“Move it along, Granddad, you’re getting in the way of The Scene! The London Scene, that is! From Soho to Notting Hill, from Camberwell to Camden Town, the capital city of Dear Old Blighty pulses anew with the good vibrations of an epic-scale youthquake!” The words come from the March 1997 issue of Vanity Fair, which was built around a 25-page account of what the magazine called Swinging London Mark II. Its cover featured Liam Gallagher and his soon-to-be wife, Patsy Kensit, reclining on a bed done out with Union Jacks; inside, there were tributes to the Conran family, Alexander McQueen, the Spice Girls, an array of restaurateurs and models, and the then leader of the opposition.
Tony Blair was pictured on page 143. His portrait had been taken using the vogueish cross-processing technique, which saturated everything in colour and made people look as if they were giving off incandescent light. Blair’s huge smile looked positively electrified, and so did the headline. Here, apparently, was “The Visionary”: a man who had led his party to the dizzying position of being 21 points ahead of the Conservatives, and who supposedly embodied a new British optimism. “Say hello to shirtsleeved, smiling Tony Blair, the leader of the ascendant Labour Party,” said the surrounding editorial. “The Right Honourable Tony is just 43 years old and has an outlook to match.”
Content from our partners
