Beautiful Chaos: A Conversation With Judy Blame

The Judy Blame interview originally published in The Judy Blame Issue: Vital Spark, Summer 2006, this conversation between Judy Blame and Cent Magazine editor Jo revisits the life and creative legacy of one of the most influential figures in British fashion and underground culture. In discussion with Jo, Blame reflected on the experiences, collaborations and subcultural movements that shaped his career — from Manchester’s DIY scene and the emergence of the New Romantics to the worlds of styling, jewellery and image-making that he helped redefine throughout the 1980s and beyond.

Who Was Judy Blame?

Judy Blame was a British stylist, jewellery designer, art director and cultural figure whose influence shaped some of the most important creative movements of the late twentieth century. Closely associated with the punk movement, the New Romantics, Buffalo style and London’s underground fashion scene, he collaborated with figures including Boy George, Neneh Cherry, Ray Petri, Derek Jarman and Rei Kawakubo. Through his handcrafted jewellery, styling work and creative direction, Blame helped redefine the relationship between fashion and youth culture, leaving behind a legacy that continues to influence contemporary image-making today..

British Fashion

Known for his instinctive approach to creativity and his refusal to conform, Judy Blame became a defining presence within British fashion, club culture and visual identity. His work blurred the boundaries between fashion, music, art and street culture, influencing generations of stylists, designers and creatives through a language rooted in individuality, improvisation and collaboration.

More To Get To Know Him

Scrapbook on the following pages are images that Judy has chosen to represent facets of himself, his sketch book, and these are the words he describes them with.

DIY Fashion Movement

Jo: Tell me about leaving home

Judy: I was a 17 year old boy from the country and I wanted pink hair, so I ran away to London from Devon with 300 quid. I thought I’d meet a million punk rockers, I bought myself a pair of bondage trousers and a t-shirt at Vivienne Westwood, but found everyone in London was a bit up their own arse, I was naive and I thought there would be much more camaraderie in London but it was ‘clicky’. So I got the train ‘cos I knew I didn’t want to go backwards, and Manchester was the only other place where I knew anyone.

Manchester Creative Scene

It had its own scene up there, it was much more relaxed, much more homemade and customised, much more about the music and the art of it rather than the fashion, London was much more about the fashion of it.

Underground Fashion Movement

Jo: Do you think that Manchester was in fact the beginning of Judy Blame

Judy: Oh yeah, I call it my college because I didn’t go through the education system. It wasn’t just the visual nature of it, it was the attitude, about breaking barriers, doing things to shock, just for the hell of it. Most of our wardrobe was customised, jumble sales, ripping suits up, painting them, putting words on, badgeing them, pinning them….

This image is about all sorts of things I love to work with, I do love a ball of string…

This is lovely Geraldo in a shirt I made by burning lots of cigarettes. Even though I smoke like a train I was doing it for a smoking kills editorial. It nearly killed me doing it, that shirt!

Photography by Louis Giradi

I was lucky I met people like Malcolm Garratt, Peter Saville, The Buzzcocks, there was a really fertile scene up there and it was just easier to get into cos everyone just really cooperated with each other.

Drug Culture In London

Jo: So what brought you to London, were you beginning to feel like a big fish in a small pond?

Judy: No I didn’t think that, it’s just I got into a bit of drug trouble there, it had gone from being recreational and having a good time, to needing it. I was quite young and I didn’t know what was going on, so I kind of got a bit trapped. I was sharing a house with Malcolm Garratt the graphic guy, and Malcolm had already started to come to London to work and then one time he came back to Manchester and saw what a mess I was in and went I’ve got a van outside, throw your things in you’re coming to London with me

Working In Style Title In London

It was ’78, the beginning of ’79, I didn’t know anyone, we had this horrible flat in the Isle of Dogs, and I wasn’t really doing anything so in the end, being sick of having no money, I decided I had to do something. I got a job on magazines doing production by lying my way into the publishing company by saying I’d done it before. My boss at the time was Richard Desmond! (the porn baron). I was working on a doggy magazine called “Home Organist” and another one called “International Musician”, I was doing production, putting the magazine together.

Well the job just became nine in the morning until three in the morning every day, doing four magazines, earning a fortune but not having the time to enjoy it and so it really…. I don’t know… I’d done it for two years, learnt as much as I could there… it wasn’t a challenge to me anymore… it wasn’t creative and I’d kind of saved just enough money to think sod it let’s wing it and find something creative to do.

This shoot was done by these young guys I know from Brazil. They are very creative and a real inspiration to me.

Photography By Ivan Abujamra, Styling By Vinnie Pizzingrilli

Jo: so was that the beginning of the jewellery?

Judy: I didn’t know what direction to point my creativity in but I was lucky when I started to do the jewellery. It was when the new romantic thing happened, because it was very much about everyone having their own look not a uniform, punk had become a uniform, so it was a small scene of people…

Like everyone wanted to look different from one another, no one wanted to look the same

I guess the thing that really started off the jewellery was when David Holah (from Bodymap) used to make these chemise dresses. They were really cheap, they were like 20 quid (well then that was half your dole check!). If you had one of these dresses, well you could change the jewellery and wear the same chemise each week so that was great, that helped me work a different look each week even though the outfit didn’t change, the jewellery did. Then, the designer Anthony Price decided to use it for his show.

The Iggy Pop pictures. I went to New York with photographer Gavin Evans to shoot Iggy Pop for Time Out. Iggy wanted to see some of the ideas beforehand. So I thought what has Iggy been through in his life?… I’ll make a t-shirt out of band-aids…. And he really loved the idea, so I bought a rubber t-shirt and covered it in plasters and well.. Iggy was my number one, to actually be able to put a strong idea on such a great performer was a big high point for me.

Photography by Gavin Evans styling Judy Blame

Jo: did you think wow this is something inside of me that needs to be fulfilled?

Judy: That was the first time I met fashion people, creative people, well people who made a living out of creativity, my mother was…

“you’ll never make any money from being creative” which was like waving a red flag at me. In the new romantic days if you went to “Blitz club” and you looked at the 200 people who were in the club and you look at those people now half of them now are in media, fashion people like Stephen Jones, Princess Julia, Steve Strange, Boy George, Robert Elms if a bomb had dropped on that club half of the eighties wouldn’t have happened

I was lucky ….. I met Derek Jarman who introduced me to a whole different creative London and then met people like John Maybury and started making funny little super 8 films and when Derek, you know, when they needed a bald person to sit in the snow for ten hours with an orange sheet around them, I said, ok I’ll do it! If he wanted me hanging off a cross stark naked in the middle of a church in Wandsworth…. so of course you’d do it because it was a good day out. London was so big to me and being associated with these people…I just felt really privileged that I met some incredible people…

I do draw but I don’t really like to, I don’t find it easy, so I love the concept of collage when you can just cut up and paste things, it’s something I’ve always done I still do. I was working with Philip Treacy when I did this one and I was learning a lot about volume and line what you can get away with on top of your head I learnt a lot ‘cos he’s the best.

The other two are just Polaroids from a shoot that Mark Le Bon did of Boy George. Leigh Bowery had made the coat, and I had done the pearls and the beret. Burberry was my look at the time, everyone thought I was mental because I did wear the socks, hat, tie, shirt, and the trousers, I didn’t do it by half!

Collage Bu Judy Blame

This is J Maskreys skin jewellery. She was a bit of a fan of my work and then I met her at a bonkers party and I thought she was a nutter but in fact she has become one of my best friends. She came up with such a pure idea, the concept of skin jewellery but actually expanded it, it was a small idea that became big which is her she’s a small thing that’s become big; I adore her.

Panther Body Jewellery By J Maskrey, Photography And FX by Rory Dennis, Hair&Make-up By Helen Stone, Model Alys Hale/Storm

Jo: so how did the styling start?

Judy: The thing about the jewellery was it was one-offs and we were really doing it for ourselves … I did sell a bit of it… a woman from New York, Suzanne Barch, started to pick up on all the young designers and I did sell a bit but it wasn’t something that could support me and then by hook and by crook I started to make jewellery for Boy George and he was massive and going on tour and then …. I don’t know… i-D. and The Face had started and they were a platform for styling and Ray Petri and Mark Lebon said you’re great with clothes you should do it, they were the first ones and then Terry Jones was the first one to publish my pictures

The Buffalo Crew and Ray Petri, This is the buffalo crew… Big Black Jack as we used to call him, was on the door at The Café de Paris when Albert used to come over to DJ from Paris.
When I started to go over there to shows the Buffalo security team were on the doors which was good because I hardly ever had a ticket but I knew I would be lifted out of the crowd by Jack saying ‘let Judy in’. I think that’s where Ray Petri took the name, The Buffalo Crew, from, for the fashion movement. Ray met Jack and all of them… and the beautiful thing was that Jack did form the security group out of young black men… he gave them a pride.. and this was a massive inspiration to Ray, that black pride. When Ray started to do his styling he was one of the first to really use black and mixed race models. His style was taking high fashion and street fashion, black culture and white culture.. it was in the mix, he was the king of that.

Buffalo Crew Photography by Eddie Monsoon

I worked with Ray on quite a few shoots he’d call me up and go ‘Jude I need a few silver chains and I need a bit of this and that’ so I’d turn up at the shoots to help him just with the accessories and watch him working. A lot of these boys were not used to modelling but he was a genius at casting, putting people at their ease, putting these beautiful tough men in quite camp outfits, except it never looked camp. I learnt a lot about styling restraint from Ray, in fact I did learn style off him rather than piling it on as if I were going to a nightclub. He said ‘Judy you’re so good with clothes you do it, you style’ so for me, him, Mark Le Bon, Boy George and Terry Jones were my vital spark when it came to styling.

Ray Petri Photography By Nick Knight

Jo: Because before them (Blitz Club, i-D, The Face Magazine) there was no such thing as a style magazine

Judy: There were fanzines that were more about music but these magazines were the first to show fashion from the street rather than the catwalk, it was the first time street fashion had a value. It was the first time magazines were reporting on clubs, gigs and fashion. i-D. and The Face didn’t have that restriction, you could take something from the street from a club.. it was how attitude and style fused together; music, fashion, literature, film, TV, it was youth culture from the streets coming together, given a platform..

Chewing gum. This is more art directing. The shoot was for Virgin Souls, a band put together by Cameron McVey, who is Neneh Cherry’s husband. I had worked with Neneh and Cameron for a long time so he kind of gave me free rein. Cameron had written one of the most beautiful albums of the last ten years, very modern, very atmospheric kind of film music. The band were unusual in the fact that they didn’t really want their gobs on the front cover, so I took the idea of chewing gum like you see on the tube when there is an advert and someone sticks it on. I thought we would do something out of focus I mean you can still see the individual characters but because it’s so out of focus…. Mark Mattock, the photographer, who I’d worked a lot with, thought about it as a portrait, without seeing who it was. It’s one of my favourite pieces of work.

Photography by Mark Mattock Artwork By Michael Nash Associates

Jo: So by now you are successful with the styling, but things start to go wrong…

Judy: I don’t know… I’d seen George go through drug hell and I had in fact not taken major drugs since the Manchester days so I don’t know why I started up again……

I mean it did almost become fashionable, some of us fell victim to it and some people just dabbled and unfortunately I really fell victim… I don’t think I was particularly happy at the time… with my work

Jo: What made you want to clean up?

Judy: I think I cleaned up because George asked me to do the Culture Club revival when they reformed. I did the photo shoot and I was smacked off my head and George didn’t notice and I thought I’m really in trouble ‘cos I’d picked him off many a changing room floor and I thought it’s either cleaning up or a wooden box and I didn’t feel like the wooden box yet. The sad thing is, part of my phone book doesn’t exist anymore and I’m not saying it’s just to do with drugs but it is a bit about lifestyle… I don’t know, some people fall victim to it others don’t…..

I cleaned up and I went into rehab, which was a mind-blowing experience, I was worried I would lose my creativity because I had always taken drugs it was part of my rebellion…

The syringe. After I gave up heroin, I had this French boy Brendan staying at my house.
He was really into kung fu and hip-hop and I came up with this idea of kicking the habit. We did a t-shirt saying ‘kick the habit’ on the back and put this image on the front. I think it’s one of those things from my punk days that I still love, you can say so much on a t-shirt, it’s a point of communication. It’s one of the great modern inventions, the slogan t-shirt.

Kick the habit by Brendon

I was worried that my creativity was attached to it and I realised that the myth of drugs fuelling creativity is such a load of bollocks!!

I mean I’m sitting in rehab… physically I had to make myself better and mentally I was trying to repair myself after all the damage but I was worried I would lose it. But after I came out and I started living without drugs my creativity came flowing back almost like a waterfall, it was a release that I could almost go through that experience.

Jo: when we started working on the magazine we talked about creativity being your very reason for survival, it’s why you chose the title Vital Spark

Judy: Creativity is my backbone, I mean you saw the other people in rehab who didn’t have anything to come out for, they’d ruined their lives, they’d lost their wives, houses I didn’t have that panic about coming out to having nothing left, I came out and it was time to rebuild.. and thank you for having that…

Creativity saved my life 

Children. I’m a godmother to quite a few now, Isaac, Tyson, Mabel, then there’s Aster and her brother Nelson. I do find children really inspiring and I think they find me a bit of a laugh
‘cos I talk to them as I talk to you. Because I’m always making things, collages, jewellery, they are fascinated. I’m a really good babysitter! So when we started the magazine, I asked Nelson to do something for me; I told him it’s called Vital Spark. He drew a portrait of me with all my badges and crucifixes, glitter hair and glitter shoes and he also drew a dragon, stars and flowers. I’ve chosen to put the dragon in because I can be a bit of a dragon sometimes! I just think it’s great that a child can visualise two words; he just sat there for three hours, I didn’t have to interfere. Beautiful Chaos. The words Rei Kawakubo gave me when I did the jewellery for her, just two words!

Painting of Dragon and Judy by Nelson

and I can say that with my hand on my heart, it did come back stronger than ever and in fact it’s more exciting now to me than it was clouded by drugs I mean I’m not putting drugs down I’ve learnt a lot from them and I did have a good time but there’s also a bad time and a price to pay.

Jo: were you able to look back and work out why you did it?

Judy: Well you’ll just laugh at me but basically I’m just quite a shy person and a lot of my drug taking and drinking was trying to hide that and quite a lot of creative people do have that about them..

Jo: I wouldn’t laugh, nobody believes me when I say I’m painfully shy; I’ve noticed that you are not very comfortable with being given compliments….

Judy: Yeah, I think praise, awards, Knighthoods, mean nothing, because how can you compare yourself to another human being it means nothing how can you be better than another person, … but no I’m not comfortable with praise, I’m not one of those people who is desperate for a credit sometimes I prefer my credit not to be on it. If the image doesn’t speak for itself ….sometimes… it’s changed a lot now styling, people are more concerned with their credit than doing a good job, they worry about getting the tear sheet whereas I’m more concerned with what that tear sheet is going to say, and if it doesn’t need my name on it leave it off.

Dave Baby, Ancient Britain.

Ancient Britain, Photography By Mark Lebon, Clothes By Judy Blame And Christopher Nemeth, Model Andrea Lunz

Sculpture by Dave Baby

Jo: but you are cited by a lot of people as a major influence…

Judy: I mean I’m happy that I inspire people especially now that I’m much older and considering the three decades that I’ve worked through Punk, New Romantics, the 90’s etc and it’s great that you get to leave your mark on each but I do get embarrassed…. also if you look at the job we do it’s really about the photograph by Travis Hutchinson final product that’s everything, like the album
cover or photo shoot. I think if you over analyse it you can lose something, we’re not doing brain surgery, although sometimes you can change people’s attitude with an image.

It’s funny, now and then I do lecture at colleges, and it’s nice to have knowledge to pass on…

Superfine. This is a jeans label that one of my old assistants, Lucy, has started. I’m so proud of her, of all of them, and I love that they all call me mother! When I started, I was lucky to meet a lot of people that always encouraged me. With the children, that’s what I call my assistants, that’s what I like to do, pass it on, so they get to learn something from you.

Model And Jeans Superfine Photography By Jan Welters

Jo: you often mention the team work element, that’s very important to you…

Judy: yeah I believe in the teamwork, I mean when you and I did that bonkers shoot together the other day, there was that mad teamwork….I mean I do have an ego but I try to keep it away from the work because when you’re working with a big group of people on a photo shoot or a fashion show, a video or something like that there is already a lot of ego in the building and it’s your job to bring all the team together and encourage them, have ego about the end result not getting there….

Jo: I thought you were mad when you suggested the idea of you and I styling a shoot together, I never had the opportunity to work with another stylist before and I really enjoyed it…

Judy: I really believe that.. when you work with anyone it’s a learning process, I’m still at college… I’m still learning every day. I’ve been lucky my talent seemed to attract people.. that very much have their own talent… like working with Boy George was great, because George was not frightened about doing anything, I’ve never been…I just seem to … I seem to attract people… that are sympathetic to my work and I’m sympathetic to theirs so it makes for a good marriage…

I did an editorial for the magazine Sleaze Nation, shot by Mark Mattock over 12 pages and I think four of the pages had a piece of my jewellery in. I’ve never stopped making it, just commercially I didn’t do it. I used some shoes from Buddahhood, so I went into the shop to show them. They asked where the jewellery was from so I told them I made it and they went, “you should sell it through the store”, so I agreed to bring some pieces in.

Collage By Judy Blame

Photography By Mark Mattock, Jewellery By Judy Blame

Jo: and what’s vital for you now?

Judy: Well I’ve noticed that by doing the jewellery again people seem to want something individual, something handcrafted, I think the tide is turning again, that people don’t want to be exactly like each other. Brazil is a huge influence to me. I’ve been there seven or eight times in the past four years and I love it, I just got off the plane and felt like I was home. I love the food, the music, the people, I’ve made good friends there. I think it came at the right time for me to be inspired by life again and God knows they embrace both by the ton.

Neneh, my sister, I always really enjoyed working with women, and boy is she a strong one! When we started… unfortunately Ray was ill when Neneh started, so it was basically his recommendation. Cameron and Neneh wanted someone who could keep a hold of everything, not just a stylist; she did trust me on everything, from hair and make-up, to clothes, photographers, graphics and video directors and I couldn’t have done it on a more fabulous looking, brilliant woman so we had an immensely creative time together.

But on top of that she really brought me into her family, you know sometimes you can spend too much time with people and you end up hating them but it was the opposite with Neneh.

Baby Scans. These are of my sister’s baby. I think she was so happy about being able to carry the baby as she had already lost two. His name is Sam.

Neneh Cherry Photography By Eddie Monsoon

Looking back across decades of shifting scenes and identities, this Judy Blame interview reveals a practice remains anchored in something deeply personal: an insistence on individuality, on making something out of nothing, and on trusting instinct over structure. Beyond the imagery, the collaborations and the cultural impact, what endures is a philosophy — that creativity is not just expression, but survival. A vital spark that, once found, continues to shape everything that follows.

If you enjoyed reading Beautiful Chaos: A Conversation With Judy Blame, then why not read A Manifesto For Simplicity : The Best Powerful Design Art here

.Cent Magazine, London. Luxury Mindset