Style Notes On Camp

The joyful, outrageous style of Prince, Freddie Mercury and David Bowie is having a moment, both in music and in fashion. Long live camp, says Laura Craik.

- Laura Craik

‘If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?’

As mantras go, it’s a pretty good one. I just didn’t expect to see it written on a pinboard in my 12-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Violet discovered RuPaul’s Drag Race at the age of 11, and was soon debating with her friends the merits of Eureka vs Aquaria with the same alacrity I once debated Bowie vs Prince with mine. Alas, Bowie and Prince are dead now, and while they can never be replaced, at least RuPaul can go some way to filling the camp-shaped hole in my daughter’s cultural education. After all, he raised awareness on racism, misogyny and LGBTQ issues long before they became ‘fashionable’.

Pop music and camp go together like scones and jam; fish and chips; so it feels fitting to examine the phenomenon. Particularly given the abundance of camp references this year, kicking off with a bang in January with the London opening of 9 to 5, a musical based on the seminal 1980 film of the same name starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. And what could be camper than Kylie Minogue headlining Glastonbury? Other performers notably embracing their camp side include the Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander, Stefflon Don (the hair! The nails!) and Janelle Monáe, whose video for her single PYNK saw her dance around the desert in bright pink, labia-shaped trousers flanked by half a dozen similarly-clad dancers.