To say that The Cramps late frontman Lux Interior (né Erick Lee Purkhiser) had swagger would be an understatement – in skin-tight PVC catsuits that clung unashamedly to every part of the his anatomy, Lux Interior’s rubber-like on-stage gyrations
To say that The Cramps late frontman Lux Interior (né Erick Lee Purkhiser) had swagger would be an understatement – in skin-tight PVC catsuits that clung unashamedly to every part of the his anatomy, Lux Interior’s rubber-like on-stage gyrations were as excruciatingly erotic as they were unsettling.
A wilful subversion, or perversion of the rockabilly movement of the 50s, physhobilly style signatures trailblazed by Interior include exaggerated Elvis-inspired bouffants, skin-tight cuts in sheer textures, spray-on PVC and leather trousers, with hardcore fetish touches like fishnet and metal hardware. His look was completed with a full face of make-up applied with a clumsy thickness that sat somewhere between cadaver and slut.
Long before you could buy paint-on patent PVC attire from Louis Vuitton down (see the Night Porter naughtiness-themed A/W11 collection), and decades prior to the sculptural skin-tight constructions in Nicola Formichetti’s first Thierry Mugler collection, which more than nodded to extreme fetish wear, Interior bought his clothes from actual sex shops in seedy red light districts, and accessorised with high-heeled pumps from women’s boutiques and specialist transvestite outfitters.
Following his death in February 2009 The New York Times T Magazine paid tribute to Interior for his challenging fashion sense saying he “was more than just the singer of the campy punk-a-billy band The Cramps. He was a style beacon of head-to-toe PVC and spike-heeled pumps. With The Cramps, Interior, gave a camp horror twist to the androgyny of the New York Dolls and sexed up the silly spookiness of their English compatriots, the Damned.”
The punk rock provocateur’s hellbent determination to challenge, nay violate, the status quo was not limited to his sartorial choices. The pinnacle of The Cramps’ outrageous stunts was the astonishing 1978 performance at the Napa State Mental Hospital, which witnessed Interior cavorting with the in-patients in an unprecedentedly casual and inclusive matter.
"Somebody told me you people are crazy," announced Interior, “but I'm not so sure about that.” With no barriers between him and the residents of the notorious mental institution, there was an added dimension to the lyrics to The Way I Walk – “The way I walk is just the way I walk. The way I talk is just the way I talk. The way I smile is just the way I smile… touch me baby and I go half wild.”
Text by Laura Havlin
