FEATURE:
Put in the Pin
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performs Suspended in Gaffa on the French T.V. show, Champs Elysees, in October 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Araldo Di Crollalanza/Rex Features
The Fashion and Iconic Looks of Kate Bush
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I think we often…
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
define Kate Bush in certain ways. Most of it revolves around her sound and music. Her as a producer or an original. So much around the writing, recording and production. How many people discuss Kate Bush as a fashion icon?! Maybe not directly connected to the music, there is no denying the fact that her sense of style and changing looks are extraordinary and an essential part of her. The reason I am discussing this again – I have a feeling I have talked about it in the past – is because there has not been a book about that. Books like Taylor Swift: And the Clothes She Wears are about modern icons. Taylor Swift is undoubtably a fashion and style icon in addition to being a global megastar. Same goes for other major artists today. Few talk about Kate Bush as this artist whose outfits, looks and shoots are as important, eye-catching, original and stunning as the music. If we talk about artists like Madonna in terms of fashion and looks, Kate Bush is often seen as more modest and less worthy. If you think about the polemics, Kate Bush trumps so many others. From modest and girl-next-door shoots to these extraordinary outfits we see in her live performances for The Tour of Life, through to various shoots where she was dressed in an array of different colours, textures and styles, this creates a variegated and nuanced palette! I will get to a couple of articles that discuss and dissect Kate Bush’s fashion. How she is an icon because of this too. As integral as the music in many ways. From all of her videos through to her shoots and day-to-day choices, it was all different and distinct. There was a lot of new interest in Kate Bush from generations Z and Alpha when Stranger Things used Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and there was this explosion of interest through TikTok videos. It gave journalists impetus to explore subjects and themes around an artist who arrived in music nearly forty-five years before Stranger Things opened her up to a new world. Glamour looked at Kate Bush’s key looks and fashion moments for a feature in 2022.
IN THIS PHOTO: The Last Dinner Party/PHOTO CREDIT: Phoebe Fox for NME
I love the fact that there has been a slew of features about Kate Bush and getting the look. I wonder, if you think about some of the new bands and artists coming through, whether they have adopted some of Kate Bush’s wardrobe and fabric. Maybe The Last Dinner Party’s changing looks – as NYLON write: “Victorian funeral garb, they jump to jewel-toned Renaissance fare, and then crisp lace tops and babydoll dresses of the Virgin Suicides variety” – has been inspired in some part by Kate Bush. So many other modern artists have borrowed something from Kate Bush in that sense. I like how this Sloane Street article from 2022 shows how to replicate some of Bush’s looks. I personally love ‘The dance look’! I will look at the divide between her music video styles, various fashion shoots and her more home-grown looks. I will also write about the need for a book that collates photos and illustrations, charting Kate Bush’s evolving looks and how she was this vital fashion icon. Someone whose aesthetic and visuals were as strong as the music she produced. There are two features I want to come to. This one highlights how artists such as Florence + The Machine, Bat for Lashes and St. Vincent have definitely taken guidance and inspiration from Kate Bush when it comes to their fashion and on-stage outfits:
“Nobody ever perfected the feminine as ethereal quite like Kate Bush. An influence on innumerable modern pop stars and style icons – Florence + the Machine, Bat for Lashes, Bjork and St Vincent, to name but a few, Bush is an icon of music, style, and feminism all at once. Incorporating costume wholeheartedly into her music videos and performances, she used her attire as an equal arm of her unbounded creativity as any other artistic medium. Her iconic, enormous wavy brown hair and angelic Wuthering Heights white dress cemented her place in pop culture iconography, and informed my relationship to femininity and performance more than any other artist.
Bush’s tribute to Emily Bronte’s classic novel continues to be both her most iconic song and music video; the sweeping, ethereal interpretive dance moves, the wild facial expressions, the translucent red or white chiffon dress with enormous, billowing sleeves that have informed my – and many others – taste in neo-Victorian romanticism. Everything Florence Welch does now can be taken from that performance; the otherworldly, ghostly femininity, the floaty, sheer fabrics, the powerful, modern witchiness. It’s a performance that rivals the intensity of Bronte’s extraordinary novel itself. Her beauty choices of the 80s, too, trickle down to designers the world over; the heavy fringe and thick, dark hair, deep berry lipstick and intense smoky eyes have informed many recent catwalks in their witchy, gothic-romantic revivals, which have in turn been responsible for countless glamorous night-out looks on the high street, all black lace and sheer panels.
At a time when fashion tended overwhelmingly towards the forward-looking, the shiny, futuristic fabrics, the business-influenced party power-dressing, the big skirts and sleeves and hair and a vision of the future from the 50s, Bush took a softer, more nostalgic, more quietly theatrical view; borrowing from Pre-Raphaelite painting, Japanese art history and textiles, and the culture of mine and contemporary dance from which she rose, Bush’s look – like her sound – operated in its own imaginative sphere. Her countless bodysuits and leotards spoke of a practical, dance school mentality; the idea of wearing the easiest outfits to perform in, to allow for movement, to dance and fly and fully express yourself, can be seen in the classic bodysuits and worshipping of good basics of the recently-passed American Apparel. Bush approached fashion from an artist’s sensibility and with the eye of a costume designer; her commitment was, first and foremost, to character, to performance and to creative freedom.
For me, Bush’s style was crucial to the formation of my emerging teenage femininity. With a penchant for both the theatrical and the gothic, I moved out of my early teens emo phase – grew beyond enormous black band hoodies and colour striped socks in search of something more subtle, that still worked with my intense love of black eyeliner. Bush offered a take on the gothic heroine that was joyous, all about exclamation, high emotional states and love of nature. She was powerful, magical, reclaiming the fainting gothic heroine and putting her centre stage; she was unapologetically eccentric, taking influence from innumerable, seemingly disparate sources, she made incredible music and gave no cares if anyone thought she was weird or mad, she was the coolest, funkiest earth mother, the best kind of witch. Every modern popstar owes something to Kate Bush; countless catwalks are in debt to her eye to the stage; I owe her to this day for my ideas of what femininity can be”.
Perhaps an unconventional style role model, at a time when many of her peers were more conventional or ordinary, Kate Bush definitely stood out. DAZED wrote in 2022 about the influence of Kate Bush’s eclectic looks and fashion selections. Someone who was a chameleon inside the studio and out. I cannot discuss Kate Bush’s importance without talking about fashion. How each year and period of her career was blessed with an array of wonderful photos and inspirational fashion choices:
Nearly 40 years after it was first released, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” has become the hottest song of the summer. Playing a prominent role in the dark new series of Stranger Things, the offbeat ballad has become a global hit, as endless streams by a new generation of Bush fans propelled it to the top of the UK charts. First appearing on Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love, the track is a rallying cry for extreme empathy that explores what could be achieved if two lovers swapped places to understand one another better – themes which feel just as timely and pertinent as they did back then.
Despite her fame, Kate Bush has managed that rare thing as a mainstream musician – retaining a cult-like aura that still makes listeners feel like insiders sharing a secret. To those in the know, this appreciation extends far beyond the music. A great foreshadower of the slick pop package expected today, Bush’s work has always been led by an understanding that a great singer uses all her available tools. From taking lessons with David Bowie’s dance teacher Lindsay Kemp to devising music videos that cover every genre from sci-fi to macabre fairytale, Bush’s vision was, and is, multi-faceted. Clothes have played an integral part in this creative odyssey, cementing Bush as an idiosyncratic fashion icon in the process.
KATE’S KEY LOOKS
Let’s reverse to the beginning. Bush burst into the limelight in 1978 with her debut album The Kick Inside. She was just 19. The lead single “Wuthering Heights” remains one of her best known to this day, its high-pitched, broken-hearted register still a favourite among brave karaoke-goers. Two separate music videos released to accompany the Emily Brontë-inspired track featured Bush fluttering around a field and a stage in flowing gowns: one red, one white. Often, this is the Kate Bush we still imagine, all big hair and ethereal seventies regalia.
Away from her videos, Bush was frequently pictured wearing rustic knits, silk blouses, waistcoats, colourful tights, thigh high-boots, and a further succession of diaphanous dresses. Her style suggested not only hippyish ease but a particularly English kind of eclecticism: all thin fabrics and big woolly socks. She wasn’t afraid of high fashion drama either. A series of photos of her taken in the late ‘70s by Claude Vanheye see her in various jewel-coloured Fong Leng pieces, with one ritzy yellow number worn to walk a leashed crocodile.
The needs of dance also influenced Bush’s love of glittery bodysuits and tight lycra – all the better to move in. Her 1979 show The Tour of Life was a heavily costumed affair, featuring outfits including a magician’s top hat and tails, a veil, wings, leotards, and WWII army attire. Always ahead of the game, she was also the first singer to perform with a wireless microphone headset, her stage sound engineer Martin Fisher devising it from a coat hanger.
During those early years, Bush was prodigious. The Kick Inside and Lionheart were both released in 1978, Never Forever came in 1980 (featuring a brilliant futuristic look complete with chainmail bikini for “Babooshka”), and The Dreaming in 1982. The latter, which marked her most experimental work to date, received lukewarm reception but has since been recognised as a classic. Bush then stormed back onto the charts in 1985 with Hounds of Love.
Forever a shapeshifter, across the course of the album’s music videos and shoots Bush fashioned herself into a small boy complete with knitted jerkin for “Cloudbusting”, an overcoat-clad dancer for “Hounds of Love”, and an Ophelia-style figure in a life jacket framed by flowers for the album’s B-side telling the story of a slowly drowning woman. For “Running Up That Hill” she opted for grey leotards and hakama – draped Japanese trousers – ideal for the video’s soft purple light as she and fellow dancer Michael Hervieu (dressed identically) grappled together in a series of motions that rolled between intimacy and distance.
A LASTING INFLUENCE
To some degree, it’s hard to write about Kate Bush’s ‘style’, because so much of it exists in service to her music. Take her 1993 album The Red Shoes. There it’s all about the scarlet ballet slippers, used to reference Powell & Pressberger’s 1948 film of the same name – itself nodding to Hans Christian Andersen’s gruesome tale of a girl cursed to dance forever. For Bush, clothing is both kinetic and character-forming. It frees or accentuates the body. It allows the wearer to play role after role. Often, her vision has extended beyond the merely human. In her promotional images you can find her dressed as both a bat and a lion.
There is a narrative that exists in the fashion world – that of the slightly awkward kid who spends their adolescence sketching in their room and grows up to create clothing that fulfils their hunger for beauty and fantasy. No wonder Bush appeals to that cohort. It’s one of the reasons why she’s so beloved. Yes, there’s the emotional precision of her lyrics and the expansive reach of her sounds. Yes, there’s that fantastic willingness to be intelligent and daring and strange. But there’s also an implicit suggestion about the galloping power of the imagination, particularly when combined with an outsider-ish sensibility that leaves you dreaming about literary ghosts or the merits of the mathematical symbol Pi.
That’s why her fashion choices are so memorable too. It’s not just their ethereality or eccentricity, but the stories they tell. Designers love to throw around vague statements about creativity, but in someone like Kate Bush you see the full force of an active, searching mind – and an understanding of what the dressing up box can do. Really, it’s a very simple fashion philosophy. To become someone new, all you need is a costume change”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I can see the evolution. I loved the shots that Gered Mankowitz took of Kate Bush in 1978 and 1979. From shots of her in leotards – Kate Bush as the dancer – to more elegant and heady (the wonderful ‘Hollywood’ shot is one of the best photos of Kate Bush), we saw many different sides early on. Kate Bush not wanting to be defined or controlled by a label or the wider market. Very much putting her on stamp on her looks and fashion. There was a mix of the more down-to-earth and the elevated. I think the early music videos and Bush’s The Tour of Life showcased how much the images and fashion was tied to the music. How they could define the song as much as anything. Think about the white and red dress versions of Wuthering Heights. The video for Babooshka. The contrast between the photographs of Gered Mankowitz and her brother, John Carder Bush. How there was this different dynamic and aesthetic when she collaborated with Guido Harari between 1982 and 1993. I think my favourite early-period Kate Bush looks took place in Amsterdam. You get this immediate contrast. Only in her early-twenties, there was this real sense of confidence and individual identity. Kate Bush was not dressing to fit in with expectation or promote the music. She was very natural. Her photoshoots were unique and memorable. I love this shot of Bush by Barry Schultz. Taken in Amsterdam in 1979 – when she was performing live there -, you get the boots and jeans combination one saw on the U.S. cover for 1978’s The Kick Inside. A blend of colours and textures. You can tell I am no fashion expert, so it hard to describe! I love how stunning the ensemble is. How there is this sense of the ordinary and extraordinary in one look. Compare that to the photos she took with Claude Vanheye. She was snapped wearing Fong Leng in some truly breathtaking images. One sees Bush in a parking garage. There is some debate, but I think she is with a crocodile rather than an alligator. One has a wider nostril than the other. Someone can say for sure. Some ask whether it is a real thing. It would be hugely dangerous to have a real crocodile or alligator there! Even if it was a zoo animal. I think it is either a model or prosthetic version. One that could be posed for a photo. Who knows…maybe it is real?!
PHOTO CREDIT: Claude Vanheye
The fact we get two distinct sides to Kate Bush in Amsterdam highlights what a remarkable, compelling and important fashion icon she was. The ordinary and supreme fashion going side by side. There is debate as to whether the Claude Vanheye shots were from 1978 or 1979. I feel they must have been the same time as the Barry Schultz shots. Every album and year brought a new range of periods in terms of her fashion. Never for Ever (1980) was distinct. Photos from Andy Phillips and Patrick Lichfield once more explored and exposed the various sides to this amazing and chameleon-like artist. Search for images of Kate Bush in 1982 and you get something vastly different to 1985, 1989 or 1993. There was no sense of Bush dressing to fit the times or what her peers were dressing in. There is almost too much pack in and discuss when it comes to Kate Bush and fashion. We have photobooks of Kate Bush. There has not been anything dedicated to her in terms of her fashion and styles. Looking at Bush through the years and her different looks. At a time when books about Kate Bush focus more on the music or are generally biographical, I do feel there is a gap for someone to go deeper with her fashion. A combination of photos and illustrations, Sketches and comparisons. How her fashion choices have inspire more contemporary artists and those outside of music. The more I think about Kate Bush and her style, fashion and extraordinary looks, the more I understand that she is truly…
ONE of a kind.