Philip Sallon's attack - "Evening Standard"

'Gay-bashing' fear over Boy George friend after fractured skull in West End street attack

6 Apr 201

The family of a gay socialite who suffered a fractured skull during a vicious beating in the West Endfear he may have been the victim of a homophobic attack.

Philip Sallon, described by singer Boy George as "my oldest and closest friend", was kicked repeatedly in the head in the early hours of Saturday.

The 59-year-old is still recovering in hospital and has no memory of the attack. His niece Miriam Elia, 28, who visited him in hospital, said: "It is not the first time he's been beaten up.

"He has had this in the Eighties because of what he was, but if this was a homophobic attack I would be absolutely disgusted. He is well-known as a gay icon. Sometimes my uncle gets into grief with people but he never gets violent and he doesn't really drink. The person who did this could have killed him and we want to find out who it was, whether it was gay-bashing or something else."

Mr Sallon, of St John's Wood, is a flamboyant figure on the West End club scene and founded the Mud Club in Tottenham Court Road in the Eighties.

Police said he was outside Gap near Piccadilly Circus at about 3.30am when two people kicked him in the head repeatedly and ran off. Miss Elia said: "He is conscious but only briefly and then he is out again. He could have been killed, he had been kicked so many times."

Yesterday, Boy George, who wrote the 2002 West End hit Taboo which featured Mr Sallon, appealed for witnesses to come forward. The 49-year-old singer urged the person who called an ambulance to contact the police. Anyone with information should call 020 7321 9315 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111

London's Club Kids

When we mention Club Kids, inevitably we think of the bunch of American party animals who took over New York's clubland back in the 1980s. With an unsurpassed dress-sense and a destructive appetite for a party, they wrote a significant chapter in the 80s New York book of social history. 

Alongside Voguing, another New York underground movement, the Club Kids inspired many a fashion trend and produced distinguished artists, designers and pop stars. They left their mark on modern culture, whether it be art, music, fashion or film. 

Fast forward some 20 odd years and across the Atlantic, in the European mega-metropolis that is London there is a new generation of clubbers that is following in their footsteps. Indeed, London, with its long history in dressing-up and extravagant decadence provided a nourishing ground for this subculture to emerge again.

In the Noughties, a decade of Nostalgia, almost everything was re-invented, re-designed, modernised and subsequently, revived. Fashion was referencing almost every past decade season after season. Music, on the other hand, got stuck a little more with one in particular - the 80s. Synthpop, Techno and Electro beats took over from Funky House that was dominating the clubs since the late 90s and with that came a whole new party scene, a new underground that was inspired by their predecessors, in particular the New Romantics and the Club Kids - two extravagant subcultures who gave the world a new direction in partying and changed the way we perceive clubbing.

In my previous post we saw archive footage about the Club Kids, so let's have a look at the London's own original dressers: The New Romantics, or the Blitz Kids as they were known back in the day.

http://www.theblitzclub.com/

What Is A Club Kid?

Since I started taking photographs of Club Kids, many people were asking me : "Club Kids? What is that?"


So, what is a club kid? This blog aims at throwing some light on the subject and possibly provide an angle to what and who are the club kids.

First, before we start talking about the London club kids today, we ought to start with the original club kids of 80s New York. Wild and proud, outrageous and astonishingly courageous, these were the club kids - 80s style.

Here is a collection of archive footage from American talk shows that hopefully that will give enough insight into the Club-Kid phenomenon.

" There has never been a culture in this world, that has not worn a body adornment." - a really profound way to explain to the common people what this is all about. Watch further...