Nick Kamen, singer, songwriter and fashion model, passed away on Tuesday evening. He had been ill for a while and turned 59.
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Kamen was not a ‘one hit wonder’: in our country he made the top twenty five times. But he is best known for the 1985 Levi’s commercial, in which he walks into a 1960s American laundromat, to the widespread interest of the women, strips down to his white boxer shorts and puts his jeans in the drum.
The commercial increased sales of the jeans model 501 by 800 percent in that year. The model became so popular that Levi’s had to contend with forgeries.
It also set in motion a number of trends in marketing and fashion. And it gave Kamen the music career he aspired to. Madonna gave him a song she had written with Stephen Bray: ‘Each time you break my heart’ became a hit across Europe and the US in 1986. Kamen then scored with a cover of Stevie Wonders ‘Loving you is sweeter than ever’. His biggest hit was ‘I promised myself’ from 1990, which he wrote himself and which reached the top ten again in 2004. He released four albums, the last in 1992.
Buffalo boy
Kamen was already a well-known model for the Levi’s commercial. He and his brother Barry, who passed away five years ago, were regularly featured in fashion reports in The Face, i-D of Arena. They were part of Scottish stylist Ray Petri’s Buffalo Collective, youngsters who wore boots under high-water trousers or kilts, and jewels or big hats with sportswear. The Kamens, who had Burmese roots among other things, were also colored male models in the first generation.
‘Launderette’ started the craze for commercials with old pop songs. Marvin Gayes ‘I heard it through the grapevine’ was re-released with the Levi’s logo on the cover and became another hit. Levi’s used in the following years, among others, ‘Mannish boy’ by Muddy Waters and ‘Mad about the boy’ by Dinah Washington; Chanel ‘My baby just cares for me’ by Nina Simone. The tough androgynous hunks who came after Kamen didn’t become as famous as he did. Except for the actor who donned the 501 in 1990: a certain Brad Pitt, who broke through in the film the following year Thelma & Louise.
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