Anthony Price, great designer for Duran Duran, Bowie and Roxy Music, dies at 80 | fashion

Anthony Price, the British maverick designer and theatrical ‘image maker’, has died aged 80. He was among the first to combine music, theater and fashion, helping to formulate Roxy Music’s glam rock aesthetic and designing Duran Duran’s yacht rock tailoring a decade later. More recently, he has become Queen Camilla’s favorite designer.

Often described as the greatest designer you’ve never heard of, Price has only given six shows – or “great fashion shows” – during his 55-year career, but last month he returned to the London runway for the first time in more than 30 years with a show in collaboration with 16 Arlington. There, Lily Allen made headlines by designing a black velvet “revenge dress.”

During its heyday in the 1970s, his shop in London’s World’s End, with its dark blue glass façade, was an ultra-cool counterpoint to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s sex shop on King’s Street. Broadcaster Janet Street-Porter once described his clothing as “result clothing” – a modern definition of the ultra-sexy glamour, which blurred Rita Hayworth’s design with futuristic techno colours, and helped a generation of musicians become true icons of style.

Price was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, and moved to London in the early 1960s to study at the Royal College of Art. His first menswear job at Stirling Cooper on London’s Wigmore Street led to him cutting the button-down trousers that Mick Jagger wore on the Rolling Stones’ American Gimme Shelter tour in 1969.

He went on to design the covers for Roxy Music’s eight albums, with Bryan Ferry describing him as a “master craftsman”, creating extravagant looks for Roxy girls Amanda Lear, Jerry Hall and Carrie Ann Mueller who starred on the sleeves, as well as the band themselves. When Roxy disbanded in 1983, he continued to work with Duran Duran and David Bowie, creating instantly recognizable sharp, smooth, broad-shouldered tailoring. He is also credited with designing the men’s long-sleeved shirt that appears on the back cover of Lou Reed’s 1972 classic Transformer.

His ability to switch from menswear to womenswear — something uncommon in the fashion world — has landed him work with Paula Yates, Kylie Minogue, and Hall, who wore Price’s wedding dress when she married Mick Jagger (a union that turned out to be not legally binding). He once told The Independent: “My clothes are men’s idea of ​​what women should wear, and for that they will pay good money… Men are looking for the Lange Metropolis sex robot with the perfect body who offers endless fantasy sex.”

He launched his own brand in the 1970s and still runs stores in London. In the 1990s, Price became known as the “Dress Surgeon” for his artistic ability and use of boning pieces and corsets to design body-hugging dresses, using ancient techniques to create clothing for the future. Around this time, he began designing custom-made pieces for Camilla, including a number of looks for her first American tour as the Duchess of Cornwall in 2005.

His friend and collaborator, milliner Philip Treacy, said the fashion world had lost “a true visionary”. He wrote on Instagram: “Anthony Price was not just a designer, he was a fashion king. His brilliance and technical ability were unparalleled, and it saddens me that the fashion world did not acknowledge his genius in life as he deserved. I will forever cherish our moments together, his sense of humor, and his passion for life and craft.”

The British Fashion Council, which awarded him the Evening Glamor Award in 1989, described him as “a true original designer”, but added that Price, as a leading fashion figure, “was a champion of individuality and a cheerleader for young talent long before the idea of ​​mentorship became official. He believed in London as a creative city and lived out that belief through his business friendships and generosity of spirit.”