Steps admit to not washing stage outfits on tour in early days

Steps had to re-wear stinky stage outfits in the ’90s

Claire Richards – who is joined by Faye Tozer, Ian ‘H’ Watkins, Lisa Scott-Lee and Lee Latchford-Evans in the ‘5,6,7,8’ group recalled early on in their career, and not having the luxury of having someone to clean their stage outfits.

“We didn’t have anyone to wash our clothes in the early days.

“We’d do three shows a day. My outfit was a red mesh top, long sleeves and red PVC trousers.

“You can’t wash those. I mean, you can sponge them.

“And even on mesh it doesn’t matter how many times you wash it, you can never quite clean it.

“We had to wear that for months because the record company would not buy us another outfit.

“I think I even wore it in our first video.

“It’s enough to make me retch, even now.”

Steps – who are embarking on a 25th anniversary tour this summer – also had to cover their bodies in talcum powder to fit into their ‘Deeper Shade of Blue’ outfits.

Ian previously revealed that the bold blue latex suits for the music video for the song from their 1999 LP ‘Steptacular’, were so tight they had to use the clay mineral product to squeeze into them.

He told press “They were made of Latex and we would cover ourselves in talcum powder to get into the bleeding things.”