JUDY BLAME: CRAFTY GENIUS
Judy Blame , the crafty genius catwalked from life on the final day of London’s Fashion Week, February 2018.
That name, pure invention of course, plus remarkable self invention. ‘I wanted a lady name because everyone changed their name to one of the same sex, so I thought I’d confuse people. Judy was a nickname given to me by a friend (designer Anthony Price) and Blame just sprang to mind one day. It sounds like a trashy b-movie actress from the 50’s, a bleached blonde tart who only made one film and never got anywhere, I like that.’
Blame, a rogue of an artist, voracious to work with the least noble of materials such as knives and forks, paper-clips, bottles, stiletto heels, hat pins, battered leather Lee labels, long gold chains with a tangle of plastic soldiers, fuchsia pendants and yellow-gold crosses in amongst the signature of buttons, zips and string.
Back in the early 80s, Blame was living in Catweazle conditions in Brixton, finding raw and often stinking materials by the side of The River Thames. These schizophrenic pieces made up of old keys, plastic figurines, Coke cans and safety pins became cult pieces fro 80s to now, with pop starz and habitues of London nightlife. Alongside stylists such as Barry Kamen and Mitzi Lorenz, Blame partied along with Ray Petri’s Buffalo Crew and Leigh Bowery’s Taboo queer coterie.
Along with level-headed designers Christopher Nemeth (RIP) and shoe designer John Moore (RIP), Judy opened a shop in the late 80’s named House of Beauty & Culture, selling his own creations made of buttons, string, safety pins, rubberbands, badges, feathers, paperclips, pill bottles, stamps and anything else he could lay his paws upon.
Despite being of no formal training (‘Punk was like my college,’), Blame’s assemblages of beads, chains, holiday souvenirs, kiddy toys and abandone bric-a-brac have adorned the heads and cleavages of Bjork, Boy George and Madonna, largely assembled in a Stockwell council flat, shared with a tattoed thug-type named Dave Baby.
Blame loitered with intent as an art director and style guru for the fashion, music and advertising industries for over thirty years. In the early ’80s, Blame was an accessories designer to many, contributing to the shows of Anthony Price, John Galliano, Rifat Ozbek, Philip Treacy and Hussein Chalayan to contemporaries such as Gareth Pugh. This led to work for i-D, for which he became a contributing fashion editor.
‘London, always a really good place for new ideas and I think that even though maybe we’re not the most financially stable of the Fashion cities, creatively it’s a good place to start new things. I think that’s why we supply a lot of designers and students to the rest of the business outside of the UK.’
Jude Blame, one crafty genius, that’s what he was, par excellence. So much more than a jewellery designer, stylist and art director, as the recent ICA exhibition displayed, a montage of his greatest hits.
Words and visual PP Hartnett
