London Street Fashion

Join music historian Bill Brewster and his guests as they examine how street fashion and pop culture are inextricably linked.

British pop has been led (and driven) by fashion and fashion has frequently been deeply influenced by pop.

We are one of the great exporters of street fashion ideas, designers, brands and trends.

You can see it in the work of David Bowie and Bryan Ferry, in movements like the new romantic and mods or skinheads and ravers.

Our speakers are a trio of nifty dressers, whose work has impacted on fashion (and pop) and various ways: Roger Burton, Chris Sullivan and Barrie Sharpe.

Roger Burton has been involved in fashion, either as a consumer or producer, for over 50 years.

In 1978, along with two friends, he opened the PX store in Covent Garden and styled it as an underground bunker, using industrial fittings from an old MI5 building (this led to Burton redesigning Seditionaries and World Of Mud for Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren).

From there, a stall on Portobello Market and, soon after, a job supplying original mod clothes for Quadrophenia.

The success of this led him to set up Contemporary Wardrobe, supplying clothes for countless movies, ads and music videos (among them Ghost Town).

The collection is now housed at the Victorian Horse Hospital. His book, Rebel Threads, is out in October 2017.

Chris Sullivan has been a London face since the 1970s, known for his slick dress sense, love of black music and silver tongue.

Moving to the capital in 1978, he became involved in a series of moveable club nights from The Blitz, St Moritz and Hell before forming the Latin-influenced band Blue Rondo A La Turk (whose Me And Mr Sanchez soundtracked the 1982 World Cup).

Alongside Ollie O’Donnell, Chris owned and ran the Wag and, effectively, the ’80s, giving many young DJs their first west end breaks, including Gilles Peterson.

Over the past 35 years, Barrie Sharpe has been variously a DJ, fashion retailer, designer and band leader.

An east end kid with a love for hard funk, Sharpe started DJing at the Wag and then Cat In The Hat with partner-in-crime Lascelles, helping start the rare groove revival, as well as helming Diana Brown & The Brothers to a hit with The Masterplan.

His fashion brand The Duffer Of St George, set up with friend Eddie Prendergast, Marco Cairns and Cliff Bowen, began life as a stall in Camden and ended up becoming one of the defining British brands of the late 1980s and 1990s, before it spiralled out of corporate control and Sharpe left to form his own grassroots Sharpeye.

Tickets are free for members and £3 for non-members.

All proceeds from our cultural programme go to the Kibera Hamlets School in Nairobi, where Second Home has funded the construction of a new school building designed by our architects Selgas Cano.