Style Wars

"Everyone associates him with the 80s and sees him as an apologist for its excesses. But that’s not quite right. He started writing for GQ in the early 70s, which was when he made his name. What you get from Style Wars is the sense that the 70s was great fun for many people, especially in London. That was quite a surprise when I first read the book 20 years ago. The 70s was notorious for being a dismal period. And that’s certainly the view I had of it until my twenties. The idea that even in the 70s there were cool people in London architecture, fashion and pop music, all having the best time, was a revelation. As was the fact that people had lots of money, which again is not the traditional picture. Once I started reading Style Wars , I realised there was something else going on. It wasn’t necessarily political. But it was a vibrant culture, full of visual energy. Many of the people York writes about had tons of disposable income. They weren’t all the old aristocracy. York’s methodology is fascinating. What he did in the 70s was an English version of Tom Wolfe : this kind of zany, insider prose that takes everyday life seriously. But while he was clearly influenced by Wolfe’s work in the 60s, York’s writing is distinctly English in style."