Photos of 90s Club Kids From a Long-Forgotten Rave Scene

Sometime in 1993, Swiss photographer Philipp Mueller – then in his early 20s – found himself jobbing as a nightlife photographer for Swiss underground magazines like Sputnik and Forecast. Initially an outsider to Zurich’s exploding rave scene, he soon connected with a booming subculture that few outside Switzerland realise ever existed.

The output from nearly a decade of work photographing the parties of the capital was until recently semi-forgotten, stashed at Mueller’s parents home. Now it has been brought together in 120 bpm – a new photobook documenting the raucous, surprisingly chic, and at times surreal heyday of Switzerland’s club scene.

VICE: Firstly, where has all of this material been, until now?
Philipp Mueller: It was all in a box at my parents’ house, until my mother said, “You have so much shit down here, something needs to be done!” I looked [through it all] and found this amazing material: prints, polaroids, magazines. What’s interesting is that so much of the photos feel really contemporary – like it could be in i-D or The Face today. I started showing the work around and everyone was like, “Wow! Is this Berlin?” I was like, “No, it’s Zurich.”

I guess a lot of people – at least outside Switzerland – probably don’t know that Zurich had a big clubbing scene in the 90s. 
There had really not been much happening in Zurich, it was boring. But in the early 90s the first clubs and illegal parties, usually in industrial areas, started emerging. Very often in those days the police would turn up to close the parties down. The trick was to hide the cash tables used for drinks and so on, so then you could say it was just a private birthday party or something. It got so trendy with all these parties that at one point they actually suspended giving out new restaurant licences in Zurich, because there were so many clubs and bars. 

Were you a part of that techno rave scene when you were taking these photos? In the book you describe yourself as more of a “waver”, wearing skinny jeans, leather jacket, pointy shoes, with a goatee…  
Today you would call the look “indie sleaze”. There’s a great contradiction to the book: I wasn’t part of the rave community, though the book ended up leaning toward the rave side [in terms of the image edit].

I was more into clubs, a nightlife photographer. I was just taking photos at these events the magazines I was working for would send me to. At least at first. Of course, rave was a part of clubs at that time. That’s how it all came together. I took the rave photos because I was like, if I take photos of this 100,000 person rave I might be able to do other things for the magazine. It was a job. 

It’s important to say that when I was taking these pictures I never thought they would be of any value. Sometimes when you take pictures they mean nothing in the moment, but over time they can become important to you, or even to many people. 

 Some images might feel familiar to those who have seen Gavin Watson’s UK rave photos, or books like Out of Order. But a lot of them show a world that seems more glamorous, the vibe seems more fashion-y. 
I think at that time the England rave look was the big hoodies, and the bucket hats and so on. You have to remember this was pre-internet. We had The Face and we had Italian Vogue… We were looking at those, they were our sources of information on what was going on elsewhere. From that lack of information Zurich created its own kind of style, its own rave community. 

There was a time where people were getting a bit bored with parties so we started doing fashion shows by local designers at the raves. It was a way of boosting the interest in the parties. That was the foundation of my career, I had no great sense of fashion, but the people I was surrounded by were into it and we were inspired by those magazines.

The book includes black and white and colour photos, polaroids, snapshots, composed portraits… It’s rather unusual in that way, I feel like you can really sense that you were learning new things at the time. 
I was experimenting with a lot of techniques. I was inspired by so many photographers, Juergen Teller with his point and shoot work, and Anton Corbijn – whose book I had bought when I was 18 or something. I was experimenting with things like cross-processing photos. 

I think what’s key is that in my mind I wasn’t ‘documenting a movement’, I was more interested in individuals. As I am still. I was always an individual-minded person. I always thought of clothes as part of expressing yourself, your personality. Even at school, where my mum used to dress me in things like red fake leather jackets and denim combos… It’s something I miss today with everyone wearing more or less the same thing.

Do you think that homogenising is an impact of things like social media? 
I think some individuality got lost because of the globalisation of ideas and products. Fast fashion washed away a lot of individuality in our lives. 

But maybe it’s coming back. I recently photographed some 20-year-old kids outside of Zurich. They were very much into rave, one was doing a sort of Ziggy Stardust look, her flatmate had a sort of Goldie-looking bleached, shaved head. I think that there’s another generation now that is seeking that individuality again, and has a completely different mindset. There’s hope!