PET SHOP BOYS

Still from music video 'Can You Forgive Her?' 1993

Having only ever really listened to the Pet Shop Boys I was unaware of their visual presence and the costumes that allow them to go from being Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe to being the Pet Shop Boys. 'We've always dressed up to become the Pet Shop Boys' (Neil Tennant, Fashion + Music, 2016, pg44).

A pioneer of the Pet Shop Boys aesthetic, Es Devlin is a designer in the worlds opera, dance, theatre and public events. Devlin is behind the duos costumes (along with Jeffery Bryant) as well as theatrics on stage, culminating in the massive closing ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics. The bands music is all about profound abstraction away from humanity, which is echoed in their costumes which include coned, boxed and minotaur heads. Devlin describes the duo as 'asexual beings' that allow her to design them 'as if they were works of art' (Fashion + Music, 2016, pg.55)

The closing ceremony of the Olympics featured the Pet Shops Boys standing riding on the back of abstracted tricycles driven by men wearing suits and large bright orange sculptural helmets. For the ceremony, Devlin suggested that avant-garde designer Gareth Pugh recreate his costumes for the Royal Opera House's 2011 ballet 'Carbon Life' (pictures below). His original designs were similarly sculptural but dark in colour. The dancers in the ballet had pointed ballet shoes and a mask that covered there entire face making them look mysterious and menacing. For the closing ceremony, the same mask has been used only this time is is bright orange and matches the tricycles which keeps the 'alien' feel of the masks but also makes them more playful. Obviously the wearer of the mask has vision - albeit restricted vision - but as far as the audience is aware they have next to none. I like the idea that the audience believes that the performer cannot see a thing as it makes the costumes seem more surreal and otherwordly. 

Devlin has also worked with Kanye West on his stage shows and says that whilst she has 'no direct influence over West's clothes .. the star and his environment are always understood as one giant moving visual sculpture in which an assumed identity must be channeled from all sides.' (fashion + Music, 2016, pg. 53) This got me thinking about art work and costume in the context of festivals. Are festivals and their audience one big visual sculpture? One cannot exist without the other yet one is a reflection of the other; they are assumed as one. 

Fashion designer Jeffery Bryant has worked with artists such as Goldfrapp and Lady Gaga as well as the Pet Shop Boys. After studying in south wales as an mechanical engineer, Bryant was inspired by the DIY aspect of 70s punk fashion, and wanted to make his own wool cut punk trousers but was allegic to wool. Instead, he used his own PJ bottoms to line the wool so he could wear them, showing his early reworking and repurposing of materials. After this he began making clothes for himself as well as his friends in the new romantic club scene where everything was theatrical. As for the Pet Shop Boys, Bryants most famous piece is the straw jacket (2013) - a coat constructed of thousands of black shiny drinking straws that shoot out from the body to create an aggressive visual impact. Another is the disco-ball helmet, that Bryant describes as the 'the random jigsaw of absurdity'.

The Straw Jacket

The disco-ball helmet

More than anything else, I like the visual absurdity of the Pet Shop Boys costumes and the fact that they are both daft and profound. Their costumes play around with the abstraction of the senses, allowing the audience to think that they cannot see anything which adds to the surreal nature of the costumes.