Photographer Dave Swindells was one of the few to discover the London nightclub when it opened 30 years ago – and capture its streetwear, Sloanes and giddy energy. He takes us back
There was no fanfare when the Ministry of Sound opened 30 years ago. There wasn’t even a press release. For decades it has been one of the world’s most famous nightclubs (and one of the world’s most successful independent record labels), yet it opened almost in secret, and that was part of the plan.
Justin Berkmann was a young DJ who’d lived in New York and been mesmerised by the Paradise Garage and the mixmastery of its resident DJ Larry Levan. After the Garage closed at the end of 1987, Berkmann returned to the UK with an evangelical determination to create a club in London that was built around a similar state-of-the-art sound system. He met two people who believed in his vision: the entrepreneur James Palumbo and his business partner Humphrey Waterhouse.
Speaker stacks and dry ice in the main room, the Box. Below; a mystery DJ in the Box
