The Face Magazine: Culture Shift at the National Portrait Gallery celebrates iconic fashion images and portraits from The Face, a trail-blazing youth culture and style magazine that helped shape the UKs creative and cultural landscape.
With over 200 photographs on display, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the exciting lost fashion world of the 80s and 90s.
The Gallery’s website tells the story of The Face, which was in print from 1980 to 2004.
Musicians featured on its covers achieved global success and the models it championed – including a young Kate Moss – became the most recognisable faces of their time.
The magazine also launched the careers of many leading photographers and fashion stylists, who were given the creative freedom to radically reimagine the visual language of fashion photography and define the spirit of their times.
I’m proud to say that my anti-racist football comic featured in The Face in 1994, although the mag foolishly declined my offer of a revealing photoshoot.
The mag relaunched in 2019, although now it’s all about dreary high fashion and glossy brands for the terminally rich and can be safely ignored.
People of a certain age can immerse themselves in nostalgia through some stunning photographs.
If you’re quick (it closes this week), we really recommend Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London at the Fashion and Textile Museum as the costumes will bring to life many of the images.
I found myself ticking off a heap of these venues.
Visit the exhibition
The Face Magazine: Culture Shift at the National Portrait Gallery
20 February – 18 May 2025, tickets £23 with concessions available
St Martin’s Place
London, WC2H 0HE
+44(0)20 7306 0055
Open daily: 10.30 – 18.00
