By Josh Barrie

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One of London’s most beloved and historic nightclubs is to be celebrated in a major new exhibition at the Design Museum.

Blitz: The Club That Shaped The 80s will showcase the venue’s impact on popular culture during its short lifespan and reveal intimate details about some of the famous faces who partied there.

The club, in Covent Garden, only existed for 18 months, from 1979 until late 1980, yet helped shape popular culture for a decade, from fashion to music, film to art and design.

A press announcement — held at the Groucho Club, a short walk from where the Blitz existed on Great Queen Street — said a wealth of rare and personal items will be included in the display, many of which have been hidden from public view since 1980.

The scene generated at the Blitz launched the careers of numerous stars, including Spandau Ballet (the club’s house band), Visage, Boy George and Marilyn, as well as a long list of designers, artists, filmmakers and writers.

The couture milliner Stephen Jones got his break there, as did Game of Thrones costume designer Michele Clapton. Other big names who spent time at the Blitz include DJ and fashion writer Princess Julia and BBC broadcaster Robert Elms.

The exhibition has been curated by Danielle Thom from the Design Museum, while Blitz co-founder and resident DJ Rusty Egan and the BBC’s Elms have been integral to the display.

It was also developed in close collaboration with some of the leading “Blitz Kids” of the day, those who partied there, drank there, and danced there over a monumental 18 months.

More than 250 items will be on show at the museum, including clothing and accessories, design sketches, musical instruments, magazines, furniture, artwork, records and film footage.

Egan said: “In every town I visited as a drummer on tour with the Rich Kids band, I found out where to go and who was doing something that I liked. If there was someone using synths, had some style and liked clubs, I found them.

“But then, Steve Strange found me and we knew that we had to do something. Just as Malcolm and Vivienne had said with Punk Rock, do it yourself, start a band, start a fanzine, do something you love and they will follow. With that and an attitude (and my record collection) we had some parties and that was the start…the rest, as they say, was history.”

The Blitz launched in 1979, just as punk was coming to an end and Margaret Thatcher was coming to power.

An emerging group dubbed the “new romantics”, made up of young creatives with big ideas, would meet up every Tuesday at the Blitz wine bar in Covent Garden, sowing the seeds of what became a club night for a “daring, restless new generation”.

“All rejected both the conformity of mainstream culture and the rigidity of existing subcultures, and instead pushed the boundaries of taste with their outrageous fashions and futuristic music,” said the press announcement.

Others who helped carve out the new trend included DJ Princess Julia, Siobhan Fahey from Bananarama, and Perry Haines, the founder of i-D magazine.

“It’s remarkable that so much of 1980s pop culture can be traced back to the Blitz scene,” said Thom.

“That the club night only ran for little over a year but shaped a whole decade is really astonishing, and so forty-five years on feels like the right time to explore the club’s enduring legacy in a major exhibition, as well as its continued impact today.

“After spending two years working with the Blitz Kids, hearing their stories and rediscovering their treasures from this radical period, it has reaffirmed to me that this wasn’t just a club night. It was the scene from which a decade was born.”

Tickets from £16. The show will run from September 20 until March 29. 224-238 Kensington High Street, W8 6AG, designmuseum.org