As the resurgence of 90’s fashion continues to influence runways, design houses, high streets and Instagram feeds the world over, and public appetite for post millennial pop culture references shows no sign of wavering, what better time than now than to delve into the style archives with one of the eras most successful pop acts to re-live and celebrate the extraordinary decade that revolutionised fashion!
One foot in the past & one foot in the future…
As one of the biggest bands to burst onto the music scene in the 1990’s, pop supergroup Steps became a worldwide phenomenon – with their quintessential pop sound, synchronised dance routines and colour coordinated stage costumes defining an exhilarating moment in British pop culture.
Now 23 years into their career, the band are back and heading for the top of the charts once again with the release of their 6th studio album What The Future Holds.
We caught up with Claire, Faye, H, Lisa and Lee, along with their stylist Frank Strachan, to take a look back at some of their most stylish and iconic fashion moments…
“If you’d have told us 10 years ago we’d be doing an interview like this we would have laughed in your face!” H says as we begin to browse through images of the band in their pre-fame days. “At the very start of our career we had no budget for clothes, so sometimes we’d just text each other, and work out what we had in our wardrobes at home that we could mix and match together, so we could show up for work resembling something looking like a pop band.”
“Everything we did in the beginning was very organic and home grown.” Claire adds. “Someone in our styling team would buy a huge roll of fabric and have to make all of these stage outfits for each of us, it was like watching Julie Andrews in ‘The Sound of Music’ making clothes for the Von Trapp children out of her bedroom curtains.”
But as the band began to enjoy global chart success, and headed out on the road to play sold-out shows in arenas across the UK, Ireland and Europe, budgets and circumstances behind the scenes began to change, allowing the five bandmates to rise up through the pop ranks to take hold of the reins and fully call the shots.
“We’ve always had a lot of input and influence within the styling of Steps.” Lisa says. “But I’d say now we’re in more control than ever – this is our band and we know exactly what we want to wear and how we want to dress as a collective. I think with the last album, and with what we’ve created this time around, we’ve definitely managed to pull together a more classier look shall we say (laughs).”
“I think the visual palette for this album campaign in-particular has been brilliant and that’s really down to the team at BMG and their art department.” Faye agrees. “It’s really important to us to stay true to the original essence of Steps – and I think a lot of that has to do with the styling and the way we present ourselves as a band to our fans and to the public. We work really closely with our amazing stylist Frank, who’s part of our creative team – he has a great understand of who are as a group as well as individuals.”
Steps – What The Future Holds (Official Music Video)
Costume designer, stylist and creative director Frank Strachan has enjoyed an incredible career within the world of fashion since graduating from Central Saint Martins in the early 2000’s.
Having served as Fashion Director at Attitude Magazine and resident stylist on television shows including X Factor and The Voice UK, the highly respected creative artist has gone on to help style and cultivate iconic images for the likes of Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears and Louise Redknapp.
“I’ve been working with Steps for 7 years now.” Frank tells us. “So in that time I’ve really learnt a lot about what styles they like, and what they don’t. Having said that, as a band they are never scared to experiment with fashion and try new looks – even if they think they’re going to hate them!”
“We are in no way trend obsessed, but by playing around with new shapes and ideas we’re able to create fresh and exciting looks for each new campaign and tour that we work on.”
“I only fit one member of the band at a time, which has really helped me to develop a really strong personal relationship with each of them – we share so many different sensibilities; I love performance, I love pop and I especially love the magical place where all of these things meet fashion.”
1997, ‘it’s time to begin, now count it in…’ the bands first official photo as Steps!
Lee: There’s a little bit of debate going on as to when and where this picture was taken, but putting all of that to one side, this is definitely one of the first, if not the first, photograph of us together as ‘Steps’.
Faye: Look at my hair! This was when I used to let my hair do it’s thing naturally, and I allowed myself to be a real poodle (laughs). I used to wear those copper trousers all the time, mainly because I was poor then, but also because they were quite a popular style at the time.
Claire: I actually wore that blue dress for my Steps audition, and I sang the Celine Dion version of ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ – what a day!
1998, pastel colours, neon mini skirts, combat pants & buffalo’s… the true definition of 90’s fashion and style!
H: This was for an official photoshoot, and it was the same day we did our individual pictures for our ‘Step One’ album cover. I think we may have also worn these outfits as our costume when promoting ‘Last Thing On My Mind‘ in the spring of 1998.
Faye: I think I was wearing a pair of Sketcher wedges here, which I used to love! I seem to recall this was our second promo costume, so we’d be dressed like this for a lot of our early tv appearances on shows like GMTV, Live & Kicking and Top of The Tops.
Claire: I’ve got a pair of Buffalo’s on and some very ‘trendy’ silver combat trousers. It’s so funny because there maybe were times when we’d try to be a little bit cooler and rock up to an event wearing the same things that other, more credible bands did, but whereas they would be in fashionable khaki or army green cargo pants, ours would be bright orange or pink!
1998 – celebrating an incredible year together which saw them score 3 top 10 hits, a platinum selling album & a place in hearts of a generation of pop fans.
Faye: Ok, so there is a story behind the dreadlocks! Because naturally I have very tight, curly hair (as I said before, what I nicknamed ‘The Poodle’) I always used to find that whenever we’d go to nightclubs or have to perform in a humid environment, I’d arrive with my hair all nice and coiffured, but by the end of the night I’d end up looking like an exploded version of Annie! So it became a bit of a mission of mine to find hair that meant I could go out, have fun and perform regardless of the setting or the humidity!
I found this hair shop in Kensington High Street called ‘Children Of Vision’, they had this picture in their window of a weave that had really lovely short little dreads down to the shoulder – it looked cute and quite understated, and I just thought to myself ‘this is going to be great, this is going to solve all of my problems’. But after I’d had it done it was just ginormous, and I looked like ‘The Predator’!
I think that very same day, I had to go to Billie Piper’s 16th birthday party and because I hadn’t told anybody what I was doing, when I walked in everybody just looked at me with their jaws on the floor! I remember our management at the time saying to me ‘you just need to own this’ – so I did! Looking back now, it makes me smile because it just was this great moment in time, when we were allowed to experiment and have fun with our style.
H: You rocked this look! There were many people in other pop bands that tried to pull off a version of this hairstyle that failed big time – I thought you looked fantastic!
1999 – a yellow & turquoise moment on the set of the music video for ‘Better Best Forgotten’ – the bands fifth & final single to be released off of their debut album ‘Step One’.
Lisa: I remember we’d just been to South East Asia to promote our first album around this time, and I found myself being really inspired by all of the street-style fashion over there. I think it was in Japan, where we’d seen all of these beautiful, young girls wearing skirts over their trousers and I just thought it looked great, so I brought the idea back to London with me and decided that I wanted to somehow incorporate it into my outfit for ‘Better Best Forgotten’.
Claire: Because we were a mixed band, we obviously couldn’t dress in exactly the same way a traditional boyband or girlband would, so that’s why we decided that for each promotional campaign there’d be a set colour that we’d all wear. Our individual outfits would very much be a reflection of our own personal style, but the colour would be the thing to unify us, and give us our identity as a band.
2000, a post millennium style re-set, whilst filming in Rome.
Lee: This photo was actually taken in front of Trevi Fountain in Rome on the set of our music video for ‘When I Said Goodbye‘.
Faye: Kenny Ho who had previously worked with the Spice Girls and designed Victoria Beckham’s wedding dress styled this shoot; and I personally think this was quite a departure for us fashion-wise, we were starting to mature and grow up a little bit.
Claire: There really wasn’t much to my outfit was there? Just a bit of fabric draped over my shoulders, to cover my modesty! Overall this was definitely more of a sophisticated look for Steps, compared to how we’d been dressing as a band up to this point, it complimented the single we were releasing at the time and it maybe did change people’s perceptions of us a little… I don’t think it was too long before we were back in our colour co-ordinated stage outfits though!
2017, back once again & celebrating 20 years of Steps!
Claire: I really love this one – it’s definitely a favourite of mine!
Faye: We used this photo as a little teaser to kick off our 20 year anniversary celebrations in 2017.
H: I remember this going out on social media, January 1st 2017, right after our surprise New Years Eve gig at G-A-Y and being blown away by the reaction it got.
Frank: Our reference for this image was that iconic shot of the cast of Friends walking the New York City streets arm in arm, for their millennium inspired season 7 promotional campaign.
Lisa: It’s quite a timeless classic look isn’t it? I think it’s probably one of our most glamorous shoots to date. It was an exciting time for us – we were thrilled to be back with new music and celebrating all that we’d achieved in our career so far.
2017, calling fans back to the dancefloor with the premiere of ‘Scared Of The Dark’ – Steps first single release in over five years!
Lee: This was one of the promotional shots for the ‘Scared Of The Dark‘ campaign. I seem to recall in some of the pictures we had a huge Zebra statue in the background? I don’t really know what that was all about… maybe we were trying to be a bit quirky and artsy!
Claire: I remember our hairdresser shaved the sides of my head on the morning of this shoot – we were going for more of an experimental hair ‘do’, but I was a bit traumatised by it!
Faye: This was a really celebratory time for us; it’s very disco, very 70’s inspired and I think we all look fab!
2017 – embracing the melodrama of pop, behind the scenes on the set of the music video for ‘Dancing With A Broken Heart’.
Lisa: I absolutely love this picture! I love the high-drama, the outlandish costumes and embodying a character in a music video; I think it’s so much fun! We worked with Heidi North, who is just incredible, she created all of these makeup looks for us and I think she did a fantastic job in capturing exactly what we wanted for this video.
Faye: Chris Southern did our hair on this shoot – he’s amazing! I loved my long hair with all of the braids and twists; it’s a nice little nod to my 90’s dreadlocks.
Lee: I guess you could say this is a bit of a follow up or a part 2 if you like to ‘Deeper Shade Of Blue’, as both videos are very out there and over the top. It’s always good to showcase Steps in a different light and show how versatile we can be.
2020 – a nod to the past, with a hint of what’s to come in the future…
Frank: The band are always game for playing dress-up, so we get to have a lot of fun creating costumes for their music videos! We’ve had brilliant feedback on this video, and so many great comments about these looks. We work with a brilliant costumier called Richard Wilbraham (Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Spice Girls), who is actually my studio neighbour, so we often collaborate on lots of projects together. He wasn’t super impressed with trying to work with the iridescent plastic, but once we’d played around and toyed with it a bit, he worked his magic. At a time when the world feels kind of dark and depressing, I wanted to add even more playful joy to what Steps already bring to the party!
2020 – better together & stronger than ever!
Frank: We actually shot these images back in November 2019, as we were originally working towards a springtime release for album, so with that in mind, this look was inspired by the Balmain SS20 Collection. Steps have long been associated with wearing white, so we like to play around with this particular colour palette from time to time… and as you can see, we totally drained it here!
Faye: I absolutely love this look! I feel like we’ve managed to really capture the true essence of Steps in 2020 – and if I may say, I think we all look pretty hot!
Steps brand new album What The Future Holds is out now.
Philip Logan
