Join the Museum’s Head of Exhibitions Dennis Nothdruft, for this illustrated talk on a transgressive group of artists and designers in 1970s London.
In 1976, a month before The Sex Pistols released Anarchy in the U.K., cultural historian Peter York identified a group he dubbed ‘Them’. According to York, to be part of this group was to be involved in ‘a mysterious aesthetic conspiracy’ concerned with looking ‘interesting rather than sexy’.
This high-fashion, high-art scene was a loose collective that included designers such as Miss Mouse and Zandra Rhodes and artists Andrew Logan, Duggie Fields, and Derek Jarman. Based in London, members of the group were early forerunners of postmodernism or proto-postmodernism. This talk will explore the sensibilities shared by the group, their methodologies as a force in the arts and their influence on punk.
This is a recording of the online event, ‘Them’: 1970s London and proto-postmodernism, which originally took place live on 18 December 2020 via Microsoft Teams.
About the speaker
Dennis Nothdruft is Head of Exhibitions at the Fashion and Textile Museum. He has led the exhibitions team at the Museum since it was founded by Zandra Rhodes in 2003 and previously spent many years working as a design assistant in Zandra Rhodes studios in both San Diego and London. He has lectured widely on many aspects of fashion and textiles and has authored several books including Zandra Rhodes: 50 Fabulous Years in Fashion, How to Draw Like a Fashion Designer, How to Draw Vintage Fashion and Kaffe Fassett: the Artist’s Eye.