Blitz Club, London, 1980: Photographs by Andrew Holligan

Andrew Holligan’s photographs from 1980 capture the extraordinary atmosphere of Covent Garden’s Blitz Club — a dimly lit basement on Great Queen Street that became the crucible of the New Romantic movement. Every Tuesday night, under the watchful eyes of hosts Steve Strange and Rusty Egan, a parade of aspiring pop stars, artists, designers and provocateurs gathered here, dressed in ever more elaborate outfits that would soon redefine British fashion and music.

Founded in 1979, the Blitz was more than just another London nightclub. For a generation weary of punk’s nihilism and the grey uniformity of post-industrial Britain, it offered an escape, a space for spectacle, reinvention and unapologetic glamour. Strange and Egan, themselves charismatic figures, named the club after the wartime Blitz, invoking a spirit of defiance and creativity under pressure. Inside, amid velvet drapes, dry ice and synthetic beats, the post-punk generation reimagined itself in sequins, ruffles and eyeliner.

"Steve Strange was my flatmate. We started the club on Tuesdays. He did the door, and I did the music. We spent five days and nights promoting and searching for music, and people we knew were out there, and they came, along with the music."

- Rusty Egan.

The Blitz Kids and the Birth of New Romantic Style

Its dance floor quickly became a runway for students from the nearby St Martin’s School of Art and Central School, who showcased their boldest creations before an audience that appreciated audacity. Many of those who passed through its doors went on to become household names: Boy George, Marilyn and the future members of Spandau Ballet all honed their personas here. The regulars, soon dubbed the Blitz Kids, were not merely club-goers; they were architects of a subculture, exporting their vision of glamour and androgyny into the wider worlds of fashion, art and pop music.

A Selective Door Policy

The club’s notoriously selective door policy became as much a part of its legend as the outfits inside. “If your face didn’t fit, you wouldn’t get in,” recalls one former attendee. To some, this was elitist; to the regulars, it was essential, a way of preserving the sanctuary from the jeers and aggression of the outside world.

"We started the night at Blitz because of homophobic thugs and violence against anyone different. The door policy was only to ensure the right people were in."

- Rusty Egan.

Andrew Holligan

Andrew, “I met Steve Strange, Boy George, Marilyn and others in 1980. I was assisting a fashion photographer on a story about the New Romantics for the German magazine Stern. After shooting studio portraits, he needed club shots, but getting into the Blitz wasn’t simple. Steve Strange had to approve me personally because I wasn’t a New Romantic. He wanted to make sure the images captured the spirit of the scene without betraying it.”

Legacy and Influence

By the time the decade was in full swing, the Blitz’s influence could be seen everywhere: on record sleeves, catwalks and Top of the Pops. Yet its magic lay in its fleeting, underground beginnings, a single smoky room where, for a few years, the future of British style came to dance.