Stephen Linard, flamboyant fashion designer who clothed David Bowie and Boy George – obituary
Stephen Linard, who has died aged 64, burst on to the London fashion scene with his enormously successful graduate show in 1981; he went on to make clothes for such contemporaries as Boy George, David Bowie and Spandau Ballet.
A habitué of the Blitz nightclub in Covent Garden – the birthplace of the New Romantic movement – Linard belonged to a crowd who bid to outdo each other in flamboyance. “If you didn’t look good, you weren’t coming in – no matter how famous you were”, recalled the milliner Stephen Jones. Men wore breeches and frilly shirts while the women donned extravagant dresses. Both went big on hair and make-up.
Linard chose six of his clubland friends to model his graduate collection, titled Reluctant Emigrés. The look was thoroughly masculine but also new, a mix of the traditional and the unexpected. Pinstripe trousers had contrast patches at the rear; solid waistcoat fronts were contrasted with see-through organza backs. All was concealed beneath swirling greatcoats.
Feted by the fashion press as a “devilish altar boy to Vivienne Westwood’s high priestess”, Linard became famous overnight. He joined a leading young design team called Notre Dame X before setting up in a studio, where he turned out collections with titles such as Angels with Dirty Faces (inspired by the Bogart-Cagney gangster film) and Les Enfants du Chemin de Fer.
In 1983 New York magazine ran a special fashion section headlined “The British are here”, which ranked Linard alongside Jean Muir, Zandra Rhodes and Katharine Hamnett.
Linard was unable to maintain his staying power in Britain, however. Instead he moved to Japan, where he designed the Georges Sand range for Jun Co, on a salary that, he liked to boast, exceeded Margaret Thatcher’s.
His legacy came in for reassessment in more recent years, as fashion followers took a renewed interest in the “retro” looks of the 1980s. In 2023 a solo exhibition of Linard’s drawings, photographs and garments opened in St Leonard’s On Sea. The exhibition’s title, Total Fashion Victim, was named after the club-night that Linard had hosted, in his heyday, at the Wag Club in Soho.
Stephen Linard was born in London on March 26 1959 and studied at Southend College of Technology and St Martin’s School of Art. While still at St Martin’s he made an impact in the student-led annual Alternative Fashion Show.
His Neon Gothic collection presented clothes with an ecclesiastical twist: shaven-headed models in long dark robes, accessorised with religious motifs. A young Boy George (then plain George O’Dowd) wore a grosgrain suit with dog collar. The headpieces were created by Stephen Jones. “Everyone in the audience stood up and gave it a standing ovation and my models wouldn’t get off the catwalk”, Linard later recalled. “People started throwing flowers and everything.” He graduated with a First.
By 1982 Linard had considerable clout in the industry. Despite being shown two months after London Fashion Week, his Angels with Dirty Faces collection sold to Harrods, Browns and Harvey Nichols.
But he went bust shortly after and turned to designing for Japanese companies, as well as teaching. His second design company, Powderblue, was established in 1986 but went under in the wake of the stockmarket crash the following year. He was rescued by his second cousin, Michael Drake, who owned an eponymous Savile Row haberdashery.
Here Linard was given free rein to indulge his love of pattern and colour, turning out silk-screen designs for ties, foulards and other accessories.In later years Linard had a home in St Leonards-on-Sea, where he was noted for the continued sharpness of his dress sense. Asked by his friend Sue Tilley to sum himself up in three words, he chose alcohol, cigarettes and fashion.
Stephen Linard, born born March 26 1959, died March 10 2024
