Artist Info
Judy Blame
Judy Blame (12 February 1960 – 19 February 2018) was a British fashion stylist, accessories designer and punk iconoclast. Judy Blame was born Christopher Barnes in Leatherhead. Blame said he deliberately assumed a female name in order to confuse people. When asked his birth name, Blame refused to answer.
He ran away to London at age 17 “to become a punk”, but because he knew nobody there, he decided to spend the next two years in Manchester, which had its own lively scene. Among influences he encountered was graphic designer Peter Saville. “It was freedom for me so I was really happy. I came back to London at the time of the New Romantic look and that’s when I became more aware of fashion.”
Among the designers Blame collaborated with are John Galliano, Richard Nicoll, Christopher Shannon and Louis Vuitton. For Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons Blame designed a male accessories line. In 2005, he was selling his work through Kawakubo's Dover Street Market, and also provided designs for Gareth Pugh.
Blame's work was exhibited at the V&A and in 2016 was the subject of a retrospective at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, where curator Matt Williams described him as “a polymath and an inspiration”, with an ability “to respond to the detritus of the everyday or an image that touches upon pertinent social and political themes of its time”.
Judy Blame died on 19 February 2018, aged 58, six days after his 58th birthday. Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of GQ, wrote: “He was an artist, a genuine one, someone who could cherry pick cultural detritus and then mix it all together to create something new, something lasting.”
