A new exhibition celebrating club night Blitz, which ran from 1979-80, will be held at the Design Museum this Autumn. The exhibition named, ‘Blitz: The club that shaped the 80s’, will feature objects and personal items of the Blitz kids, the young attendees of the club night, as well as photos and never before heard interviews.
Blitz, despite its short lifespan, was hugely culturally influential. It became a space for expressionism and brought together some of the most creative and talented minds in music, fashion, art, film and publishing. Spandau Ballet were the only live band to perform there, Boy George was a regular, and even Game of Thrones costume designer Michele Clapton drew inspiration from the Tuesday nights in Covent Garden.
The night was co-hosted by Steve Strange and DJ Rusty Egan. Egan’s music selection brought a new sound to British club culture. He was one of the first DJs in the UK to play electronic sounds in clubs with the likes of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra played at Blitz.
Egan said these new sounds inspired him to start something himself: “If there was someone using synths, had some style and liked clubs I found them. But then Steve Strange found me and we knew we had to do something”.
The music was not the only pioneering art form, fashion was also an integral part. Robert Elms, a Blitz kid, said kids ‘couldn’t afford designer clothes so made an outfit from charity shops…and even their nan’s wardrobe!’ The fashion at Blitz shaped British fashion in the 1980s and the decades that followed.
While the clubbers were coined New Romantics, Elms said this was a short sighted view as Blitz brought together punks, soul boys, fashionista and many more sub-cultures. Steve Strange, who was on the door, was described as a ‘mixologist of people’ as he managed to successfully merge all these sub-cultures together.
The exhibitions curator at the Design Museum Danielle Thom spoke of the importance of the exhibition, “it is remarkable that so much of the 1980s pop culture can be traced back to the Blitz scene. That the club night only ran for a little over a year but shaped a whole decade is really astonishing.”
Tim Marlow, director and CEO of the Design Museum, added: “[The exhibition] is the first of its kind which will not only be a sensory extravaganza of pop music, flamboyant fashions, and pioneering art and design, but it will feature items from that formative and indeed radical era which have never been displayed before.”
The exhibition will last from 20 September 2025 – 29 March 2026, at the Design Museum in Kensington, London.
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