BIG TIME: TOM WATKINS

An art and design student at London College of Furniture who’d worked for Terence Conran, Tom Watkins’ sharp visual ideas combined with his fist-banging chutzpah to make him an invaluable early asset to PSB. Renowned for extracting large sums of cash from major labels, despite having zero success since the 70s managing what Tennant called his ‘dodgy acts’, Watkins had close proximity to ZTT. His XL Design team had designed Frankie’s 1984 sleeves. He’d also reimagined Trevor Horn’s Sarm West as a grand 80s folly of blue speckled Memphis-style walls (Watkins was an enthusiastic collector) and classical Acropolis-like touches. His style team had also gained a reputation for popstar makeovers, including Kim Wilde’s ’84-era supervixen. He was key in introducing PSB to vital collaborators, including long-term designer Mark Farrow. Early in 1984, Tennant had approached another gay manager, Simon Napier-Bell, while covering Wham! in Miami, but, irritated by the opportunistic journo, Napier-Bell ignored the demo tape he’d been given. PSB went with Watkins, Tennant especially becoming friends with the self-styled impresario, the two men briefly running a gallery together. PSB, emboldened by 1989’s first tour, eventually grew weary of Watkins’ limelight-hogging persona (he’d make brief forays into pop as The Hudsons and with Tony James in The Bizet Boys) and declined to renew their contract that year. Beyond PSB, Watkins enjoyed huge success as a boyband Svengali, managing Bros and East 17. Satirised on Closer To Heaven’s Call Me Old-Fashioned (which he loved), Watkins was fondly remembered by Tennant and Lowe when he passed away in 2020.