Extreme Fashion
The outrageous outfits of a London subculture
Starting in 2014, Australian photographer Damien Frost set a goal for himself: To find and photograph “the most fascinating and vibrant inhabitants” of his adopted city, London. Frost has compiled his work in the new book Night Flowers, which gets its title from the phrase Frost uses to describe the exotically dressed characters he discovered walking the streets in the wee hours—the “select few whose glass slippers come on only at midnight and who are just beginning their evening’s revelries as most people are tucking themselves into bed.” “These ‘Night Flowers’,” writes Frost, “are a loose-knit community of drag queens and kings, club kids, alternative queer, transgender and gender-queer people, goths, artists, and cabaret, burlesque and fetish performers who bloom at night and burn bright among the neon lights of inner-city London.” Frost’s photos spotlight the elaborate fashions embraced by this community. Boy George—who wrote the foreword to this book—sums up the Night Flower way of life by citing a lyric from a legendary performer who also loved to create exotic characters and don flamboyant costumes. Writes Boy George: “One can’t help but think of David Bowie singing, “We’re painting our faces and dressing in thoughts from the skies.”
