Marco Capaldo doesn’t remember exactly where he first saw Antony Price’s work, but he does remember when a dress by Price made him sit up and take notice. Back in 2021, the designer’s late partner and co-founder of the 16Arlington brand, Kikka Cavenati, was looking online for a dress to wear as maid-of-honor to her best friend’s wedding, when she stumbled across a vintage bias-cut dress by Price—the legendary, if widely undersung, designer behind some of the most memorable fashion moments of the 1970s and ’80s. (By chance, a couple of years before that, Price had crossed paths with the two designers at a party, and complimented them on their dedication to bringing a new spirit of full-throttle glamour to London fashion.)
Earlier this year, while reorganizing his studio, Capaldo came across the dress again, which Cavenati tragically never got to wear. Somewhat spontaneously, he decided to reach out to Price. “We spoke on the phone, and that was that,” Capaldo remembers. “I checked my phone, and we’d been speaking for about four-and-a-half hours.”
When I meet them both in the 16Arlington studio a few days before the show, they’re surrounded by a swirl of activity: Price, wearing a cap of his own making decorated with a military badge, is overseeing the placement of feathers on a crinolined mini dress that will be worn by the model Alva Claire, while Capaldo is leafing through a rack of archival Price designs lent to them for the project by the fashion writer and collector Alexander Fury, an enthusiastic champion of Price’s work who also became involved in the project.
“My memory isn’t what it was these days, but it all comes rushing back to me when I see them dredged out of the ark—I was personally involved in every piece,” Price says, with a smile, after they settle in Capaldo’s office. Price himself owns few of his own pieces still, having been forced to “flog everything to pay the machinists and landlords” when he closed his label in the 1990s: “It’s very trying, to be a businessman and a creative at the same time. Usually the two things completely hate each other, even if they’re necessary to each other. But somehow, I survived for a while.”
Surviving is putting it mildly: in his heyday, Price’s vision was practically inescapable. Even if you don’t know his name, you’ll know many of the era-defining images and outfits he helped create: Roxy Music’s Siren album cover, featuring Jerry Hall crawling over a rocky outcrop on the shores of Anglesey, or the outfit worn by Amanda Lear on the cover of the band’s For Your Pleasure album, or the shiny black dress worn by Gala Mitchell on the back cover of Lou Reed’s Transformer vinyl. His menswear was a triumph too: he designed plenty of the wide-lapeled suits worn by Bryan Ferry over the years, as well as custom looks for David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
