the flat top, the social outrider's bowl cut. They're all there to make a place. In respect of the hair of the 80s, the rest of the world was dead from the neck up. Excerpted from Vintage 80's: London Street Photography All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
