(Space) oddities: New David Bowie centre opens at V&A East Storehouse

He may not have been a real starman, but David Bowie blew our minds with his music, looks and unbridled creativity during his life. Even more impressively, he continues to do so nine years after his death, especially when a new centre devoted to him opens today at the V&A East Storehouse in east London.

The world’s largest collection of his costumes, musical instruments, set models, props, self-portraits and handwritten lyrics — as well as curated displays by collaborators such as Nile Rodgers, who produced Let’s Dance in 1983, and rock band The Last Dinner Party, who found enduring inspiration in Bowie — highlights different facets of his work and his chameleonic personality. Here are five of my favourites.

Chop it up

Bowie was influenced by writer William Burroughs, a proponent of the cut-up technique, in which a text is split into lines that can then be rearranged to form new writing. The singer made it his own, using it, among others, for the song Black Out from the 1977 album Heroes

Stardust in his eyes

Perhaps the most famous of Bowie’s personas, Ziggy Stardust, was conceived in 1971. To convey the idea of an androgynous alien-turned-rockstar intent on saving Earth from the apocalypse, he commissioned several outfits to Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto, including an extraordinary asymmetric catsuit.

Red alert

Kansai’s influence on Bowie in the Ziggy Stardust years was wide-ranging. The musician’s distinctive hair—a bright-red mullet—and eyebrows (shaved) were inspired by the looks of Kansai models. However, his elaborate make-up, which could take hours to apply, harked back to Japanese kabuki theatre.

Gone to the dogs

In 1973, Bowie thought of adapting George Orwell’s 1984 for stage, but the author’s widow refused and nothing came of it. The rockstar reworked the idea into his own vision of a dystopian society full of gambling rooms and peep shows, where food is a myth and survivors live off a drug called meal caine — which formed the base of the 1974 Diamond Dogs album. He also thought of making a film of it, for which he created storyboards, sketches and even a demo video, but it was never shot.

Brush with fame

Music wasn’t the only way in which Bowie expressed himself. He acted and was passionate about art — making it, as well as collecting it. He was especially fond of Expressionism and there is something of Egon Schiele in self-portraits such as his 1988 Mustique, a lithograph of which is on show at the V&A centre.