[2] Band member Gary Kemp later commented that Elms was their "spin doctor", and said he "inspired" songs such as "Chant No.

[4] Elms was a chronicler of the New Romantic movement of the early 1980s,[1] which saw him become a popular interview choice for the broadcast media.

He was a contributor to Loose Ends (BBC Radio 4) and presented the Channel 4 travel series Travelog during the 1990s.

In 2006 he published The Way We Wore: A Life in Threads, which charts the changing fashions of his own youth, linking them with the social history of the times.

Guests who are acknowledged experts in their fields of study appear on a regular basis, including architect Maxwell Hutchinson and film critic Jason Solomons.

Elms is a critic of The Beatles, and refuses to play the band on his BBC London daily radio show.

[15] In 2021, Elms and his wife moved from their home in Camden to a flat at the Barbican Estate, Central London.