And so the story goes, he wore the clothes…
I’m sure you’ve already read about the above Freddie Burretti-designed costume that sold at auction to the Hard Rock Cafe in London on Thursday. It was famously worn by Bowie at the Marquee in London during the taping of The 1980 Floor Show TV specialin October 1973.
I had heard tales that the bangles that accompanied the outfit had been given away to fans during the taping and, indeed, that DB had to ask for them back at one point for continuity reasons.
I asked David about this and why the costume wasn’t in his possession anyway. Here’s what he said…
“The bangles were given away during filming. They were a copy of the Kansai ones that he had made for me for the other one legged outfit. The famous one which I’ve still got. (See below)
The ‘fire’ outfit was only ever worn for the 1980 Floor Show taping. The design was based on the Kansai one and it was made by Freddie. It disappeared from my house about a week after the show.”
Ziggy often lost balance on stage, so Kansai devised a clever weighted bangles
system to help him counter the effect of the one-legged costume. Example above.
Whatever the ownership status of the fire costume may be, it went under the hammer at Christie’s last week to fetch more than double the reserve price. Let’s hope the Hard Rock Cafe treats it with the respect it deserves, and keeps it in London to make it easier for the likes of me to go and view the thing.
David also e-mailed the picture below from his own collection, of Freddie Burretti (right) and Geoff MacCormack in the back of a car somewhere around late 1973. Apparently they had just met a guy in a club who seemed to have all manner of insights into future events. The chap apparently went by the name of Sam Tyler.
No it’s not Starsky and Hutch. Geoff earned extra bunce to test drive Paul Michael Glaser’s cardigans.
Speaking of Geoff, stay tuned for a contest to win a collector edition of FROM STATION to STATION sometime during the first week of next month.
Speaking of contests, also stay tuned for a competition later this evening to win a signed by David Bowie NLMD press folder that we told you about yesterday.