The difference these days? He doesn’t need a photographer, nor a steamer and a suitcase of called-in looks. Thanks to the wizardry of Midjourney, an AI generative art program, the Berwick-born creative can simply input keywords as prompts or feed it imagery from his own archives.
Introduced to the software by hairstylist Matt Mulhall, Foxton, now 63, was hooked, and for the past year has been sharing his results on Instagram. As is often the case with AI, it’s spookily attuned to instructions and, as a result, the very aesthetic Foxton built his name upon. Throughout the works, humorous juxtapositions play out: a beefcake American football player stands proud in broderie anglaise lycra, a young man with tribal markings wears a feathered ruff and a Latino gentleman with a skin fade smoulders in sparkly eyeshadow. You would be forgiven for thinking they are real fashion editorials – and many people do.
“It’s not like I want to become the next AI impresario,” says Foxton, video-calling from his home in the leafy suburbs of West London. “It’s just having a bit of a laugh, really, which is what most of my career has been.” Speaking with a light, Northumbrian burr, Foxton comes across as gentle, polite and charmingly shy. Among the fash pack he’s a living legend, renowned for his trailblazing work at i-D in the ’80s. There, he pioneered the use of sportswear and streetwear in fashion stories and, importantly, the casting of Black models long before the glossies caught up. Later, he went on to big commercial gigs, consulting for Levi’s, Stone Island and Nike. Throughout, he has remained forward-thinking, from his heady days (“out at Cha-Chas (a queer party run in a railway arch behind Heaven), or wherever”) to now, at home in Ealing.
