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Antony Price, the maverick British designer and theatrical “image maker” has died aged 80. He was among the first to combine music, theatre and fashion, helping to craft Roxy Music’s glam rock aesthetic and designing Duran Duran’s yacht rock tailoring a decade later. More recently, he became Queen Camilla’s go-to designer.
Often described as the greatest designer you’ve never heard of, Price only ever staged six shows – or “fashion extravaganzas” – in his 55-year career but just last month returned to the London catwalk for the first time in more than 30 years with a show in collaboration with 16Arlington. There, Lily Allen created headlines by modelling a black velvet “revenge dress”.
During his heyday in the 1970s, his shop in London’s World’s End, with its dark blue glass front, was the ultra-glamorous counterpoint to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s Sex boutique further up Kings Road. The broadcaster Janet Street-Porter once described his clothes as “result-wear” – a modern definition of corseted, hyper-sexy glamour that blurred Rita Hayworth styling with futuristic technicolour, and helped a generation of musicians become bona fide style icons.
Price was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, moving to London in the early 1960s to study at the Royal College of Art. His first job in menswear at Stirling Cooper on London’s Wigmore Street led to him cutting Mick Jagger’s buttoned trousers worn on the Rolling Stones’ American Gimme Shelter tour in 1969.
He went on to style Roxy Music’s eight album covers, with Bryan Ferry calling him a “master craftsman”, creating extravagant pin-up looks for the Roxy girls Amanda Lear, Jerry Hall and Kari-Ann Muller who starred on the sleeves, as well as the band themselves. When Roxy disbanded in 1983, he went on to work with Duran Duran and David Bowie, creating instantly recognisable sharp, slick, broad-shouldered tailoring. He is also credited with designing the men’s cap-sleeve T-shirt seen on the back cover of Lou Reed’s 1972 classic Transformer.
His ability to shift from menswear to womenswear – not common in fashion – saw him work with Paula Yates, Kylie Minogue and Hall, who wore a Price wedding dress when she married Mick Jagger (a union that turned out not to be legally binding). He once told the Independent, “my clothes are men’s idea of what women should wear, and for that they’ll pay good money ... Men are looking for the sex robot from Lang’s Metropolis with the perfect body offering endless fantasy sex.”
He launched his own label in the 1970s and still ran shops in London. In the 1990s, Price became known as “the frock surgeon” for his technical ability and use of boning and corsets to create body-hugging gowns, using old techniques to create clothes for the future. Around this time he began designing made-to-order pieces for Camilla, including a number of looks for her first US tour as Duchess of Cornwall in 2005.
His friend and collaborator, the milliner Philip Treacy said the fashion world has lost “a true visionary”. Posting on Instagram, he wrote: “Antony Price was not just a designer but a king in the world of fashion. His brilliance and technical ability were unmatched, and it breaks my heart that the world of fashion didn’t recognise his genius in his lifetime as he deserved. I will forever cherish our moments together, his humour, and his passion for life and craftsmanship.”
The British Fashion Council, which gave him the Evening Glamour Award in 1989, described him as “a true original” as a designer, but added that as a figurehead in fashion, Price “was a champion of individuality and an encourager of young talent long before mentorship was a formalised idea. He believed in London as a creative city and lived that belief through his work friendships and generosity of spirit.”
