In this unique intervention in the study of queer culture, Dominic Janes highlights that, under the gaze of social conservatism, 'gay' life was hiding in plain sight. Indeed, he argues that the worlds of glamour, fashion, art and countercultural style provided rich opportunities for the construction of queer spectacle in London. Inspired by the legacies of Oscar Wilde, interwar and later 20th-century men such as Cecil Beaton expressed transgressive desires in forms inspired by those labelled 'freaks' and, thereby, made major contributions to the histories of art, design, fashion, sexuality, and celebrity.

Janes reinterprets the origins of gay and queer cultures by charting the interactions between marginalized freaks and chic fashionistas. He establishes a new framework for future analyses of other cities and media, and of the roles of women and diverse identities.

Dominic Janes is Professor of Modern History at Keele University, UK. He is a cultural historian whose specialism is the study of texts and visual images relating to Britain in its local and international contexts since the eighteenth century. He also teaches and researches on the wider histories of gender, sexuality and religion and is Professorial Fellow in the School of Fine Art and Photography, University for the Creative Arts, UK.