• With open arms
It was like before. Or almost. On Saturday July 8, the British group Blur filled Wembley Stadium, in the suburbs of London, to play the biggest hits of their career in front of a conquered crowd. At 55, Damon Albarn, herald of Britpop, was able to show that he had lost none of his talent and that his group was still in great shape. The question arose: three days earlier, in fact, the London musicians had canceled their performance at the Beauregard Festival due to a drummer on the side…
• Kingpin
For the occasion, Damon Albarn had worn a pair of Doc Martens, but avoided the eternal classics of the English house. At Wembley, he wore monkey boots, a model inspired by the one provided by the Czechoslovak army to its soldiers during the Second World War and recovered by the English working class in the process. But why “monkey boots”? Because, they said, you could climb with ease, like a monkey. We still ask to see.
• Yellow mark
Since we are talking about shoes and we like precision, note in passing that the monkeys worn by Damon Albarn are tied with yellow laces. This is neither a coincidence nor a coquetry. Indeed, when, in the mid-1970s, the skinhead movement began to be parasitized by racists, proudly displaying their patriotism using white laces, the original skinheads, resolutely anti-racist, adopted yellow laces in reaction.
• Badges of the times
Obviously, Damon Albarn still masters the codes to perfection. On the lapel of his unstructured jacket, he also wears the famous button badges, which appeared in 1976 on the clothes of aspiring punks and have become, in particular because of their low price, iconic rock accessories. At the time, it was the London manufacturer Better Badges, located on Portobello Road, which acted as a reference for all children wishing to buy or make a badge.
• Youth bands
Alongside Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, the band’s historical guitarist, is also perfectly in the nails from a stylistic point of view. Under his jacket, he wears a striped T-shirt inspired by the models worn by American teenagers in the 1950s, and in particular those of the TownCraft brand, a true specialist in the genre. Should we conclude that Graham Coxon thinks he’s an eternal teenager? Yes, but he’s not the only one.
