Fashion bootleg has been around forever. As long as brand obsession has existed, so has the drive to update, collage and appropriate its symbols. But in the last decade, bootleg has become the industry’s favourite way to explore the boundaries of high and low cultures. It has grown to reflect the ways that fashion hierarchy is disrupted and reinvented.
I spent most of 2019 working on an exhibition called The Real Thing at Fashion Space Gallery in London. It was dedicated to bootleg as a creative language and disruptive force. Among the works of 13 artists and designers were May Hands’ sculptures, created by pouring concrete into luxury shopping bags; Hassan Kurbanbaev’s photos from markets in Uzbekistan, locals proudly posing in velvet robes and tracksuits emblazoned with LV and Gucci logos; and Ancuta Sarca’s kitten heels made from upcycled Nike trainers. At the centre of the display, there was a metal fence which served to display a selection of garments from Tottenham-based label Sports Banger. My highlight was an elegantly tailored pair of trousers and elbow-length gloves in fabric patterned with blue-and-white NHS logos.
The generic definition of bootleg is something that is “made, distributed, or sold illegally”. Bootleg fashion, as opposed to straightforward fakes, often implies a level of artistic appropriation or interpretation. In looking for the essence of its creative energy, people often turn to the work of Daniel Day AKA Dapper Dan, the
