Princess Julia on Leigh Bowery: “He told me he felt he looked very normal, but he knew he looked freakish”

The Leigh Bowery retrospective at Tate Modern is one of the most anticipated shows in London this year. It celebrates the life, work and legacy of the controversial artist, outlandish performer, club promoter and fashion designer.

Born in Melbourne in 1961, Leigh moved to London at 19 and immersed himself in the avant-garde scene, joining the New Romantic movement and embracing its distinctive gothic, pirate-inspired looks. He quickly became a key figure in London’s ‘80s gay clubbing scene and founded Taboo, which began as a small, intimate club for those ‘in the know’ and quickly became a mecca for deviance and debauchery, with partygoers including the likes of Mick Jagger and George Michael.

Leigh was catapulted into the art world when he showed a weeklong performance at Anthony d’Offay Gallery in 1988. He was one of Lucian Freud’s most famous muses, who described him as “perfectly beautiful”. Leigh tragically passed away from AIDS in 1994 at the age of 33. His illness was kept private, with Leigh asking close friends to “tell people I’ve gone to Papua New Guinea.”

Princess Julia, a DJ, writer and central figure in the New Romantic punk movement, was part of Leigh’s circle in the ‘80s. She worked in Taboo’s cloakroom and lived below one of Leigh’s closest friends, John Maybury. Ahead of Leigh’s major retrospective at Tate Modern, we asked Julia to reflect on Leigh, as a person, creator and glorious rebel.

Listen to Princess Julia recall her memories of Leigh Bowery, featuring Polaroid portrait of Leigh Bowery, 1986 © Peter Paul Hartnett / Camera Press

How did you first meet Leigh? 

I met Leigh on the nightclub scene in the early ‘80s. He hadn’t been in London that long, but he’d already started creating a fashion collection and would wear it out in clubs with the artist Trojan (Guy Barnes). They cast quite imposing figures on the scene. We were very intrigued and wanted to know who they were.

The look was a full face of makeup, platform boots, hats embellished with stars. They looked striking. Leigh as a person was hysterical, fun, interesting, very curious. He wanted to know about everything and everyone. He was very quick to engage with different kinds of people and was interesting and interested in things. He was also outrageous. I remember grilling him on occasion about what certain things meant or symbolised in the looks that he was creating – it was absolutely fascinating. It soon became apparent that Leigh was more interested in creating looks for himself, making statements with the various ideas he was putting into his creations.

What captivated you about Leigh as a person and his vision of the world? 

Leigh was very alluring. You wanted to make friends with him when you saw him. He was quite accessible, funnily enough. He was totally captivating. It wasn’t just the looks that he created, it was him, the person inside the looks. He always wanted to explore different ideas and I think that was probably the most captivating of all – that he was interested in what was going on. He could be quite a gossip, and he did like to stir things up, but I think that was all part of the fun. In the early ‘80s, I was still sort of exploring my own different creative outlets, and I was doing a lot of different jobs. I was living in Camden, sharing a flat with Stephen Jones and a boy called Leigh Sheldrick at number 70 Godwin Court. Upstairs from me, lived John Maybury, Leslie Chills, David Holler and Christine Binney. We were all pursuing different careers. David was establishing Bodymap with Stevie Stewart. John Maybury was exploring his artistic practices in filmmaking and art painting. Actually, I felt a bit lost. Looking back, I could do a lot of different things, but I was enjoying myself on the club scene. I was doing a little bit of modeling as well.

What was going on in your own life when you met Leigh?

I think we were all enjoying club life and people becoming more instated in their various professions. Stephen Jones was very focused on his millinery, and we were creating our looks. I’d been part of the New Romantic scene in the late ‘70s, so my life just sort of carried on from that. There were lots of different club nights going on, including the Bat Cave and the sort of emergence of the Gothic look and scene and in Club Land, these scenes intertwined. I was working in clubs, doing various things, including being a cashier lady. In a weird way, my life wasn’t that much different from what it is now, which is quite fascinating.

What was a night at Taboo like? 

The initial feeling of the night was one of excitement because you never really knew what was going to happen or who was going to be there. At first it was quite a quiet night, but it soon garnered some speed. There were queues down the road, and Mark Vaultier was on the door, who was quite strict. Sue Tilley was the cashier lady. At one point I even had a job at Taboo, doing the coat check with Malcolm Duffy. It was the highlight of every week.

Leigh would arrive in a flurry of excitement and whirl around the club talking to people and stirring things up. We’d be drinking our thimbles full of vodka at the bar. Jeffrey Hinton was the DJ and would show videos that he’d edited. Jeffrey had moved into my flat at number 70, so I was privy to what was going on. Rachel Auburn was another DJ. The music would be a mixture of club classics, high energy and some quirky tracks thrown in for good measure. There was a dance which was a sort of take on the Menudo Hustle, which culminated in people falling on the floor. There was a lot of falling on the floor, actually. People would get up on the podiums around the floor. David LaChapelle was a regular, along with Michael Clark and David Holler. I’ll always remember them go-go dancing down there. It was hilarious and hedonistic, a lot of fun, quite manic in a way.

Charismatic people often have different sides to them. Was that the case with Leigh? 

Leigh was actually a very focused individual. He had a studio in his flat, and would be there creating different looks with his wife, Nicola Bateman, who was always by his side. I get the feeling that Leigh was quite strict when it came to making his clothes. He was very studied about it, and I think that’s quite apparent when you see the looks. He spent a lot of time sourcing materials and was very excited about the latest creation, and we all appreciated that.

He also had a very good sense of humor about himself and his look, which I always felt was quite astounding, because it was very subtle but very confronting. He actually said to me that he felt that he looked very normal, but he knew that he looked freakish. I remember he used to get these wigs and chop them right down to the webbing, which, if you saw Leigh coming towards you, you wouldn’t really notice until you got close up and really saw the freakishness in his day looks.

How has Leigh impacted your life? 

I think Leigh has impacted my life and all of our lives by being a person who was continually curious. He was one of those people who liked to investigate different things and then twist something into something else. I think that’s something to take with you through life, you know, to always be curious, to always be questioning things and to to explore different creative outlets, no matter how far-fetched they may be. Leigh did quite a few TV appearances, and they were quite varied. He was on The Tube with Paula Yates one time, and then the next moment he’d be doing daytime TV with Peter Stringfellow. Leigh would throw himself into situations that could be quite daunting, but he’d have fun.

What inspires you about Leigh’s work?

Leigh was an artist, and from how his career swerved, it became apparent that his diverse interests could be explored in many different ways. I see Leigh’s inspiration through the decades through performance, music and costume. He really threw himself wholeheartedly into all these pursuits.

I think that’s what really inspires me about Leigh and his work. I saw quite a few of his performances, including his childbirth scene, where he ‘gave birth’ to Nicola [on stage], and it was really quite astounding. His band, Minty, was also quite astounding. Obviously, the enema show was astounding too.

What was it like to be at one of his performances?

I don’t think we’d ever seen anything quite like it, frankly. I don’t know if Leigh really realised how provocative these performances were. Maybe he did. Oh, he must have! Yeah, of course he did. He had another music-type project called the Quality Street Rappers, which changed to Raw Sewerage. That was a very confrontational idea that I think Leigh thought would be a good pop group. I’m not sure if it really had great crossover appeal, but then later on, he formed Minty which really established him in the realm of writing and making music.

If Leigh was alive today, what do you think he would be doing?

If I could speak to Leigh today, I think I’d probably have the same sort of chats with him that I had back in the day. I’d probably be asking him about what he was doing, what he was up to, what his thoughts were about the state of the world and how he’d be addressing those things. I think we’d be seeing a lot more of Leigh’s mind at work, but we’ve got the legacy of Leigh, and that has stood the test of time, it really has. And I’m very excited to see what this show will bring at Tate Modern.