A shiny T-shirt

A Jean-Paul Gaultier T-shirt, bought from Bazaar in South Molton Street, in 1988.  

This is probably the campest item of clothing I own, and that’s against some competition. But this shirt had a magic that even its total lack of taste could not remove. It was the first piece of clothing I owned from Jean-Paul Gaultier’s mainline collection; and it was a shirt that demanded sideburns and a quiff. Who was I to ignore it?

It also comes from an exact turning point in British youth culture. As MDMA grinned and gurned its way into London clubland, expensive shiny clothes like this - made for posing at the edge of the room surveying the scene (we were known as ‘Mysterons’, after Captain Scarlet's nemesis) - were quickly replaced by cheap cotton T-shirts made to be sweated into...

For a few months one summer, doormen suddenly had no idea who they were supposed to let in, and dancefloors became a confused soup of overdressed poseurs recoiling in alarm as a growing crowd of sweaty grinners rubbed and wiped themselves all over that month’s wages:  “Oi!  What the fuck...!” And that was how it began.