We’re all living in Nick Kamen’s Launderette now Another fondly remembered part of the 1980s finished its last cycle last week. Nick Kamen, real name Ivor Neville Kamen, the Essex-born much-gasped-over star of the famous 1985 Levi’s 501 male striptease ‘Launderette’ TV ad, checked out. He was just fifty-nine. Sadly,… Read More »Jeans-Genie – The Lecherous Legacy of Those 80s Levi’s Ads
The famously homoerotic ’80s fly-boy flick used to be totally no-homo (Originally published in the Daily Telegraph May 12, 2016) Thirty years ago today, the stars of Top Gun were taxiing the red carpet at the premiere in New York. The film, which features Tom Cruise’s ‘Maverick’ and Val Kilmer’s ‘Iceman’ competing… Read More »How Did Top Gun Get So Gay?
Disability charity Scope have been airing a cheeky ad this summer designed to encourage people to donate clothes. It’s a funny tribute to the iconic Levis ‘Laundrette’ ad of 1985 and features a very studly 24-year-old model and personal fitness trainer Jack Eyers in the Nick Kamen role. And boy, does he fill… Read More »Stripping Down the Male Body
by Mark Simpson (GT Magazine, November 2008) Why, I wonder, are gays – or at least the busybody, button-holing, milk-monitor ones – so keen on ads being nice to them, and telling the world it’s OK to be homo? Especially when this strategy frequently leaves them with mayo on their… Read More »How Eighties Advertising Made Everyone Gay