Bowie Style

Bowie gets ready to ‘wave’ to the faithful. Gary Numan was
there: “I didn’t see anyone walking around saying, ‘What a
wanker, he did a Nazi salute’. No one. People just thought he
was waving at them, and I’m sure he was.”
Gone was the baggy, American-style formalwear
favoured by New York clubgoers and provincial Soul
Boys. Instead, as he’d declared at the start of his
latest album, Station To Station, he’d returned as
the Thin White Duke – a faintly archaic, austere and
avowedly European character dressed in a black
shirt and tight, functional jeans. His slicked-back
hair, streaked with blond, appeared to have
prematurely aged him. He then ‘waved’ to his fans.
Thirty years earlier, the gesture, which would almost
certainly have been described as a Nazi salute. Was
pop’s master of propaganda now overstepping the
mark in allowing his private obsessions to become a
public nuisance?