“We Can Be Heroes” – Photos from London’s New Romantic Scene, 1979-81

Clare Thom, Boy George, Michele Clapton. Coach trip to Margate.. 1980

Fabulous new coffee table book featuring photos of London clublife during the post-punk New Romantic scene that spawned such legends as Boy George, Steve Strange, and Spandau Ballet. We Can be Heroes: Punks, Poseurs, Peacocks and People of a Particular Persuasion features over 320 pages of fashion eye candy from photographer Graham Smith. “Everyone was a cog in this stylishly bizarre, wobbling wheel, rolling into uncharted territories,” he writes in the forward.

Punk, that only a year earlier had ignited my life, was dead as far as I was concerned, and now, aged 18, I was hunting to fill the void.

I entered a grotty Soho subterranean dive bar named Billy’s.

A camp Welsh cossack posed by the entrance as the electronic beats of Kraftwerk pounded from the speakers, sounding like the future had arrived early. Several androgynous couples danced a robotic jive, looking like replicant toy soldiers. I thought I saw Marilyn Monroe flirting with a dapper Bryan Ferry in his ’40s GI look. I know I saw someone wearing an iron as a hat.

But where had this strange new breed come from? And how had everyone found this dingy den of iniquity? The look was retro but it definitely felt like tomorrow. So the following week I went back…

The press dubbed us the New Romantics, but we paid no attention. We were too busy enjoying ourselves.

We became a gang that made clubs our lifestyle: Billy’s, the Blitz, Le Beat Route, the Mud Club, the Wag and the Dirt Box. Nightclubbing was our fuel, family and an after-dark gateway to fulfill ambitions. We were narcissistic and hedonistic, but more importantly we inspired each other to push boundaries. It was about rebellion, creativity, originality and being yourself outside normal and straight society.

The collective strength of this gang gave individuals more confidence, and this energy affected almost everyone who entered these clubs.

At the time no one had any money, but because we were naive and innocent, we didn’t hold back and weren’t afraid of failure. Everyone had a role to play; everyone was a cog in this stylishly bizarre, wobbling wheel, rolling into uncharted territories.

This may sound pretentious; that’s because we were, some more than others. But together we felt a power to achieve things, bolstered by the headlong energy of youth.