This was a time when openly homosexual sexual expression was illegal, but the worlds of glamour, fashion and art provided rich opportunities for the construction of queer spectacle such that the interwar period saw the appearance of startlingly new fashions for androgynous ‘freak chic’. People who had been regarded as freaks became seen as chic. For a period during the interwar years queer styles were in fashion. But long before this explicit connections were being made, for instance in interwar London, to the connections between freakishness, beauty and sexuality. The record was a huge commercial success, becoming the best-selling album for their label, Warner Music, prior to Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ (1990). It was inspired by their experience of failing to meet with Grace Jones on New Year’s Eve after being turned away by bouncers at the hot new nightclub Studio 54, which had just opened in New York. In 1978 the American rhythm-and-blues band Chic released a hit disco song ‘Le Freak’ on their new album C’est Chic. He thanks UCA for awarding funding for the copyright permissions for the publication and also for this online exhibition This exhibition presents a range of images from Dominic Janes’s new book, Freak to Chic (Bloomsbury, 2021) on which he has been working as a UCA professorial fellow.
‘Gay’ Men in and out of Fashion after Oscar Wilde
