Just after a riveting Fashion Week event raising money for the breast cancer charity Cancer Culture, which they co-founded, we sat down in the Roxy dining room with Tish and Snooky Bellomo, originators of Manic Panic, the first punk boutique in the U.S. Their hair color and cosmetics are sold in more than 20 countries and have been used by Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, among many others. Tish and Snooky now operate out of a 14,000-square-foot headquarters in Long Island City, where they continue to devise innovative products such as Bat Out of Hell and Electric Watermelon hair dye and Poison Ivy body paint—all cruelty-free.

S.A.M.: I’ve followed you guys for years. The last time we met was in Berlin, where you had a booth at a trade show. We went over old times in lower Manhattan. I couldn’t believe you had lasted so long in fashion when so many others had lost control of their brands and put their creativity in the hands of global conglomerates—Donna Karan bought by LVMH, Calvin Klein by Phillips Van Heusen, Bobbi Brown absorbed by Estée Lauder—all NYSE-listed companies, subject to the veto of bankers such as BlackRock. I bet you’ve had offers from these types.

T/S: They don’t bother to make us an offer because they know we’ll refuse. They do the next best thing—make knock-offs. LG, the giant Korean conglomerate, just bought our main competitor.

S.A.M.: I don’t know why they need a cosmetics line since most of their money comes from defense contracts like making guided torpedoes—all the more reason to marvel that you’ve survived so long in this shark tank. What’s the secret formula, your kryptonite, that none of the competition can copy?

T/S: Maybe personality.

S.A.M.: Personality?

T/S: Yeah. From day one, at our first venture on St. Mark’s Place, we treated our customers as if they were one of us—part of our own little society. We were nice to everybody. The junkies walked in—so long as they didn’t steal anything—we were nice to them. Same thing with the gypsies (now called Roma) who lived next door.

S.A.M.: Real gypsies?

T/S: You knocked on the window of their combination astrology storefront and living room—click, click, click—and they’d usher you in. Grandma Gypsy came into our place fluttering her multi-colored muumuu, everything loose underneath, and said, “Girls, too hot to wear brassiere.”

Tish and Snooky after a performance at the Mudd Club, 1979. Photo by Steve Mass

S.A.M.: This putting yourselves on display must have started when you were children. I read that when you were six years old, to earn money, you did puppet shows on the sidewalk in front of your house. What was that all about?

Snooky: We did puppet shows, and then during intermission we ran a concession stand. The show was free, but we made money on the snacks. We had Kool-Aid in different colors and rice snacks. I did this little trick: take a shot glass, butter it, put the rice in, and dump it upside down. You get this mound shape, which we garnished with jujubes. We sang and danced the whole time.

Tish: And played with glitter.

Snooky: Putting on shows, playing with glitter, and selling stuff. Come to think of it, we’re still doing that. Today, people look askance and roll their eyes, thinking, “Who is this old bat wearing young people’s hair color?” Not realizing that we invented it.

S.A.M.: What was it about what you were doing that made others want to incorporate your DIY personalities into their own style?

T/S: In high school, we put stars in our hair. Then other people started wearing stars in their hair. We got so mad—until we realized it was a form of flattery. People asked where we got our outfits. You couldn’t find them in stores because they were fashion mistakes.

S.A.M.: I remember you said you were almost evicted from the Bologna Fashion Expo because your booth looked too trashy.

Tish: It looked like a bordello. We were told not to come back if we kept up that bordello look. But we persisted, and then everybody else adopted it. Like I Love Lucy, where they’re wearing horse-feed-bag hats and burlap sacks for dresses.

Snooky: Then the Parisian models were wearing them the next day. Typical!

Manic Panic Storefront, 1977

S.A.M.: Even the sign on your storefront was completely unique.

Tish: We found a lightbox covered with broken bits of plastic. It was huge—six or seven feet. We got a can of red paint, and I sat on the sidewalk painting our sign. It was a little sloppy, but it was alright.

Snooky: I don’t know what happened to the sign. It went into storage, and then it disappeared. We’ll probably find it on eBay and have to buy it back.

S.A.M.: It could be posted as a Robert Rauschenberg sculpture priced at a million dollars! Thinking out of the box got you into trouble, especially with your landlords. We all went through that. Lower Manhattan was getting a global cachet as the place to be, so rents went up. The landlords were looking for stable franchises like The Gap.

Tish: Years later, we didn’t need the location as much because our wholesale business was getting bigger and bigger, so we moved to Long Island City. But even there, when the lease was up, the landlord wanted to double the rent, which would have been catastrophic—we would have had to move our giant inventory again.

S.A.M.: Isn’t it amazing? You have to include the landlord as an important part of your life. He’s there, like a giant toad—blocking your way.  In those days, some men didn’t take women in business seriously. Men want to help, but they treat you like a chippy whose real goal is a marriage proposal. They’ll do all the ugly business parts for you—just hand over your bank account information.

Tish: We’re still fighting. It’s not easy. And it’s still, believe it or not, a man’s world. The sexism—because we were women, especially young women—no one took us seriously.

Snooky: Well, um. My husband is very supportive.

Tish: So is mine! Which is incredible. [Laughter, to her sister.] Are you going to use the hot sauce?

Snooky: I’m pretty hot-saucy. But—no.

S.A.M.: Do you always share everything like that?

Tish: [Squabbling over the food with her sister.] You only have one. You could have half. There’s two. Take this. You need some spinach.

Snooky: No, I don’t like that. Sorry—we’re sisters. We like to argue.

S.A.M.: Not only was your business undercapitalized and subject to the whims of rapacious landlords, you found that big-box stores like Walmart wouldn’t touch you in 1980—although that has changed.

T/S: They wouldn’t look at our stuff. But they would carry laughably bad imitations without understanding the culture of the punk era.

S.A.M.: Do major labels copy your stuff?

T/S: Constantly. One designer—now a mega-brand—used to carry our makeup in her store and then stopped ordering it. Our salesperson asked, “Why?” She said, “Because I have my own line.” Which was basically our line in really nice containers. [Laughs.]

Snooky and Tish with their mother, artist Estelle McInnes Bellomo © Marcia Resnick 1980

S.A.M.: You two are great multitaskers. I remember when your band played at the Mudd Club as part of the Catholic School Girls party. You made yourselves up as nuns—it was so well done. I thought you were Catholic girls who went to parochial school.

Tish: Our mother wouldn’t have been able to afford to put us in Catholic school. Anyway, we were Presbyterian.

Snooky: Did you ever meet our mother? She was an artist. She worked at the School of Visual Arts. We hadn’t told her we were in a band called the Sic Fuks. Her students ratted us out. Then she came to our gigs, which was really sweet.

S.A.M.: My mother would have been socially ostracized for that.

T/S: Our mother was already a black sheep. Our father left. He married an Argentine ten years younger than her, so she dyed her hair blonde.

S.A.M.: What about celebrities? Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, and Lady Gaga use your products. Do you get any feedback from them?

T/S: We’re not proactive about reaching out to celebrities. We get feedback from their stylists that they use our stuff.

S.A.M.: So many things from that era are now acceptable. Millennials wear spike heels. I mean, women thought that was crazy in 1977. Nobody would have done that. That was for strippers.

T/S: We couldn’t afford stock from wholesale suppliers, so we had to scavenge around to find products. Debbie Harry took us to a shoe store on Reade Street when we were first opening. We went down to the basement, and there was a treasure trove of spike heels—all these amazing shoes still in their original boxes from the ’50s and ’60s—really cheap. We kept going there and buying more and more.

Spike heels and tasteless ties at Manic Panic. Photo by Estelle Bellomo

S.A.M.: Did customers buy them?

T/S: People loved them. They were vintage, never worn.

S.A.M.: It seems like you could be called feminists. But feminists would have been outraged by spike heels.

T/S: Some were.

S.A.M.: Did anyone criticize you for the eclectic array of one-of-a-kind objects in your display cases?

T/S: We sold vintage decks of nudie cards on the counter. People said, “That’s disgusting. That’s sexist.” You know, exploiting women. We thought they were hilarious.

Display cases at Manic Panic

S.A.M.: Do young girls ask you, “What should I do?”

Tish: People write to Manic Panic for guidance—advice on what to wear and all that. We have someone who answers them. Snooky will give advice on everything, from love life to fashion, hair color, and even the future.

S.A.M.: Yeah. Or you stick to hair color because, by now, you’re experts at it. Men don’t have a clue as to why women use hair color.

T/S: [Laughter.]

S.A.M.: They’re just kind of mesmerized by the color. Do women still get permanents? My mother used to take me to the hairdresser, and I couldn’t stand the smells.

T/S: People still go to the salon to get a perm. It’s not something you would do at home.

S.A.M.: Where are you going after our brunch?

T/S: Take Metro-North back home and bleach my hair.

S.A.M.: I can’t bleach my hair. I have no hair.

WORDS S.A.M.

EDITING Lee Williams 

PHOTOGRAPHY Courtesy of Tish and Snooky