Buffalo was a look, an attitude, a creative collective of photographers, designers, hairstylists, pop stars and models

Fashion stylist Ray Petri revolutionised menswear with his eclectic styling flair. His work was visionary and is still highly influential today. In The Face, Nick Logan described the style Petri created, and for which Nick Kamen was the poster boy, as ‘Buffalo’. This was a look that defined masculinity and a change of attitude towards fashion and styling. “Buffalo was a look, an attitude, a gain; a creative collective of photographers, designers, hairstylists, pop stars and models working around the creative hub of super stylist.” (The Face, 2003). First appearing in The Face in August 1983, and credited to ‘Sting Rays’ Petri, along with Marc Lebon and Jamie Morgan, it incorporated clothes from sources as diverse as specialist sports shops, second hand stores and Benetton. The attitude was irreverent, eclectic and, on occasions, absurd. If this approach seems unremarkable now, it is proof of how influential Buffalo proved to be then. Wearing sports gear as fashion was a radical concept. Big name designer fashion was an influence but never a necessity; “read these pages as IDEAS rather than designer garments”, said The Face, “which is to say that the white Claude Montana jacket over the page will set you back an arm and a leg at Browns, but you can pick up something similar – a waiter’s jacket, say, at Oxfam”.
In 1985 the distinctive and startlingly contemporary aesthetic that had been built up by Petri finally revealed its name; a single page portrait of a male model, credited to Buffalo (Mark Lebon, James Ray Petri) was captioned ‘portrait of a Buffalo Boy looking hard in the yard’.

Buffalo’s transitional approach was revolutionary, as was its new vision of masculinity; nothing like this had ever been seen in fashion before. Nearly all its models were men, and Buffalo was bossy cool – simultaneously hard and sensitive – and nodding towards Brando. Buffalo took men’s styling to a new league, and Petri was instrumental in putting Arena, The Face’s sister title, on the fashion map when it launched in 1987. Buffalo had a strong impact on the fashion world and styling and on cult objects in particular. By the end of the 1980s Levi’s jeans were worn in Britain by pop stars including Bros. The Buffalo Look, meanwhile, could be seen spreading through the streets of British cities.