Derek Ridgers’ images of unraveling nights on 80s London dance floors

Impassioned kisses on the dance floor, heads of hair whipping, exhausted revellers crumpled on the floor near the wallflowers – all of it has been captured without reserve by Derek Ridgers in his new book, The Others. The book, published by IDEA, comprises a selection of 100 unpublished photographs taken in London clubs and parties during long, unraveling nights in the 1980s.

Although best known for his photographs of particular sects of English subculture including skinheads, punks and new romantics, Derek says, “The people in this book are less identifiable as part of a clearly defined youth cult: these are the others.”

A stalwart of the Blitz scene, Richard Habberley writes in his foreword, “The photographs in this book capture the beautiful bedsit elite and the nights they spent at clubs like Le Beat Route, Cha-Cha, Heaven, The Mud Club, and Cafe De Paris.”