Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery was BOTD in 1961. Born in Melbourne at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, he played the piano as a child and studied design at university. Moving to London in 1980, he immersed himself in the underground gay nightclub scene. He became known for his outrageous self-made costumes inspired by fetish wear and drag culture, featuring PVC masks, facial piercings and Kabuki make-up, sculpting his 17-stone body into bizarre shapes. He also created costumes for his friends Guy Barnes and David Walls, appearing together at nightclubs where they became known as the Three Kings. Bowery created the nightclub Taboo in 1985, which became a nexus for London’s queer underground, known for its debauched partying and anything-goes polysexual ethos. Closed a year later after a tabloid newspaper exposed the club’s sex and drug-fuelled partying, it remained legendary in London social life. After designing costumes for the Michael Clark Dance Company, he moved into performance art, causing a sensation at the Anthony D’Offay Gallery where he mimed giving birth to a naked woman, complete with sausage afterbirth and fake blood. He baffled middle England with a 1988 television appearance on The Clothes Show, having afternoon tea at department store Harrods in sequinned PVC masks and Baroque party frocks. His conceptual band Minty performed for just one night in 1994 before being closed by local authorities. He became known to a wider audience after posing for a series of nude portraits by his friend Lucien Freud, emphasising the fragility and vulnerability behind his outrageous clubland persona. Openly queer forever, he married his long-time friend and fellow performer Nicola Bateman in what he called “a personal art performance”. He died in 1994 of an AIDS-related illness aged 34, explaining his absence with the immortal line “Tell them I’ve gone to Papua New Guinea”. His visual style has influenced designers Alexander McQueen and John Galliano and performers including Boy George, Pete Burns, Björk and Lady Gaga. His life was portrayed in the 2002 musical Taboo, written and performed by his friend Boy George. In 2025, the Tate Modern Gallery in London mounted a major retrospective of Leigh’s life and work.