Picture this: it’s 1985. Right-wing politics are reaching a fever pitch in the U.K., the tunes of Madonna and David Bowie are blasting in cars everywhere, and fashion designer and art provocateur Leigh Bowery has just opened up his own club, Taboo—offering some of London’s downtown denizens some solace to explore the depths of their identity. As one of the many igniters of a societal norm-busting era when a trail of creative chaos seeped into the cobblestone of the community, one could say Leigh’s trajectory to stardom was kismet given his shocking approach to dressing; he utilized Taboo—and frankly any street, after party, store opening, and beyond—as his stage.

“He was unique, audacious, shocking even,” explains photographer Nick Knight, one of many lucky creatives who were able to penetrate Leigh’s transgressive bubble. “Combining colors and clothes to create visions that were art in every sense.”

Whether attending an exhibition opening for friend Lucian Freud, wearing a floral gimp ballgown, or partying it up with Boy George in his club donning his signature eye painted glasses, any room that the Melbourne-born artist walked into instantly became his own to reign Knight can attest, recalling the first time he ever met Bowery. “He modeled for me for i-D magazine as part of my ‘100 Portraits’ series shot in 1985,” he explains. As most talents would normally show up on set in something pared down, it was quite the opposite for Bowery—as only one could expect. “He had a brown pinstripe suit on that he had embellished with rows and rows of hair grips all along the arms, so they looked like metallic fringing.” His reaction? “I felt as I always did—in awe of him. Seduced by his beauty, inspired by his talent, and charmed by his wit.”

As the photography gods would have it, this wouldn’t be Nick and Leigh’s first and only encounter. They would go on to shoot collaboratively for the likes of English publications, such as The Face and AnOther, which documented the subcultures that Leigh presided over. But it was their shoot for The Observer where Knight truly experienced the magnitude of Bowery and the effect he would go on to have on the industry. “Leigh was very serious about what he did and very hard working. When he walked out of the dressing room, I really struggled to know what I could add with my photography,” he notes. “I just had to let him be the incredible vision he was and present that.”

The roster of creatives who name Bowery as a wonder is boundless. The late Lee Alexander McQueen (who bore witness to Bowery and his drag band Minty in the early 90s) paid tribute to his outlandishly fabulous red lips for the AW09 show, “The Horn of Plenty.” Rick Owens tipped his hat to Leigh (and his birthing photographs by Fergus Greer) with his ever-viral “Cyclops” SS16 collection that propelled Owens to another stratosphere. With the debut of the Tate Modern’s latest exhibition Leigh Bowery!, the world continues to understand Leigh’s effect on the underground scene and the need for creatives to pop the culture every now and then.

Leigh Bowery! is now on view at the Tate Modern until August 31, 2025

This story appears in the pages of V154: coming soon!

Photography Nick Knight