‘Pakis from Outer Space’: Oriental postmodernity in Leigh Bowery’s performative costuming | Intellect Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Studies in Costume & Performance
  4. Volume 5, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 5, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2052-4013
  • E-ISSN: 2052-4021

Abstract

With his extraordinary self-styled personas, the late London-based costume designer, nightclub extravaganza and subcultural icon Leigh Bowery constantly unsettled clear divisions between fashion, performance and visual art. His performative costuming reflects in a prolific manner his hybrid aesthetic and his ability to fuse a wide range of visual elements stemming from high fashion, art, mainstream culture and underground practices that render his bizarre presence highly enigmatic. Inspired primarily by the aesthetics and the representations of South Asian culture, and noticeably deviating both from the subcultural style of the early New Romantics and mainstream fashion trends, Bowery’s allegedly first performative look, the ‘Pakis from Outer Space’, integrates an array of clashing symbols and motifs in a distinctively postmodernist fashion. As fetishization of South Asian iconography, Bowery’s enactment provides a platform for deeper analysis in regard to the problems that postmodernist cultural appropriation poses for the politics of representation of the ‘exotic’, non-western other. Drawing on the discourses of postmodernism and orientalism, this article examines the visual codes of the controversial look and unfolds the ways in which by constructing a distorted and eccentric image of an inclusive South Asian identity, Bowery slips in cultural stereotyping and ethnic generalization. Although his postmodernist parodic ethos could potentially be read as an attempt to create a critical – but politically problematic – dialectical space regarding orientalist clichés, it does not only fail to deconstruct monolithic representations but, conversely, reinforces oriental banality.

© 2020 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/scp_00014_1
2020-06-01
2024-04-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Abdel-Malek, Anouar. ( 1963;), ‘ Orientalism in crisis. ’, Diogenes, 11:44, pp. 103–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Als, Hilton. ( 1998;), ‘ Cruel story of youth. ’, in R. Violette. (ed.), Leigh Bowery, London:: Robert Violette;, pp. 10–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Anon. ( 1984;), ‘ World wide real guide: London/Dodos. ’, i-D: The Money Issue, 18, pp. 46–47.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Atlas, Charles. ( 2004), The Legend of Leigh Bowery, New York:: Palm Pictures;.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bala, Usha. ( 2010;), ‘ Jewelry of Indo-Pakistan and Bangladesh. ’, in J. Dhamija. (ed.), Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: South Asia and Southeast Asia, Oxford:: Berg;, pp. 138–46.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Barthes, Roland. ( 1977), Image, Music, Text (trans. S. Heath.), New York:: Fontana Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Brij Bhushan, Jamila. ( 1964), Indian Jewellery, Ornaments and Decorative Designs, Bombay:: D.B. Taraporevala;.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Carlaw, John. ( 1986), South of Watford, London:: London Weekend Television;.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Craik, Jennifer. ( 2009), Fashion: The Key Concepts, Oxford:: Berg;.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Dhamija, Jasleen. ( 2010;), ‘ Introduction to South Asia. ’, in J. Dhamija. (ed.), Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: South Asia and Southeast Asia, Oxford:: Berg;, pp. 19–29.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. English, Bonnie. ( 2013), A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries: From Catwalk to Sidewalk, London:: Bloomsbury;.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Godfrey, John. (ed.) ( 1990), A Decade of I-Deas: The Encyclopaedia of the ’80s/ Compiled and Produced by I-D Magazine, Harmondsworth:: Penguin;.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Granata, Francesca. ( 2017), Experimental Fashion: Performance Art, Carnival and the Grotesque Body, London:: I.B Tauris;.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Hebdige, Dick. ( 1988), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London:: Routledge;.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Hutcheon, Linda. ( 1988), A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, London:: Routledge;.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Hutcheon, Linda. ( 2002), The Politics of Postmodernism, London:: Routledge;.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Jameson, Fredric. ( 1991), Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, London:: Verso Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Mendes, Valerie, and de la Haye, Amy. ( 2010), Fashion since 1900, London:: Thames and Hudson;.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Pande, Alka. ( 2010;), ‘ Cross-dressing in South Asia. ’, in J. Dhamija. (ed.), Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: South Asia and Southeast Asia, Oxford:: Berg;, pp. 52–58.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Said, Edward W.. ( 1980), Orientalism: Western Concepts of the Orient, New York:: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd;.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Sardar, Ziauddin. ( 1999), Orientalism: Concepts in the Social Sciences, Maidenhead:: Open University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Shastri, Archana. ( 2010;), ‘ Body Decoration in South Asia. ’, in J. Dhamija. (ed.), Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: South Asia and Southeast Asia, Oxford:: Berg;, pp. 38–44.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Stanfill, Sonnet. (ed.) ( 2013), 80s Fashion: From Club to Catwalk, London:: V&A Publishing;.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Tilley, Sue. ( 1997), Leigh Bowery: The Life and Times of an Icon, London:: Hodder and Stoughton;.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Violette, Robert. (ed.) ( 1998), Leigh Bowery, London:: Robert Violette;.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. White, Lesley. ( 1984;), ‘ The new glitterati. ’, The Face, 1:48, pp. 56–57.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Vranou, Sofia. ( 2020;), ‘ “Pakis from Outer Space”: Oriental postmodernity in Leigh Bowery’s performative costuming. ’, Studies in Costume & Performance, 5:1, pp. 73–84, doi: https://doi.org/10.1386/scp_00014_1
     [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/scp_00014_1
Loading
‘Pakis from Outer Space’: Oriental postmodernity in Leigh Bowery’s performative costuming
Studies in Costume & Performance 5, 73 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1386/scp_00014_1
/content/journals/10.1386/scp_00014_1
/content/journals/10.1386/scp_00014_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): 1980s; cultural appropriation; Leigh Bowery; orientalism; pastiche; postmodernism

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error