Kamen – who worked with Ray Petri and Madonna – has died, aged 59
Nick Kamen, the model and musician, who is best known for his association with Buffalo – a collective who set the agenda in fashion in the 1980s – has died aged 59.
One of eight children, Ivor Neville Kamen was born in 1962 in Harlow, Essex. He and his siblings were of mixed Burmese, Irish, Dutch and English heritage – something one of his brothers, Barry, once described as “a total product of colonialism”. In his teens, Kamen was introduced to Ray Petri – the creator of Buffalo – through Barry and quickly, the pair became the stylist’s model muses, appearing in many of his shoots throughout the 80s. Perhaps the most famous of these was for The Face, which saw the brothers appear (Nick on the cover) in white lipstick and a mix of tailoring, sports-, and streetwear that was at the time revolutionary and characteristic of Petri’s pioneering approach to styling.
The images that Petri – and Buffalo more broadly, which was led by photographers Jamie Morgan and Marc Lebon, and stylist Mitzi Lorenz – created were among the most influential and highly referenced of the decade, and remain so to this day. The Kamen brothers were front and centre in these pictures, encapsulating not only the look of the collective but the attitude, the stance.
However Nick’s most famous modelling work, in mainstream terms at least, came in the form of a Levi’s advertisement, released in 1985, which saw the model strip down to his underwear in an old, 50s-style laundrette – to the sound of Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through the Grapevine – while waiting for his laundry to be done. This ad was credited with increasing the brand’s sales by a staggering 800 per cent.
As well as a model, Kamen was a musician, best known for his songs Each Time You Break My Heart (1986), and I Promised Myself (1990). The former was written and produced by Madonna, and even featured her vocals. The year the song was released, Madonna told BBC radio that she had been keen to collaborate with Kamen after being inspired by his “charisma” and “beautiful voice”. Kamen continued to release music until 1992, when he shared his last album Whatever, Whenever.
Announced by a friend of the family, Kamen’s death has been met with a wave of tributes, with Boy George describing him as “the most beautiful and sweetest man” and Duran Duran’s John Taylor remembering him as “one of the loveliest and gentlest men” he had ever met. Kamen’s death follows that of his brother, Barry, who passed away in 2015, aged 52.
Kamen’s loss will be keenly felt by many, but his contributions to the worlds of fashion and music will not easily be forgotten.