Remembering Taboo, the party that reshaped ’80s London nightlife

One night in 1985, Mar­tin Green walked into the boxy base­ment of Max­imus in Leices­ter Square expect­ing an aver­age night out in Lon­don. Only it wasn’t. The place was qui­et, but filled with char­ac­ter – every­one was dressed in ruf­fles, gold leather, out­ra­geous prints and thick lay­ers of face paint. ​“There weren’t a lot of peo­ple there, but there was this incred­i­ble ener­gy to the place,” Green recalls.

It was the sec­ond night of Taboo, a new but strik­ing club night. Green watched as smoke machines turned on and ​‘Into the Groove’ by Madon­na played on repeat with peo­ple scream­ing and danc­ing around. He sat down at a booth by the dance­floor, and as he looked around, he felt like he was ​“watch­ing a movie”. 

With their exhi­bi­tion Out­laws: Fash­ion Rene­gades of 80s Lon­don, on view at the Fash­ion and Tex­tile Muse­um, Green and fash­ion cura­tor NJ Steven­son revis­it the fabled nights of Taboo, cel­e­brat­ing the rene­gades who used fash­ion and flair to push the bound­aries of gen­der, art, and cre­ativ­i­ty. A time cap­sule of London’s ​’80s fash­ion and night­club scene, the exhi­bi­tion fea­tures the orig­i­nal gar­ments and acces­sories from over 30 design­ers, as well as vibrant pho­tographs tak­en dur­ing its hey­day. With the help of artis­tic direc­tor David Cabaret’s man­nequins, there are pre­served out­fits worn found on the dance­floor, from a red and green spot­ted coat to a black and white cat­suit, while pay­ing trib­ute to its founder, Leigh Bowery.

“It’s about show­ing all the lit­tle pieces of the jig­saw puz­zle that made up this kind of cre­ative ecosys­tem with Taboo at the cen­tre of it,” Green says.

Open­ing its doors in 1985, the club was a ​“man­i­fes­ta­tion of extreme fash­ion, extreme artis­tic expres­sion, and extreme behav­iour,” Steven­son adds. ​“Taboo is part of the tra­jec­to­ry of the sto­ry of Lon­don nightlife – It’s influ­en­tial and mem­o­rable because of the con­flu­ence of extreme characters.”

Bow­ery was one of those. Born and raised in Aus­tralia, he moved to Lon­don in 1980 and began design­ing eccen­tric out­fits for his friends to wear as they ven­tured the club scene. He was a per­for­mance artist look­ing for his stage, and Taboo became that podium.

“A lot of Leigh was about prov­ing him­self by mak­ing an impact, and doing that in as many dif­fer­ent ways as he could,” Green says.

Fash­ion sub­cul­tures were var­ied and dis­tinc­tive through­out the ​’80s, from the plaid and chains of punk to the coloured hair and heavy eye­lin­er of new wave, each an act of rebel­lion against the last. Just before the decade began, a move­ment called New Roman­tics, marked by glam­orous and the­atri­cal out­fits, imbued the youth cul­ture. But only a few years lat­er, around 1981, the move­ment fiz­zled out as a new one entered the scene: Hard Times, sig­ni­fied by ripped jeans and over­sized coats. 

“Leigh’s first few col­lec­tions were of the hard times style, but then he end­ed up rebelling against that as well,” Green says. ​“He went back to the dandy style that was pop­u­lar dur­ing the new roman­tics era, but it was even more flam­boy­ant and was mixed with ​’70s glam rock. Every­thing was glit­tery and shiny, but also kind of sex­u­al in a way that the New Roman­tics nev­er was.”

Six months after his first, Green went back for anoth­er vis­it to the club night, only this time Taboo was unrecog­nis­able. With queues around the block and peo­ple fight­ing to get in, this was the place to be, and cer­tain­ly the place to be seen. Pop stars and lumi­nar­ies like Boy George and John Gal­liano were fre­quent atten­dees, ren­der­ing media atten­tion and TV cam­eras that sur­round­ed the place. Green went on to become a DJ him­self and his own club night, Smash­ing, start­ed in 1991 in the same venue as Taboo.

While Taboo’s life­time was short lived – its doors closed in 1986 – its 18 months of exis­tence cre­at­ed an indeli­ble moment in Lon­don cul­ture. A safe space for design­ers and per­for­mance artists, the night cement­ed its rep­u­ta­tion as the place where rebels and out­laws became the fash­ion vision­ar­ies of today. 

“You were sup­posed to be able to do any­thing you want­ed to do,” Steven­son says. ​“That was the whole point of Taboo.”

Out­laws: Fash­ion Rene­gades of Lon­don is on view at the Fash­ion and Tex­tile Muse­um until March 9, 2025.

Fol­low Cyna on Insta­gram.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Insta­gram.

Sup­port sto­ries like this by becom­ing a mem­ber of Club Huck.