I always get a little excited when I run across some previously unseen vintage footage of dancing goths that has bubbled up to the surface. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of documentation of early ‘80s goths dancing in their natural habitats. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that goths have traditionally been viewed as terrible dancers? We’ll just roll the footage and let our readers be the judge of that.

First up on this goth dancing hit parade is a clip which purports to be from 1983. The song in the clip is the extended single mix of The Cure’s “Let’s Go To Bed” which was released in 1982. Unfortunately the upload doesn’t offer more info as to the location of the club. If anyone knows, please comment. Some of the outfits here are wonderfully racy.
 

 
More dancing goths from the 1980s, after the jump…

Clare Thom, Boy George, Michele Clapton, 1980

It was about rebellion, creativity, originality, being yourself and having a damn good time doing it. ~ Graham Smith.

I always love photos from this era because it shows our modern day ding-dong hipsters they ain’t doing nothing new. Yeah, we’ve already been there and done that. And better, too. These images come from photographer’s Graham Smith’s lovely coffee table book of London clublife, We Can be Heroes: Punks, Poseurs, Peacocks and People of a Particular Persuasion. There’s over 320 pages of fashion eye candy from that time and place.

Everyone was a cog in this stylishly bizarre, wobbling wheel, rolling into uncharted territories. ~ Graham Smith

Stephen Linard and Michele Clapton on their way to see Spandau Ballet, 1980
 

Boy George (not Daniel Ash from Bauhaus) and Jeremy Healy, who was soon to form Haysi Fantazee, 1980
 

Chris Sullivan. The Blitz, 1980
 
More after the jump…
 

Sacrosanct, 1986
 
The range of punk aesthetics is pretty firmly rooted in the brain of any fan, even for the most hopeless of fashion victims. The era just after its zeitgeist however is much hazier—we seem to recall only a loose amalgam of New Wave and post-punk bric-a-brac. Indeed subculture fashion became more diffuse, meandering and harder to pin down, but Derek Ridgers’ new book, 78-87 London Youth is a great photo account of a rich and creative time for underground style that often goes overlooked in the shadow of its (ironically) more uniform punk predecessor.

There’s a few famous faces, including a cherubic Hamish Bowles, but it’s largely anonymous faces that entrance you. You see proto-club kids, luxury goth, high femme skinheads, Norma Desmond-David Bowie hybrids and (my personal favorite) the New Romantic style virtually unknown in the US, but for Boy George and that dashing post-apocalyptic gentleman, Adam Ant. Can we have a comeback? I think I still have my marching band uniform jacket from high school!
 

Leicester Square, 1982
 

Hamish Bowles at Café De Paris, 1986
 

Joshua, Camden Place, 1982
 
More photos after the jump…