Between 1978 and 1987, Derek Ridgers photographs the young people he meets on the streets and in the nightclubs of London. Punks, skinheads, mods, New Romantics, goths, psychobillies and plenty of kids who, at that moment, probably have no idea what they will be called end up in front of his lens.

Ridgers meets them on King’s Road, in Soho and in Leicester Square. Then he walks into the clubs, from Billy’s, Blitz, Batcave and Camden Palace to Taboo. And that is where he photographs a city that keeps changing its face.

In 1979 he is at Billy’s during the nights organized by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan, while a scene that will later be called New Romantic takes shape. Not far away he photographs the skinheads who use the benches of Leicester Square as a meeting point. A few years later comes the Batcave, one of the venues tied to the emerging goth scene. In 1985 Leigh Bowery opens Taboo and the London night becomes even more extreme, with fashion, makeup, performance and identity blurring more and more.

Seen today, these photographs look like a perfectly ordered catalogue of British subcultures.
But while Ridgers was taking them, that order did not exist.
Scenes were born, cross-pollinated and vanished so quickly that the names we use to identify them today often came later.

Then, in 1987, something changes.
Acid house, rave and ecstasy transform British nightlife once again. For Ridgers it is the end of a period, as those identities so tied to specific clubs and places become harder to find and photograph in the same way.

For almost ten years, all it took was to go to King’s Road, Leicester Square or Soho, or to walk into the right club. The city put punks, skinheads, New Romantics, goths and whatever else was being born at that moment right in front of him.
All Ridgers had to do was ask, can I take your picture?

This article was produced in collaboration with Luigi Falanga and Giulio di Mauro aka @superottomag