| 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977-78 | 1979-80 | 1981 | 1982-83 | 1989 |
GENE'S COSTUMES
The
Elder 1981/82 |
KISS
wanted a radical change in their image for "The Elder", and you will have to
admit, that they succeeded in doing just that. Shorter hair, "New Romantics"
style costumes, and softer music. Not everybody was happy about the change... most fans
hated it, and the bandmembers themselves weren't too happy either. |
|
Despite
the short time the costumes were in service, Gene managed to revise it no less than three
times. On pictures A to E we see the original costume, a leather top, with an open chest,
leather shoulder pads, silver bracelets, and leather cuffs, with steel rings.
Picture B shows the pants and boots. The pants were made of chain mail, which was a
material that had never been used before. Photo C shows the costume from behind, and
reveals that Gene wore black tights underneath the chain mail!
The boots were steel tipped cowboy boots, and had a chain mail cover, with a black leather
top (see in picture B).
Picture D shows that Gene's costume was also open in the sides. A piece of chain mail,
made of extremely large steel rings held the costume together.
Gene's hair had not been cut short, but was assembled in a pigtail on the back, with a
silver ring around it, resembling his bracelets. As it can be seen on picture E, Gene also
had some other stuff tied to his hair: some red ribbons and some animal teeth. This could
have been inspired by Adam Ant, who were immensely popular at that time. He also had
ribbons tied to his hair, as part of his pirate/indian look. Gene revealed in some
interviews from the period, that he liked Adam's band Adam And The Ants.
The next version of the costume is seen in picture F.
It's the same outfit, except the chain mail pants had been dropped. The chain mail was
probably too uncomfortable to wear for performances, or perhaps too heavy. Also new is the
glove Gene is wearing under the left cuff.Picture G is a close-up of the boots. They were ordinary black, cowboy boots.
The costume were asymmetrical: on the right arm he wore a sleeve under the black bracelet and the cuff is one from the first version. On the left arm the bracelet was chained to the shoulder pad, and Gene instead wore a cuff with flat square studs, just like with his Love Gun/Alive II costume (detail in picture I). Note that the shoulder pads are also different from each other.
return
to KISS costumes main page
Many thanks to Jan Laursen for
letting us use these pages.
Here is the link to his website:
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