Boy London ensemble
This ensemble from Boy London features a sweatshirt, leggings and snapback baseball hat, all printed with their iconic logos.

The maker
The Boy London brand grew out of the original Boy punk clothing store that had been opened by Steph Raynor and John Krevine on King’s Road in 1976. Raynor had left Boy in 1980 to open PX, a boutique with styles influenced by the New Romantic movement. He was convinced by Krevine to return to Boy in the mid-1980s, as Krevine had ideas on how to revive and update the collections. They redefined the shop as Boy London, and began selling sportswear and Lycra designs, often featuring a repeat pattern of the Boy logo above a Third Reich eagle. One of the biggest selling designs was the cap, worn by people such as Andy Warhol, Elton John and even Bruce Willis, which featured the word Boy printed in capitals, and the styles were adopted by other famous artists from Madonna, to David Bowie, to Princess Diana. By 1988 Raynor and Krevine had franchise outlets in New York, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv and Tokyo, selling club wear to the ravers following the Acid House explosion.

The simplicity of their designs has made them highly susceptible to piracy, and the original shops closed down in the 1990s, as competitors drove them out of business. The brand was revived in late 2011 by AMC International Ltd in conjunction with Raynor as the current vogue for sportswear as a street style returning to the forefront of fashion. New advocates of their styles include pop star Rhianna, who in 2012 wore an entire Boy London ensemble to perform on the Jonathan Ross television show.

Provenance
The outfit was donated to the museum by the manufacturers to be displayed in the Club to Catwalk exhibition and are 2013 reissues of 1980s styles.

The design
The sweatshirt is deliberately oversized. It is black heavyweight cotton jersey and features a central print in white of the Boy logo and an iconographic depiction of an eagle. This is reminiscent of the Nazi Party’s Parteiadler, Party Eagle, which in the late 1970s and early 1980s would have been used by the original creators of Boy designs for shock value, as did Vivienne Westwood with her use of swastikas in Seditionaries clothing. This design is printed on the leggings as well, in an all over print, a trend in both 2012 and the early 1980s. The snapback cap features the iconic Boy logo in capitals, white print on black cotton.

Significance and relevance to the V&A
These pieces recreate a considerably popular style from the mid to late 1980s which is not otherwise reflected in the collection. They also represent the trend for revivalism in early 21st century street fashion