I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 /It's very difficult to know what to write or where to begin when faced the task of writing Stephane Raynor's biography. His attitude relates very much to the famous saying "if you can remember the sixties you weren't there" and these words can be applied to Steph's entire creative life. Such is his phenomenal body of work, that precise dates are the very last thing on his mind recounting all of the many and varied movements he has been responsible for. Whatever he sets up is just a vehicle for the next project - when establishing a new shop, for example, he is already making plans for the next Steph Raynor venture. Is he a hedonist, an artist, a collector of iconic pieces or just someone who thrives on the search for the new ? Whichever of these he may be, he is certainly the unrecognised face behind punk, new romantics, acid and so much more./ 1970- He sold original 50's clothing from the back of his car to Malcom Mclaren, at the site for his first shop, 'Let It Rock'/ 1972- Legendary style outlet 'Acme Attractions' was his original concept, and as well as employing now recognised film maker and DJ Don Letts and Jeanette Lee ( later of PIL ) now MD of Rough Trade, the shop is cited as infuencing journalist Robert Elms, and Boy George among others./ 1976- BOY - This is where Billy Idol worked, Phillip Salon made the tea - the entire world came to the shop, and came to the party, The who's who list is just SO long ! This is where Sid Vicious came in his stilettos, and where Chrissie Hynde sat on the floor, singing. This was "le Punk Rock" - not designer but real, this was the buzz./ 1978- PX - This is Electro synth pop with Gary Numan and Kraftwerk at it's helm. This is where Steph advised his employee, Steve Strange and a fledgling DJ called Rusty Egan to take over local wine bar BLITZ for a regular night where the PX devotees, now called New Romantics and later to be known as Blitz Kids could mingle. This is the club where Steve Strange famously turned Mick Jagger away from the door, for being "too old" and "not trendy enough". PX is also where a pre-Princess Julia worked, and Spandau Ballet hang out./ 1980- Back to Boy London, and Steph took with him Boy George, and Jeremy Healy from Haysi Fantaysi. This is when Steph took an already established, well known label and launched it into the most infamous, global urban label ever. These were the halcyon years when everyone wanted a piece of BOY, and if they couldn't get it, they just copied it ! No-one could afford to miss out on what was happening, and so Steph just continued to re-invent the label, pushing new boundaries and staging the most talked about catwalks shows of the time, including celebrities discovered and as yet undiscovered from the Pet Shop Boys to Madonna. No sleep for anyone, there was just too much going on, and BOY became the most copied iconic label the world had ever seen./ 1985- The biggest club Paris had ever seen opened - the BOY club- later closed down due to combination of drugs, rape and murder. At this time BOY was the largest fashion label on the planet, so out of control it was an accident waiting to happen. It was the biggest and best road trip ever, where Steph took over Ibiza for the "Summer of Love" and everone wore BOY. It was the maddest of times, and whenever BOY showed new collections, the queues of international buyers wound its way through the halls of Olympia, and a comparative few were lucky enough to place their orders before we had to close the books, not able to cope with demand.- Steph art-directed and styled some of the most innovative mail order catalogues the world had seen, featuring top models and celebrities side by side, and these catalogues are to this day looked to for inspiration by some of the world's most influencial music artists.In short, Steph has had a hand in all of our style history since the seventies. But still remains true to himself and his vision. He currently has a new venture under wraps, and due to increased demand is rumoured to be producing limited lines of original BOY pieces.
ANGIE USHER. March 2007.
In the current issue of Arena Homme, Stephane Raynor, founder of the iconic 80's clothing label reminisces : The original BOY shop had two controversial focal points in its window. One was the explicit Polaroids of the "action in the changing room from the weekend - it was like some darkroom back there". The other was the ever-changing window displays themselves. "Perhaps there'd be a Madonna and Child that go to the church down, or swastikas; then there was the chopped-up dead boy, with a Dr Martens boot by his bleeding head and signet ring on his severed hand". This display caused one passer-by to suffer a heart attack, Raynor says... Eat your heart out, Damien Hearst et al.
"Now That's What We Call Shock Art" from bigshinything.com, April 2006.
Madonna was playing Wembley. Boy George went to have tea with her at the Dorchester. She asked him to bring her some BOY clothes. So Boy George came to the BOY shop in Soho, and he cleared out the whole shop.
Looking back, it's hard to describe the BOY mania of the Eighties; even Raynor himself struggles. "Everyone had and everyone wanted a piece of bit of BOY. I remember looking up at Benetton hoarding and noticing they were all wearing BOY; they needed it. Whitney Houston wound up wearing BOY." When Andy Warhol turned up at the shop unannounced, he had his photo taken and paused only to say, "Use it and make money". Warhol understood BOY, says Raynor, and the way it had turned its logo into a totemic icon in its own right.
text by Daryoush Haj-Najafi. ARENA Homme magazine, issue summer/autumn 2006.
The Pet Shop Boys' run of four UK Number Ones between January 1986 and March 1988 marked a high point in the currency of the London street fashion label BOY. The populist cosmopolitanism of both outfits was perfectly embodied in Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe's sophisticated streetwear style: his inflatable puffa jackets and louvred Issey Miyake shades aside, the sports-casual poster boy's most iconic item was his BOY cap. The appeal of three-letter BOY logo lay in its total irreducibility: a masculine statement in the most literal sense, made with minimum effort- pure Chris Lowe.
text by Daryoush Haj-Najafi. ARENA Homme magazine, issue summer/autumn 2006.
ACME ATTRACTIONS :
Don Letts came for a job, he was working at some fucking jean shop at the time so he was hungry for a chance to run ACME. Years later he says it was the best time he ever had and the best thing he ever did.This was truly Don's finest moment.
This is me and Jeanette wearing ACME.
me, ACME days.
The Acme Boys, me on the left.
Acme poster, photo by David Parkinson. Don Letts at the rear, me on the right, Martin Brading on the left and the other guys, I think one of them went out on a surfboard and never came back. Fuck."(...) Steph resurfaced in James Street, Covent Garden, in autumn 1978. That first PX boutique dispensed the various angular looks of early New Romantic: the first padded shoulders, the first toy soldier suits, the first Russian cossack outfits, the first bell-hop suits. Among the diamante and gold braid, to a background of Kraftwerk and neon light, among discarded fittings from the recently closed Curzon Street offices of MI5, Steve Strange sold the clothes he also modelled around town. And like Acme Attractions before it, PX also became a place to hang out, meet friends, and talk. (...) Meanwhile, released at the moment when the Blitz Kids first came to the attention of both a hungry media and a rag trade desperate to start manufacturing some Next Big Thing, the PX look soon mutated into the mass market "frilly shirt" fashion that to this day remains most people's stock visual image of what it meant to be New Romantic."
