1981: Who are the NEW ROMANTICS? | Newsnight | Fashion | BBC Archive

"If punk was all about rebellion, the new romantics are all about style."

Robin Denselow reports on the latest youth subculture - variously dubbed the 'Blitz kids' or the 'new romantics' - a group of young art students, pop musicians, fashion designers, writers and others who are creating a new style to succeed punk.

Who are the new romantics, and what is the ideology underpinning this new movement? Robin speaks to clothes designer and club organiser Chris Sullivan, writer Robert Elms, Steve Strange and Rusty Egan of Visage, Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp and Gary Kemp, fashion designer John Baker and Perry Haines, the editor of I.D. magazine.


Clip taken from Newsnight, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 23 January, 1981.




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