11 British Beauty Risk Takers Worth Celebrating: From David Bowie to FKA twigs

David Bowie

With New York Fashion Week coming to a close last night, all eyes are on London. With its history of rock and rebellion, the city is an endless source of inspiration to its young British designers and street style stars alike. True to form, expect to see a few bold sartorial departures on and off the runway—not to mention the occasional game-changing beauty risk.

Such countercultural impulses, of course, are nothing new. Consider the original English provocateur Queen Elizabeth I, whose theatrical ceruse skin, vermillion lips, and fiery curls redefined beauty ideals in the late sixteenth century. Speaking of royals: Who could forget the current Queen’s 1977 Silver Jubilee, during which the Sex Pistols delivered one of punk rock’s crowning moments by staging an impromptu concert aboard a rented boat floating down the Thames? The spiky-haired Sid Vicious would soon single-handedly inspire the country’s youth to spend their allowance on hair gel—a look Siouxsie Sioux took to next level with gothic sculptural brows and hyper-graphic cat eyes.

But perhaps it was David Bowie who delivered the most subversive punch, introducing a radical vision of psychedelic androgyny as Ziggy Stardust and imbuing glam rock with heaps of glitter and glitz—as well as arguably the only defensible mullet in history.

These days, fresh inspiration for both the cultural conversation and the runway is offered by idiosyncratic beauties like 2014’s breakout singer FKA twigs—whose unconventional beauty has taken braided spirals, baby hairs, and septum rings mainstream.

From Twiggy to Soo Catwoman, here’s a look at the weird and wonderful lovelies that have upended British style with their boundary-pushing beauty.