Quentin Crisp – Style Icon

Far more than just a gay icon, Quentin Crisp posessed a flair for adventure and flamboyance which should inspire us all.  The hallmarks of his style were clashing patterns and fabrics, preferring to stick to one colour palatte per outfit.  Draped in layers of brooches, beads and scarves he was ever ready for a stage performance.  Russell Brand is the closest recent comparison I can think of but even he misses the mark by miles. While his gender-bending style is shocking to some, he sticks to shades of black which hold him firmly within the safe style boundaries of spiky guitar rocker. 
But Quentin wasn’t interested in looking like a popular musician – he couldn’t have cared less.  You wouldn’t have caught him anywhere near skinny jeans, he much preferred loose trousers of plush velvet or thick deep cord and was quite an advocate of U.S. Navy issue bell bottoms in his younger years.   Similarities can be drawn with Hendrix or Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust phase, but only as far as fabric, colour and make-up go – the difference with Quentin Crisp was in attitude and context. 
Born in 1908, Crisp was not a rock star - he was a raconteur.  His clothes were his costume and his stage was every moment of his life.  In a time when to express such flamboyance and femininity would often get him beaten up or jailed he refused to let go of his desire to do exactly as he pleased.  Life was by no means easy for Quentin during these years of homosexual criminality and at times he behaved as though he relished in making things harder for himself.  As an anarchist at heart he kicked against the system by dodging conventional jobs, refusing to clean his home and almost always scraping by on minimum money.  But this doesn’t mean he led an impoverished lifestyle by any standard.  As he dressed like a successful thespian, he lived like one too.   A great teller of stories, he entertained crowds at parties, Soho bars and gallery openings which made him always the recipient of generous hospitality – he would ‘sing for his supper’ as he might have said.  He was bold and witty, he welcomed all strangers to his table and was ceaselessly open to new characters and experiences with which to enhance his stock of elaborate tales.  
He was a talented and funny writer but his aloof anarchic streak meant he failed to achieve recognition until his later years.  However since the critical acclaim of  his book The Naked Civil Servant first published in 1968, many of his writings have been made into screen dramas.  Later still he went on to achieve prestigious recognition as an actor.   He died 10 years ago in 1999 but continues to inspire his fans to break rules, ignore etiquette and to kick against the pricks!

~ by Cutie Souter on 08/06/2009.