{"id":413416,"date":"2025-09-10T15:10:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/413416\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T15:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T15:10:15","slug":"david-bowies-archive-opens-to-the-public-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/413416\/","title":{"rendered":"David Bowie\u2019s archive opens to the public in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A general view of the David Bowie Centre, a new archive at the V&A East Storehouse in London, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, ahead of its public opening on Saturday. (AP Photo\/Joanna Chan) <\/p>\n

LONDON \u2014 When David Bowie died in 2016, he left a vast musical legacy \u2013 and a trove of unrealized projects.<\/p>\n

Tantalizing details of those abandoned and unfinished ideas are revealed in Bowie\u2019s archive, which opens to the public this week.<\/p>\n

The 90,000 items acquired from Bowie\u2019s estate by London\u2019s Victoria and Albert Museum include handwritten notes for a movie in which Major Tom, the fictional astronaut \u201cfloating in a tin can far above the world\u201d in Bowie\u2019s song \u201cSpace Oddity,\u201d is sent to \u201ca disgruntled America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curator Madeleine Haddon said the never-made film \u2014 titled \u201cYoung Americans,\u201d like Bowie\u2019s 1975 album of the same name \u2014 is \u201creflective on what it\u2019s like to be a Brit in the U.S., and thinking about international politics and their place in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other might-have-beens include \u201cThe Spectator,\u201d a stage musical about an 18th-century London outlaw that Bowie was working on shortly before his death from cancer in January 2016 at the age of 69.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about \u201cthe relationship between art and politics in London at the cusp of modernity,\u201d Haddon said Wednesday at a preview of V&A\u2019s David Bowie Centre. \u201cI would love to see where he was going with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Earthling, a Union Flag frock coat designed by David Bowie and Alexander McQueen in 1997, is on display during a press preview of the David Bowie Centre, a new archive at the V&A East Storehouse in London, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, ahead of its public opening on Saturday. (AP Photo\/Joanna Chan) <\/p>\n

The center, which opens Saturday, is a treasure chest for Bowie fans and researchers, holding everything from stage outfits and musical instruments \u2013 a stringed Japanese koto, Ziggy Stardust\u2019s acoustic guitar \u2013 to letters, lyrics, photos, to-do lists and idea-filled sticky notes.<\/p>\n

The archive chronicles decades of restless creativity by the shape-shifting musician, who was born plain old David Jones in the London suburbs in 1947.<\/p>\n

Bowie donned and shed personas as he moved through musical styles, from glam rock to soul, electronica and collaborations with British jungle and drum \u2018n\u2019 bass musicians, including A Guy Called Gerald and Goldie. He also acted in movies and on Broadway, collaborated on stage shows, painted and embraced technology, setting up a 1990s internet service provider called BowieNet.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was such a world-builder,\u201d Haddon said. \u201cMusic was (just) one angle into the worlds he wanted to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

The archive occupies part of the V&A East Storehouse, a hybrid warehouse-museum that opened in June in east London\u2019s Olympic Park. As with the storehouse as a whole, visitors can book appointments to see any of the items for free \u2013 and in many cases handle them, under supervision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want visitors to be inspired by Bowie, to pursue their own creativity, discover new stories and make unexpected connections between Bowie, contemporary discussions and themselves,\u201d Haddon said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A pair of shoes wore by David Bowie on Ziggy Stardust in 1972 are on display during a press preview at the David Bowie Centre, a new archive at the V&A East Storehouse in London, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, ahead of its public opening on Saturday. (AP Photo\/Joanna Chan) <\/p>\n

Since the bookings site opened this month, the most requested item is a distressed frock coat that Bowie created with British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in 1997.<\/p>\n

Bowie\u2019s impact on fashion is attested to by the 400 costumes in the archive, including Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto\u2019s knitted jumpsuit for Bowie\u2019s androgynous alien rock star persona, Ziggy Stardust, and the white suit Bowie wore on his 1983 Serious Moonlight tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Alexander McQueen costumes and some of the Ziggy costumes are proving particularly popular,\u201d said V&A archivist Sabrina Offord.<\/p>\n

About 200 items are displayed in cabinets in the archive\u2019s main room, a selection made in consultation with local 18- to 25-year-olds as part of a project to provide opportunities for local young people<\/p>\n

\u201cMany didn\u2019t know who he was or they had a lot of questions about why the V&A wanted to build an entire center dedicated to him,\u201d Haddon said. \u201cBy the end, they were convinced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the items are iconic, others delightfully mundane. There\u2019s the key to the Berlin apartment Bowie shared with Iggy Pop in the 1970s, and his Rarotonga driver\u2019s license from a period filming the 1983 movie \u201cMerry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence\u201d on the South Pacific island.<\/p>\n

Bowie also kept many items sent to him by fans, including drawings, paintings and a handmade music box.<\/p>\n

Almost a decade after his death, Bowie is a musical icon whose influence on popular culture endures. But it wasn\u2019t always that way.<\/p>\n

The archive includes a letter written by Bowie\u2019s father, Haywood Stenton Jones, trying to get teenage David, then a struggling musician, a job with a London company. His son was a hard worker and \u201ca real trooper,\u201d Jones stressed.<\/p>\n

Next to it is displayed a brief rejection letter Bowie received from The Beatles\u2019 record label in 1968.<\/p>\n

\u201cApple Records is not interested in signing David Bowie,\u201d it reads. \u201cThe reason is we don\u2019t feel he\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A general view of the David Bowie Centre, a new archive at the V&A East Storehouse in London,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-413416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115180642416765703","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}