Turn it up for the holidays! As he publishes his latest book, Reflections, Clare sits down with the colourful genius behind Alternative Miss World, who believes life is too short for muted tones...

Andrew Logan is an artist, sculptor, jewellery-maker, yoga devotee and one of legendary English counter-culture fashion eccentrics. He's also the founder of the Alternative Miss World event, which turned 50 in 2022. Billed as "a celebration creativity and beauty that goes beyond gender, age, race and sexuality", David Hockney was a judge at the first one in 1972, and over the years notable judges, co-hosts and contestants have included: Biba founder Baraba Hulaniki, Leigh Bowery, Divine, Jarvis Cocker, Derek Jarman, Grayson Perry, Brian Eno and the stars of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This interview's got it all - from painting elephants for the Pirelli calendar in India with Zandra Rhodes, and going to Ozzie Clark’s fashion shows in the ‘70s, to developing a spiritual practice, communing with the trees ("They don't say much!") and absent friends.

A high jinx conversation about finding and following your creative calling, fashioning the self with joy in your heart, and bringing the fun back to dressing up.

NOTES

SCULPTURE Andrew’s sculpture runs from small-scale portraiture of fabulous friends to large public artworks like his Millennium Pegasus (above), which lords it over a roundabout in Dudley, West Midlands.

Via his website: “The Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture is the first museum in Europe dedicated to a living artist. Andrew had always dreamed of opening a museum to share with the world his unique approach to life and art. He wanted the museum to be a vibrant space to display examples of the work he has created over the decades and to stage events that would share his vision and skill for curating performance and spectacle.”

JEWELLERY Wearable sculpture really, and as Andrew says on the podcast - it’s all about making and art. Many jewellers stop at design and have someone else make the work. Not he. Vibrant, handmade by the man himself and eternally fabulous - shop yours here.

ALTERNATIVE MISS WORLD ”In 1972, the renowned sculptor Andrew Logan had an idea for a party, after being inspired by the British dog show Crufts. As Miss World was popular at the time, Andrew wanted to create something that celebrated outside of what the beauty standards are. To create something that wasn’t about beauty, but about transformation, creativity and celebration! A show that goes beyond gender, age, and nationality.” Discover here.

Andrew has been going in a half masculine/ half feminine costume since the get-go.

MOSCOW’S SOVINCENTR BUILDING is now the International Trade Center. In the ‘80s, it was Read this account of a visit their in 1989 - fascinating. What the heck were designers like Andrew doing there? This fascinating article sheds light.

THE GALAZINES The Galitzine family is “one of the oldest noble families in Russia, having appeared over 500 years ago. The Galitzines can be directly traced from Gidimin - Grand Duke of Lithuania. One of his ancestors, Prince Mikhail Bulgakov, got the nickname “Golitza” due to his habit of wearing an iron glove on one of his hands. According to the legend, this is where the name ‘Galitzine’ ( Golitsyn) came from.” Via galitzinelibrary.com

ELEPHANT & CASTLE Once a fab entertainment precinct, 20th Century Elephant & Castle was famously grotty. “Following its devastation during the Second World War, the area was clumsily redeveloped from the late 1950s with offices, academic buildings, housing estates and the Elephant and Castle shopping centre – a pioneer in its time but notoriously dismal in its latter days and not improved by its garish plastic cladding. With priority given to road traffic, pedestrians were forced into a network of subways.” Read the rest on hiddenlondon.com The mall was flattened in 2020, and developers promise…. what developers promise, world class destination blah blah blah. We wish we’d been there when Andre did his mad jewellery show.

Dame ZANDRA RHODES - is an iconic British textiles and fashion designer with neon pink hair to match her exuberant work. Scroll for more people to get to know. Find her here. Zandra and Andrew are best friends, have known each other since the 70s and travelled extensively together over the years, notable through India - for which they both share a passion.

FASHION CHARACTERS

Here’s a list of further fashion characters mentioned, and some links to read more about their style and influence.

LONDON-ERA DAVID HOCKNEY Hockney first moved to London in 1959 to study at the Royal College of Art, then moved to Californiain 1964. In 1968, he returned to London, and lived for for four years, where he became quite the fashionable man about town, hanging with Ozzie Clark and Peter Schlesinger. On the pod, Andrew mentions the doco, A Bigger Splash, which features rare footage of Hockey at that first Alternative Miss World event. Read about the movie here.

Hockney’s portrait of designer OZZIE CLARK and CELIA BIRTWELL, Mr & Mrs Clark and Percy, is one of his most famous works from the period. Read more on Tate.org.

AMANDA LEAR Swinging London fixture, fashion muse, reluctant model, avant-garde chanteuse. “Around 1965, she became a muse to Dalí, whom she considered her spiritual father. He reportedly used her as the inspiration for Hypnos (1965) and Venus in Furs (1968). He was enthralled by her looks – first remarking on how she had the most beautiful skull he ever saw – and her hip bones. “He hated healthy and ruddy-cheeked girls,” Lear wrote. And, despite Lear’s fine art studies, he was not impressed with her artistic ambitions. “Talent and creative power are located in the testicles: without them, one cannot create,” he told her, as we learn in her memoir Mon Dalí. Still, they maintained a platonic union for the next 15 years; when she married Alain-Philippe Malagnac in 1979, Dalí said he would give them a funeral wreath as a wedding gift.” Via Guardian.

THEA PORTER was a ‘70s fashion fixture. “Porter grew up in Jerusalem and Damascus before living in Beirut, London, New York, Los Angeles and Paris. Her wardrobe was a tapestry of the cultures in which she had lived and partied – an exotic, escapist fantasy.” Read the rest in AnOther magazine.

VERN LAMBERT We also talk about Vern in Episode 14 with Linda Jackson, listen here.

You’d have a pretty good case for arguing that BARBARA HULANICKI invented fashion as we know it. She’s the design genius behind the legendary Biba, and one of the first fashion retailers to recognise the power of the brand.

LEIGH BOWERY, an Aussie expat in London and famous Taboo fixture, was the boundary-breaking artist whose mix of shape-shifting costumes and sensationalist theatricality made him a trailblazer of progressive performance. Read more in i-D here.

You might also enjoy Episode 13 with Stephen Jones.