Is anything or anyone truly original?  Is there new music, fashion, film etc? Or is it all just a reinterpretation of things past, given new life and a slight twist courtesy of new technology and performers?

In a rapidly shrinking world where corporate branding makes capital cities look increasingly similar and seeks to control information, fashions, music, opinions and tastes, what chance for something edgy, unknown and organic in development?

Leigh Bowery was one of only a few genuine late 20th century original individuals who changed art, fashion and, perhaps most importantly, perceptions and ways of seeing. Although he died of HIV Aids on the last day of 1994, his works and achievements resonate still and his influence continues to inspire.

On Friday April 1, just days after what would have been his 50th birthday, London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts pays tribute to Bowery with Sunshine, a day and evening of events celebrating the life of this iconic character.

Bowery came to London from suburban Australia (to be precise, the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine) at the start of the 1980s. Like many, he was attracted by the UK style groups that flourished here (allegedly i-D magazine was his catalyst) and he was drawn to become part of it.

Following popular folklore he lived in semi-squalor, befriended the cool kids and immersed himself in the demi-monde of clubs, fashion, parties and polysexuality.

He found niches as club promoter, fashion designer, artist (and artist’s muse), dancer and performance artist, and his list of collaborators — from Michael Clark to Lucian Freud, and Mark E Smith to Rifat Ozbek — is both impressive and refreshingly diverse.

Most particularly with his club night, Taboo, Bowery captured the 1980s London zeitgeist of no-rules hedonism, dressing up and pushing boundaries that had originally so inspired him from those magazine pages, as an outsider in his Australian home.

The relevance of Leigh Bowery to the fetish scene is both direct and obscure. His full-body-encasing costumes pre-empted a similar, very recent look seen on the “rubberdoll” crowd and fans of zentai fashion.

Bowery’s full-body-encasing costumes pre-empted a similar, very recent look seen on the ‘rubberdoll’ crowd and fans of zentai fashion

His many visual outfits — all of them quite consciously costumes — often reflected a desire to modify or change body shape and gender — a recurrent theme in fetishism.

His direct influence can be seen today in, for example, the inflatable, morphing creations of latex designers Pretty Pervy, the extravagant one-off latex outfits sometimes worn (in overt tribute to Bowery) by Libidex’s Simon Rose, and the cartoonish latex costumes of conceptual artist Pandemonia.

Bowery’s club events and performances sought to push sexual boundaries and questioned popular concepts of bad taste and what constituted art and performance.

On a more obscure level the publicity he garnered motivated others to seek out new ideas and begin their own explorations and projects — perhaps most obvious is the example of Michael Alig and the New York club kids.

In short, Bowery’s influence on many fetish style clubs, designers and live performers is immense, enduring and ongoing.

Like many originators, Leigh Bowery was extreme, and his image, performance and sexuality were unlikely to play well with the mainstream. But, again like all originators, he provided blueprints for ideas which would be diluted and sanitised and repackaged for mass consumption by a public that never knew the origins.

Leigh Bowery was a true original. Whether you loved him, loathed him or just laughed at him you could not fail to notice him and, if you had a brain, be inspired to think what it all meant.

To me, the meaning was evolution. It meant new ways of interpreting personal style, making your own outfits, becoming your own art piece or creation, and breaking away from the constraints of gender, shape, size and age.

It meant taking art away from the walls of galleries and parading it in night clubs; refusing to accept societal definitions of good taste, gender orientation or sexuality; and laughing in the face of the established views of dance, music and performance.

Adapted from notes and manuscripts for the forthcoming publication Sex, Style And Subversion by Dave Darcy Edmond (all rights reserved)

Like many originators, Leigh Bowery was extreme, and his image, performance and sexuality were unlikely to play well with the mainstream