Is that really Jah Wobble? Images from amazing new promo

THE LOOK has been having a whole bunch of fun contributing to the promo shoot for Jah Wobble’s forthcoming single Blow Up.

Asked to help out with styling, extras and props, we gathered up friends Lloyd Johnson, Emma Peelpants and Jenny Drag for a sequence recalling the notorious fashion-shoot-as-metaphor-for-sex scene featuring star David Hemmings and model Verushka in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 movie.

//Jah Wobble aka John Wardle: “I look a complete and utter ****!”//

Wobble looked especially scary, with a bouffant blond wig, perma-tan make-up and on-camera behaviour updating and bringing new extremes to the arrogant and manipulative character originally played by Hemmings.

 

Given that Wobble’s new song is a hard-edged 3/4 time three-minute instrumental bordering on drum ‘n’bass, the brief was that the atmosphere should be rooted in 1966 London, yet with a contemporary air so that it didn’t slip into either Benny Hill territory or pure pastiche.

Hence Wobble’s decision against skinny white jeans a la Hemmings (“too Nathan Barley”) and also the involvement of Missoni; he wore a jacket from their latest men’s wear range and model Laura works for the company, so the label’s retail manager Giesela Tschirpig was on hand supplying beautiful dresses from A/W09/10 and S/S10. 

Jenny based her outfit around a red and black op-art mini while Emma (real name Liz) plucked a vintage cream and black striped mini shift from her extensive collection.

With an original chess-set designed by Hermann Ohme to underline the main character’s game-playing instincts, we took our cue from the cool jazz soundtrack to the original film and littered the record collection with the likes of Errol Garner and Chet Baker, as well as edgy mid 60s British r&b exemplified by Georgie Fame and The Spencer Davis Group.

Amid the contact sheets we placed Alan Fletcher plastic ashtrays, contemporary copies of Life, Esquire and Time, an original Anello & Davide ”Stallion range” catalogue and well-thumbed Penguins around the centrepiece: John D. Greene’s stunning Birds Of Britain.

//Lloyd and Liz take a break// 

With other scenes including Wobble haring around town in an Aston Martin and luxuriating in a Canary Wharf penthouse, the promo – from the sure hand of Procam’s John Brennan – is shaping up to become an online favourite on release this spring.

John Brennan tells us that there are plans to build a microsite around the clip, tour it around film festivals and include it as a video installation at art galleries.

Jah Wobble’s single Blow Up is out soon on his label 30Hertz.