For their part, Westwood and McLaren took both Pirate and Buffalo Girls to their last consequences through their stores. They contributed a little to the image of the new romantics in their own way with the premises they had at 430 Kings Road. They changed the name to Worlds End, they put a clock that marked 13 hours and they reformed it like a galleon, where you could buy frilly shirts like those of Adam and The Ants. Similarly, in St Christopher's Place they opened another boutique called precisely Nostalgia of Mud, whose facade was covered by a three-dimensional world map with plaster emulating mud. The interior, Ben Westwood, the designer's son, recalled, looked like an archaeological dig, with a brown tarp stretched across the ceiling and scaffolding on the walls.
The pirates gave Westwood an opportunity to explore the sexuality of bygone eras, while he wore the hackneyed escapism of the new romantics on the dance floor. In the case of Nostalgia of Mud, the collection defended romanticism in another way, aligned with the discourses of the moment. On the one hand, this need to connect with the land was ascribed to the awakening of environmental awareness (today the DNA of the Westwood label). It was 1983, the same year that Katharine Hamnett presented her first protest t-shirt, whose messages opened debate on different topics such as nuclear bombs or unethical practices towards animals and people. On the other hand, in Critical Fashion Practice: From Westwood to Van Beirendonck it is explained that in the United Kingdom different initiatives began to emerge in the 1980s that were involved with what was then known as the "Third World", such as volunteering to combat the poverty. Consequently, whether it was an ethnic print dress, a necklace or a make-up, the hallmarks of their respective outfits also came to the forefront of fashion. “By appropriating 'Third World' elements in her collection, Westwood was able to evoke a romanticism connected to an imaginary distant land, blending ethnic style with tribal look,” wrote her authors Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas.
“It was momentous and political. She fused tradition and technology, she broke all the rules”; wrote makeup artist Yvonne Gold, from the Buffalo circle, in Another magazine, about Nostalgia of Mud. "Should boys be boys?" It was just one of the questions that McLaren and Westwood launched in a proposal also characterized by its subversion of gender and its unisex garments. "I long for some information, so I worry about finding good questions to ask," collected the parade's press release, written by hand. “Why is 'sophisticated' a dirty word? Why do people wear bras? Why do people pretend that criminals are different from me? Who will remember me when I'm dead? Is 'mud' my middle name?
7 series and documentaries that you can watch on 'streaming' if 'Halston' has fascinated you
By Alberto Sisi Sanchez
