Antony Price (5 March 1945 – 16 December 2025) was an English fashion designer best known for evening wear and suits, and for being as much an "image-maker" as a designer.

Price collaborated with musicians, including David Bowie, Robert Palmer, Iva Davies, Steve Strange, and Duran Duran, but especially with Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, whose looks were defined by Price's designs. The manner in which Price dressed – or in many cases, undressed – the "Roxy girls" on the covers of their albums helped define the band's pop retrofuturism.

He was later noted for dressing celebrities such as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Patsy Kensit, Anjelica Huston, Jerry Hall, Camilla Parker Bowles, Diana Ross, Melanie Griffith, Yasmin Le Bon He grew up in Selside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, later moving to Oxenhope.

Price died on 16 December 2025, at the age of 80.

Career

Early career

In 1968, Directly out of college, Price began working for the new Stirling Cooper shop, designing men's trousers, coats and waistcoats which drew on sexual fetishism for their impact. Stirling Cooper was situated in London's Wigmore Street, and had a noted oriental interior designed by Price and Jane Whiteside. With Juliet Mann, Price also designed the next shop he designed for, from 1969–1974, Che Guevara on Kensington High Street. Prudence Glynn, fashion editor for The Times tipped him as a major new fashion talent in "Trendsetters", giving him the main picture and writing that Price "is a sensational cutter and he puts a lot of work and thought into the shaping of even the most casual clothes. His range of little bare tops in crepe and cotton, for example, are technical feats, for they all have bra sections cut into the pattern ... he is undoubtedly a trendsetter and in advance of his time ... his clothes have great wit and gaiety and he is certainly a name to be watched in the future". He next designed for Plaza, and then, in 1979, started his own label, with shops in South Molton Street and on the King's Road.

Price's button trousers for Stirling Cooper were worn by Mick Jagger for The Rolling Stones' 1969 American Gimme Shelter Tour. and later featured as one of "Princess Zonda's archetypal outfits" in the advertisements Price drew himself for Plaza in the late seventies. The Lear pictures appeared in Peter York's feature on Price in Harper's and Queen's April 1979 issue. Lear was also the Price-dressed cover girl for Roxy Music's 1973 album For Your Pleasure.

In 1982, Price collaborated with the British band Duran Duran, designing electric silk tonic suits for the "Rio" video.

In 1983, Price staged a "Fashion Extravaganza" at the London's Camden Palace. Stylist David Thomas says about Price's influence:

<blockquote>He reinvented the suit so that it was no longer about going to the office. He made it rock'n'roll. He started at a time when British fashion didn't have sponsors. It was the era before the superstar designer. They all came after him. Yet he was a visionary. He created that military, dandy, sexy, eclectic men's look. He created rock'n'roll fashion. and the following year British Vogue published a profile on Price written by Sarah Mower.</blockquote>

Later career

Price was widely considered to be a frontrunner in the search to replace Gianni Versace in 1998, after that designer's untimely death. In May 2012, he dressed actress Tilda Swinton for her appearance in drag for the cover of Candy magazine, described as "the first fashion magazine completely dedicated to celebrating transvestism, transsexuality, crossdressing and androgyny in all their glory." In 2013, Price resumed his association with Steve Strange (whom previously he had designed outfits for during the Visage – The Anvil period in 1982) and designed an outfit for the relaunch of Steve Strange's Visage project, which he wore for the David Bowie V&A Exhibition Private View Gala Night.

See also

  • Glam rock

References

Notes

Bibliography

  • Bracewell, Michael (2007). Re-make / Re-model: Art, Pop, Fashion and the Making of Roxy Music, 1953–1972. London. Faber & Faber.
  • Official website