Rowland’s radical reinvention reappraised

This Youtube clip for Kevin Rowland’s version of Concrete & Clay provides a pointer to where the style leader was taking his investigations into feminine attire before the plug was unceremoniously pulled by the collapse of Creation Records back in 1999.

//Concrete & Clay by Kevin Rowland//

Playing with the key dualities – black and white, purity and evil, heaven and hell – the promo (directed by Andreas Tibblin) also contains allusions to Rowland’s recovery from cocaine addiction, not least when the singer is submerged by a mound of white feathers. The transgressive air is communicated not by the fact that he is wearing a slip and panties, but more that the garb is pure white, with flesh sensuously hinted at and fleetingly revealed.

//Live at the Reading Festival 1999//

But such considerations were swept aside by knee-jerk commentary on the clothes, which Rowland had been developing into an entire collection. THE LOOK recalls encountering the singer at a film screening around this time. In an A-line apron-style skirt with zippered front and red polo-neck, he was deep in conversation with John Galliano, himself dressed in a sarong.

//Cover of My Beauty
//

The reaction to the cover of Rowland’s underrated interpretative album My Beauty revealed the inherent conservatism in indie rock circles, as preconceptions among those who held him in laddish high-regard were overturned.

//Sleeve of Concrete & Clay//

In a letter to Creation Records boss Alan McGee prior to the album release, Rowland stressed that he was “not wearing women’s clothes or trying to be a woman. I am wearing dresses because I choose to (who’s to say I can’t?)”.

//Braveheart: Men In Skirts by Andrew Bolton//

As recorded in chapter 26 of THE LOOK, Creation’s Ed Ball was pretty much alone in recognising Rowland’s stylistic statement as part of a lineage stretching back through pop fashion.

“Thirty-odd years ago David Bowie wore a dress, and look at what people like John Stephen were doing in the 60s,” said Ball. “It’s inevitable that dresses on men are cutting edge.”

However, McGee noted in Dave Cavanagh’s history of the label: “Two-thirds of Creation are disgusted with the project.”

//From S/S 09 shows by Galliano, Commes des Garcons and Etro. Pic: Imaxtree//

This uptight attitude appears thoroughly outmoded now. Reappraisal came swiftly: in 2003 Rowland appeared in Andrew Bolton’s V&A celebration Braveheart: Men In Skirts, and the cover, from Jean Paul Gaultier A/W 2001, bore a striking resemblance to one of the silhouettes the Dexy’s frontman had been promulgating.

//From The Sartorialist July 08//

With male cosmetics and transgender dress these days more widely accepted in the wake of adoption from the sublime (Antony Hegarty) to the ridiculous (Russell Brand), this summer has seen Gaultier join other designers in reviving male skirts for men on the catwalk.

//MGMT’s VanWynGarden models skirt options//

Meanwhile musicians such as Andrew VanWynGarden of MGMT revel in wearing pleated skirts, surf-minis and Kurt Cobain-style flower-print dresses.

//MGMT at Billabong’s Design For Humanity//

The My Beauty affair is ancient history to Rowland, who subsequently reformed Dexy’s for an acclaimed tour in 2003 and has more recently achieved success as a DJ and compiler of the Made To Measure Motown set. Nowadays his look channels 30s, 40s and 50s vintage shapes and cross-fertilises them with 21st Century dandy flourishes.

//Kevin Rowland portrait by Charlotte MacMillan//

In the aftermath of My Beauty, Rowland commented: “My therapist said, ‘What you’ve done is tapped into something that’s very threatening – to not be a man dressing up as woman, but wearing a dress because you want to, without trying to be feminine’.

“I think it was beautiful, in a way. The reaction to that dress was almost the same as for the Ivy League clothes on Don’t Stand Me Down, which was just as vitriolic, for wearing suits. It’s very hard for me to understand that kind of reaction. But that’s show business.”