Roger K. Burton, the mod‑obsessed collector and curator who rescued a derelict Georgian stable in Bloomsbury and turned it into one of London’s most resolutely independent arts spaces, has died at the age of 76 from acute myeloid leukaemia. According to the original obituary reporting his death, Burton’s Horse Hospital became a byword for outsider culture in the capital, a place where punk, fashion, experimental film and underground music could sit cheek‑by‑jowl and where artists who sat outside the mainstream found audiences and allies.

Burton’s account of the building’s rescue has become part of its lore. He later recalled to the obituary that when a friend found the site in 1992 “there were pigeons flying about, rats and mice everywhere and ivy growing through the collapsed roof – not to mention a thick layer of printing ink covering up the fabulous floor.” It took months of work to make the space habitable; the Horse Hospital opened in 1993 and from the start set out to host programming other venues would not touch. Contemporary coverage of the venue’s origins likewise highlights the building’s previous life as a veterinary hospital for cab horses and the unusual architectural features that make it distinctive.

Once established, Burton used the Horse Hospital to stage curatorial gambits that blurred the boundaries between fashion, performance and the visual arts. The venue presented transgressive film festivals, fashion and literature events, and salons dedicated to what Burton described as “unpopular culture”; performers and collaborators ranged from Gavin Bryars, Lydia Lunch and Anita Pallenberg to experimental music acts such as Coil and Crass. The space also mounted singular exhibitions and screenings — the inaugural Vive le Punk! in 1993 set the tone — and over three decades it became an informal archive and showcase for subcultural histories that mainstream institutions often ignored.

Central to Burton’s work was the Contemporary Wardrobe Collection, the specialist archive and hire company he established in the late 1970s to supply vintage street fashion and couture to film, television and fashion industries. The collection’s own materials state it now contains in excess of twenty thousand garments spanning the postwar period to the present day; Burton’s book Rebel Threads (2017) lavishes attention on more than a thousand rare examples and image‑led histories of subversive dress. Contemporary Wardrobe has long been described as an essential resource for costumiers and curators, and its holdings have been used on major productions and music videos worldwide.

Burton’s trajectory from a Leicestershire tenant‑farm family to London’s subcultural forefront was powered by an early and obsessive love of sharp dressing. He opened his first vintage shop in Leicester and moved to London, where he cofounded the influential PX boutique in Covent Garden and later applied his shopfitting and styling sensibility to spaces such as Worlds End for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. His wardrobe consultancy and styling credits extend to films including Quadrophenia, Absolute Beginners and Hackers — work that the archive and specialist accounts link directly to the spread of mod and youth fashion into popular culture and cinema.

The Horse Hospital’s importance has not been purely aesthetic. The venue’s Grade II listing and long cultural record became focal points in repeated fights to keep it open as Bloomsbury redeveloped around it. Features chronicling the venue’s history record a steady pattern: steep rent pressures, ownership challenges, and community campaigns to save it. The original obituary notes that Burton only secured sufficient funding to protect the building’s future in late 2024 — an achievement that arrived at the same time as he received his diagnosis.

Even during treatment, Burton remained creatively active. He worked with Brighton Museum to curate The In‑Crowd: Mod Fashion and Style 1958–1966, an exhibition that opened on 10 May 2025 and which the museum confirms runs until 4 January 2026; the show displays more than thirty‑five dressed mannequins and rare mod garments from his collection and situates them alongside photography, film and ephemera. Those close to the project said Burton was present at the opening in May, a public sign of his long engagement with the histories he collected and promoted.

Throughout his life Burton framed his approach as a mixture of stubbornness and generosity. As he put it in his obituary: “A fierce determination and ability to deal with constant threat of failure. But if you put out enough positive vibes, you will find like‑minded people, and they will gravitate to you.” He is survived by his wife Izabel Blackburn, whom he met in 1975 and married in 1983, their children Stevie, William and Simon, and grandchildren Sam, Harrison, Nancy, Emmett, Joe and Ben.

Roger Kenneth Burton, fashion historian and collector, was born 12 June 1949 and died 28 July 2025.

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Source: Noah Wire Services