Talking Loud, Saying Nothing.
‘The Visual Language of Glasnost’ has been one of the topics many skaters have been writing in wanting us to discuss. It tops our mail bag, along with ‘Reality, is it For Real?’ Unfortunately our lack of intellectual integrity means we’re only capable of talking crap — so here we go again.
A Gavin Hills line, if ever I saw one. Main picture showed one Barry Abrook at that same back yard, or back shop, mini. Other picture is the overview of the ramp. We always loved the overviews…
3 responses to “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Part 3)”
hi! i’m an italian student and for my thesis work about fashion photography during the Nineties. My former references are fashion magazines like I-d and The Face, when they were still independent publications. I find something similar between your mag and those magazines in the early years of publication. Do you think the audience was the same? i also read about nick philip and anarchic adjustment here. were the skaters also ravers? where can i fins some more info about uk young people culture in the early nineties?
thank you so much and sorry for my english.
barbara
i-D and The Face were certainly influences, but I’m not sure how similar the audience was. R.a.D was very specifically interested in skating and although some of our readers would also have read the other magazines, only a small segment of i-D or Face readers would have read R.a.d.
Another small point of contact was that Gavin Hills also wrote for The Face — more so after the end of R.a.D and Phat. Gavin’s links with the rave culture were every bit as strong as Nick’s, but that doesn’t mean that R.a.D itself was aimed at ravers. Similarly, only some skaters were into that scene, not everyone.
Sorry if I’m not being very helpful here. Perhaps someone else will join in? If your thesis is about fashion photography in the nineties, then the skate scene as reported in R.a.D may have been an influence, but please note that R.a.D itself disappeared in 1993.
I know for a fact that Ian Lawson, indeed the whole Kingston posse were all fashion junkies & I seem to recall they were pictured in an issue of i-D. Ian’s design was influenced by such magazines as i-D and The Face at the time.
Gavin embodied the cross cultural mix that made up the early rave scene. If you want to research that era Gavin Hills is very much worth checking out.
By the way I was at that session pictured, it was in Banbury behind a shop that sold furniture, with a small skateshop in the back run by the owners son.