David Holah

Rising from the nihilistic ashes of the punk movement in the late 1970s, a fresh crowd of flamboyant fashionistas, who would later be christened the New Romantics, began to materialise on the streets of London. An elaborately styled, gender non-conforming response to the anarchist anti-fashion that preceded it, the New Romantics came dressed to the nines, be it for a night out on the town or just to pop down to the local shops. While so often remembered as a fleeting pop-cultural phenomenon, this invigorating documentary firmly positions the New Romantics as a multidisciplinary art movement, encompassing fashion, performance, music and film. Alongside this cultural re-contextualisation, director Kevin Hegge shines a long-overdue spotlight on some of the movement’s lesser-known pioneers (step aside Spandau Ballet), while proudly centring the LGBTQIA+ stories that are so often erased from history.

Through a series of tableaux/still life settings, characters are subjected to experiments dealing with elegance, science, violence, technology, glamour and love, attempting to examine the levels of alienation which the modern world and lifestyles encourage.