Today THE LOOK teases out the French roots of Kylie Minogue’s forthcoming KylieX2008 live extravaganza.
//Behind the scenes of the new tour//
The Australian star’s new tour fittingly opens in Paris on May 6, and will build on the Gallic sensibilities which have crept into her work, as pointed up by the sampling of the “woo-hoo-ha-hoo” hook from Serge Gainsbourg’s sublime Bonnie & Clyde on album track Sensitized.
//Serge and La BB as Bonnie & Clyde 1967//
Recently Minogue’s creative collaborator William Baker revealed that not only is Jean-Paul Gaultier responsible for the costumes for the forthcoming tour, but Pierre et Gilles are the stylists.
//Gaultier’s single How To Do That 1989//
Both appointments reflect Minogue and Baker’s abiding interest in fashion and music which broke ground in the 80s. As detailed in THE LOOK, Gaultier started his career as an 18-year-old assistant to Pierre Cardin in 1970 and later worked at Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou before debuting his own collection in 1976 with a range of dresses made from found objects.
//Gaultier tour costumes, Blonde Ambition, 1990//
Inspired by flea-markets - in particular London’s Portobello - and punk, Gaultier’s Dadaist show of 1983 marked the emergence of a startling talent, underpinned by funding from Far East manufacturer Kashiyama.Gaultier’s designs have been sported by many a pop star, including Grace Jones, Neneh Cherry and, of course, Madonna for her groundbreaking Blonde Ambition tour. He scored a minor hit in his own right in the late 80s and went on to firm up his musical associations by presenting the MTV Awards in Paris in 1995.
//Iggy Pop by Pierre et Gilles for Facade, 1977//
Meanwhile Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard - who have also worked with Madonna and styled and photographed Gaultier’s parfumery campaigns - developed their hyper-kitsch aesthetic after meeting at a party in Paris thrown by Kenzo in 1976.
//Marc Almond’s A Lover Spurned, directed by Pierre et Gilles//
The French pair created treated photographic portraits of Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop and Yves Saint Laurent for Alain Benoiste’s now defunct Facade before moving into record cover design with their sleeve for 1979 Euro-disco classic Diamonds For Breakfast by the amazing Amanda Lear.
//Amanda Lear performs Diamonds For Breakfast//
By the 80s they were collaborating with performers such as Etienne Daho and the singer/actress Lio. In 1985 they directed and styled their first video, Naufrage d’hiver, a single by Mikado.
//Pierre et Gilles’ first video clip 1985//
Since then the duo have exhibited all over the world and photographed everybody from Boy George to Nina Hagen and porn star Jeff Stryker.
//Kylie Minogue (c) Pierre et Gilles//
Kylie has worked with them before; a few years back they portrayed her as a nun on a rocking horse, with three kangaroos on her lap and the Southern Cross in the sky as nods to her nationality.
//Double Je: 1976-2007//
A monograph, Double Je: 1976-2007, was published last year and this spring Pierre et Gilles were awarded the Prix de Créateurs Sans Frontières.
KYLIEX2008 kicks off at Bercy Omnibus Stadium in Paris on May 8. William Baker has launched his own male underwear label, BBoy.
The work of artist Peter Saville has long lingered at the crossroads where art and design meet music and fashion.
//Saville: Iconic designer//
Not only responsible for some of the strongest artwork and most iconic graphics in popular music from his days as Factory Records in-house designer for Joy Division and New Order to working with the likes of Pulp and Suede, Saville has a fashion CV which includes launching SHOWstudio with Nick Knight, collaborating with Yohji Yamamoto in the 80s and also John Galliano at Dior in the 90s (where he was tipped to become creative director before famously falling out with LVMH’s Bernard Arnault).
In conversation with THE LOOK, Saville reveals how the juxtapositions presented by now-largely forgotten London clothing store Crolla were a key inspiration for one of his most famous sleeves.
//Power Corruption and Lies 1983//
Saville says of New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies - which incorporates the 1890 still-life A Basket Of Roses by Henri Fantin-Latour with high-tech colour coding and a label based on a Diatronic typesetting disc: ”I was given the confidence to put that together by what Scott Crolla and Georgina Godley were doing with their store at 35 Dover Street.”
//The album included an insert of the National Gallery postcard which inspired the cover//
Then husband and wife, Crolla and Godley opened their shop in London’s Mayfair in 1981, selling luxurious and colourful prints ands fabrics such as tapestries, brocades and damasks for waistcoats, pyjamas, dressing gowns, slippers and Nehru-jacketed suits.
//Crolla in The Face December 1982. Photo: Davies/Starr//
“The Crolla interior contrasted and juxtaposed Sanderson fabric with things like a shelving unit by Le Corbusier,” recalls Saville. “When I came across the Fantin-Latour on a postcard at the National Gallery I knew it was OK to like it, because Scott and Georgina’s use of reference points had taught me not to feel embarrassed by my appreciation of such art. In a way it was a contemporary means of understanding flower power.”
Saville describes Crolla as “a laboratory of post-modernist ideas, truly the first post-modern clothing shop. They weren’t presenting English eccentricism in an irritating or twee way. I read Crolla as a juxtaposition of opulence of imagery up against the Corb shelving unit or steel and glass fittings. The shop seemed to me to embody the post-modern principle: that there is the past, the present and the possible.”
//Georgina Godley white 80s dress//
By the mid-80s Godley had formed her own label and was pursuing her line in structured, contour-revealing womenswear while Crolla kept the shop until 1991 before moving on to Italian knitwear company Callaghan and collaborating with Vivienne Tam, most recently on her New York outlet in Soho’s Mercer Street.
Godley has acted as a consultant to Missoni, Paul Smith and Jasper Conran (she is the partner of his brother, Sebastian, who designed t-shirts for The Clash in their early days) and latterly developed her interest in ceramics as head of home accessories and style director at Habitat and creative director at Wedgwood.
In June Zune is producing a limited edition digital media player featuring his design for Unknown Pleasures to commemorate the release of Joy Division The Documentary, which will be pre-loaded onto the custom player.
In May THE LOOK is taking part in Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible! - Contemporary Wardrobe’s 30th anniversary celebration of events which includes the world premiere of the only known footage of designers Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood discussing their ground-breaking work together.
//The Horse Hospital: “Shaking up pop culture”//
Based at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury, London, the Contemporary Wardrobe Collection consists of more than 15,000 pieces featuring some of the most important and rarest clothing items since the 40s.
//Roger K. Burton and Jack English, 1978. Pic: Roger K. Burton//
Contemporary Wardrobe mainman Roger K.Burton will be interviewed on May 22 by THE LOOK author Paul Gorman as part of a special night at the Horse Hospital - the event is a must for all fans of style and pop culture as well as fashion, art and design students.
As detailed in THE LOOK, Roger is a significant figure in post-war fashion: he started at the cutting edge of the Midlands mod scene in the 60s and pioneered collecting and dealing in the early 70s to the likes of Acme Attractions and SEX.
It was Roger, for example, who discovered the cache of Wemblex shirts which became the canvas onto which McLaren & Westwood created their notorious Anarchy shirts.
//1976: Simon Barker in Anarchy shirt with Marco Pirroni and Sue Catwoman. Pic: Sheila Rock//
He and his partner Rick Rogers teamed with BOY’s Steph Raynor and Helen Robinson in autumn 1978 to open PX in James Street, Covent Garden, the shop which set the agenda for military and futuristic style among the New Romantic movement: those who worked there include Steve Strange, Jay Strongman and Princess Julia.
//PX interior, 1978. Pic: Roger K. Burton//
That same year Burton and Jack English formed Contemporary Wardrobe by retaining the giant collection of clothing they had supplied to The Who’s movie Quadrophenia.
//Quadrophenia: “We are the mods!”//
In 1980 Burton designed McLaren & Westwood’s shop World’s End, which retains his work to this day, and a couple of years later realised the duo’s “primitive, paganistic” brief for the deliciously deranged Nostalgia Of Mud, which opened in premises in St Christopher’s Place, just off Oxford Street, in March 1982. This closed the following year after complaints over the scaffolding, tarpaulin and bubbling “lava” pit (as well as the behaviour of the staff).
//Nostalgia Of Mud exterior 1982. Pic: Roger K. Burton//
Under Burton - who also operated vintage menswear outlet Dobbs & Partners in South Molton Street - Contemporary Wardrobe supplied and styled such movies as Chariots Of Fire, Absolute Beginners and Sid & Nancy.
//Bowie et al in Contemporary Wardrobe, Absolute Beginners 1985//
And it’s been non-stop ever since, with Contemporary Wardrobe fashions from such stores as Mr Freedom, Biba and Seditionaries and lines from Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and Givenchy featuring in videos by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams and Kanye West.
//Poster from the 1993 exhibition//
The opening at the Horse Hospital in 1993 was inaugurated by the exhibition Vive Le Punk with unbelievably rare items from the design partnership of McLaren & Westwood, who both turned up for the opening night.This, their first meeting in 10 years, was caught on film and will be screened in May as part of a fascinating and previously unseen documentary also called Vive Le Punk.
//Westwood & McLaren 1971. Pic: David Parkinson//
“To the best of our knowledge this is the only time that they have been filmed together discussing their legacy,” says Roger.
Roger will be in conversation with Paul Gorman from 7.30pm on Thursday May 22 as part of THE LOOK’s night which includes music, rare footage, images and original clothing from the CW archive.
Incredibly it is 25 years this month since Come On Eileen hit the number one spot in the US for Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
//The promo clip which broadcast the look around the world//
The song - and the album that spawned it Too-Rye-Aye - had taken the UK and Europe by storm the previous summer, as had the Caledonia soul be-denimed look concocted by Dexy’s leader Kevin Rowland, one of the great visual avatars in rock and pop fashion.
//Dexy’s in 1982//
The image - ear-rings, straggly curls and stubble, pinafore dresses, used dungarees and gypsy scarves, sandals and pumps, coalman’s jerkins and berets with pheasant feathers - is the one most associated with Dexy’s. Yet the band sported the clothes for less than a year and the irony is that by the time of the Stateside success, the group’s restless frontman was already moving on stylistically, looking to both Main Street USA and back to his youth as a “peanut” in north-west London in the late 60s for inspiration.
Here, with previously unpublished quotes, we reveal exactly how Rowland rapidly rang a series of changes over a few short years in search of “the great lost look”.By the time the first line-up of Dexys splintered in late 1980, Rowland had already come up with a fresh image to replace the “New York stevedore” style of Dexy’s debut album Searching For The Young Soul Rebels and first Number One Geno.
//The so-called “athletic monk” look of 1981//
Matching the lifestyle of the new group, which was dedicated to an almost monastic regime of purity of body and soul, the elements foreshadowed the 80s fitness fad: boxer boots, wrist- and head-bands, singlets, simple white t-shirts and designer sweatpants.
//Projected Passion tour t-shirt//
These were combined with tiny ponytails taken from sketches of 18th century sailors and custom-made hooded jackets based on those worn by Liverpudlian casuals, and showcased during the incendiary shows on the choreographed Projected Passion tour of theatres of 1981.
//Dexy’s by the water 1981//
However, lack of record company interest undermined Rowland’s confidence in the concept, and when Dexy’s music swayed into a more pastoral direction the following year, the group’s look once more evolved; by the spring of 1982 the “athletic monk” phase was over.
“It was good because it flew in the face of what was happening,” says Rowland. “Little did I know that it would be the look Dexy’s is most associated with, but in reality, we had it for less a year.”
He explains how it was created: “Debbie Baxter, a costume-maker working at the Mermaid Theatre in London (who later married original Dixons bassist Pete Williams), had been helping us with clothes since late 81. She gave that look a tougher edge, but, by the end of that year, we wanted to move on. It was a dilemma and for the first few months of 82 we were flummoxed.
“We started to look a little Dickensian, with little caps, but saw that Animal Nightlife were wearing those.
//Animal Nightlife early 1982//
“We were into the idea of being scruffy, but of course only in exactly the right kind of way. Everybody and his brother was now dressing up, to the point where it meant nothing. Sometimes you have to try lots of ideas that don’t quite work or hit the note, untill you find one that does.
//Single cover summer 1982//
“Debbie would show us drawings she had done, some of which we’d like, and some of which we didn’t. I can’t remember the exact sequence of events, but one day Debbie suggested denim dungarees. She made some up for us. We boiled them in my kitchen in effort to get them them to fade, but they still didn’t look right . Then we heard that Flip (the used/dead-stock store with branches in the King’s Road and Covent Garden) had some in, so a couple of us went down there and bought a load.
//Flip in The Face 1981//
“I remember during the Too-Rye-Ay sessions opening a big refuse sack and passing them round to the guys. Some of them had already left the band and were only recording the album on a session basis, and basically the band was in tatters, so some weren’t as reserved about their feelings as they might have been a few months earlier. There were guffaws from one or two, but eventually it all came together.
“It’s a bit like music: to get something that looks right and effortless, you have to go through periods when things are anything but effortless. You’re experimenting and maybe getting it wrong, and then finally it comes together. I love it.”
//Dexy’s cover Slade as the look progresses, December 1982//
Appearances onstage and in videos also made a style icon out of Dexy’s violinist Helen O’Hara, whose image was imitated nationwide. “Debbie made me the pinafore dress I wore, which actually I really hated,” confides O’Hara. “I wanted to be one of the lads and wear the dungarees but Kevin was against that. Then I found some old skirts in Oxfam shops and improved upon the way I looked.”
//Erin O’Connor evokes the “Eileen” look, 2007. Pic: Wireimage//
By the time Come On Eileen hit number one in America in April 1983, Rowland was “messing with the Celtic look, making subtle changes”, says Dexy’s graphic designer Pete Barrett. “Kevin started to wear his trousers inside out, which reflected what else was going on in fashion at the time. Vivienne Westwood was doing similar trousers with pockets on the outside at Nostalgia Of Mud“.
//Staff inside Nostalgia Of Mud, 1983. Pic: Roger Burton//
Not that Rowland was even aware of what was being designed at Westwood’s extraordinary London shop. One day that spring, near the record company HQ on Broadway, New York, he experienced a style epiphany. ”I spotted a guy with an Ivy League haircut, short and brushed over to the side like Roy Scheider in Jaws. He was wearing a check shirt, parallel trousers like Sta-Prest and a pair of GIs or plain cap shoes,” he recalls.
//Dexy’s on Madison Avenue, 1985//
“The guy was drunk, staggering around the streets, but the clothes intrigued me because that look had disappeared by then. At least, you would never see it in England. It was the Ivy League look that had been fashionable in the London suburbs of my youth.
//Billy Adams, Kevin Rowland and Helen O’Hara, 1985//
“Then, in January 1983 I was walking down Madison Avenue Too-Rye-Ay’d up, dressed in a heavy overcoat with my beret with a feather sticking out of it. I stopped outside Brooks Brothers and saw the clothes we had worn years ago: raised edging on the seams, hook or off-centre vents in the jackets, patch pockets. The jackets were so subtle it was untrue, because at first glance they looked very square.
//Extract from This Is What She’s Like 1985//
“I kept on looking at the clothes people were wearing as we toured the States that year. In Texas outside a restaurant I saw these two guys. They had parallel pleated trousers on, with plain cap shoes and button-down shirts, short Ivy League haircuts and were standing with their hands in their pockets, which gave their look a shape that made them exactly resemble a couple of well-dressed hard-nuts from Harrow in 1969.
//Billy & Kevin from shoot for Don’t Stand Me Down, 1985//
“I loved the fact that this ultra-conservative look was still going strong in America, and was worn only by squares or people who had to wear it for their work. At that time there didn’t seem to be any British equivalent, until Jeremy Hackett later re-defined the British look.”At first I bought a pair of Florsheim Imperials (plain caps or GIs) for old time’s sake, but I kept looking at them in wonderment, at their beauty. I would sit in my hotel room at night looking at them. I was dreaming about them. I felt so inspired again. I began to fantasise about wearing lots of Ivy League stuff and looking really clean and crisp.
“I knew this look could be great and massively popular. It seemed so opposite of what was happening and yet so 100% right. I was going on stage in America wearing dungarees and an old overcoat, but during the day I was going to the record company and asking for cash so that I could raid Brooks Brothers.
“Then, in spring 83, when I went to my Dad’s 65th birthday party, I wore some of the gear and my sister-in-law said: ‘You look like an extra from The Graduate‘. I was delighted.”
//Kevin Rowland with THE LOOK author Paul Gorman 2006//
Kevin is currently working on a new Dexy’s album and a book about his life. For his exclusive essay on “the great lost look” and how it empowered the recording of Dexy’s superb album Don’t Stand Me Down see chapter 13 of THE LOOK.
Meanwhile the future of the UK’s greatest Ivy League outlet J. Simons is under threat. The lease at the shop at 2 Russell St in Covent Garden operated by John Simons since 1980 ends in June 2009 and John is looking to connect with potential investors. Those with funds or ideas as to how to keep this important independent open contact John here.
In the latest in our series of studies of key designs created at 430 King’s Road in the 70s, THE LOOK investigates Prick Up Your Ears, one of the last provocative acts from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s store in its incarnation as Seditionaries.
//Muslin version (c) only-anarchists.com//
The outrageous graphic has until now been chronologically filed alongside the likes of Destroy and God Save The Queen, which were produced at the peak of punk media frenzy in the summer of 1977. In fact, Prick Up Your Ears did not appear until the dog days of Seditionaries, after the publication of John Lahr’s masterly Joe Orton biography of the same name in October 1978.
//First edition paperback + Orton in Tangier 1967//
Lahr’s book caused immediate cultural ripples, ones which were felt particularly keenly down the wrong end of the King’s Road (where “blackmail” lettering had been used for promotion of the Sex Pistols in much the same way as Orton’s lover Kenneth Halliwell had created newspaper print collages for his partner’s work 10 years earlier).
//Kenneth Halliwell’s poster for Loot//
The book’s unblushing presentation of the promiscuous proclivities of its subject (as essayed in his diaries) had the chattering classes agog, while Lahr’s sympathetic celebration of the dramatist’s life matched the cool audacity of Orton’s work.
//Orton, 25 Noel Road, London N1 1964 (c) Leicester Mercury//
The plates in the book displayed Orton’s great look, which reflected his and Halliwell’s ascetic lifestyle: cheap white t-shirts, Empire-brand jeans with giant turn-ups, desert or baseball boots, corduroy jeans, motorbike jackets, hooped tops, army surplus caps and coats. The clothes marked him out as a pioneer of gay style and enabled Orton to press home his image as an outsider not just in the dinner-jacketed Theatreland of the West End but society at large.
//Orton in Queen, July 67, with, among others Michael Fish and Twiggy//
Orton’s reputation as a homosexual outlaw was also bolstered by his incarceration for defacement of public library books as detailed in this BBC4 documentary:
Lahr took the title of his book from an unreleased play of Orton’s, who had toyed with the idea of using it for a rewrite of Up Against It, a screenplay he was creating for The Beatles at the time of his death on August 9 1967 (bludgeoned by Halliwell who then took a fatal overdose). Less than three weeks later Beatles manager Brian Epstein was himself found dead of an overdose (and also later appeared on a McLaren shirt when his image and a mock report of the circumstances of his demise were added to the Cambridge Rapist tee).
Arriving as punk’s potency dissipated, Lahr’s book confirmed Orton’s position as one of the movement’s guiding spirits. ”Reject all values of society,” Orton is quoted as telling his friend the comedian Kenneth Williams.
This outlook certainly chimed with that of McLaren and Westwood, who had paid tribute three years earlier when the playwright’s name was added to the “right” side of the SEX shop’s infamous You’re Gonna Wake Up t-shirt.
//Joe lines up with Lenny Bruce, Walt Whitman et al//
It is said that McLaren at one time investigated shooting a version of Orton’s Up Against It screenplay starring the four Sex Pistols. Certainly Prick Up Your Ears was also the title of an early song by another set of McLaren proteges, Adam & The Ants.
The base image of the Seditionaries design was a cartoonish depiction of a homosexual orgy. This was picked up alongside other graphics such as Snow White & The Sir Punks from an underground San Francisco store visited by McLaren in 1977. While the other tees from this sortie - Snow White, Mickey & Minnie and Fuck Yr Mother - were adapted and swiftly sold in Seditionaries, McLaren & Westwood sat on this drawing until inspiration arrived in the form of Lahr’s book.
//The “cheap” fur coat (c) Joe Orton Online//
The figures were then scrawled with “punk” characteristics - mohawks, piercings, tattoos - and overlaid with a two-colour screen and an appropriate extract from Orton’s diary: complimented by theatrical impresario Oscar Lewenstein on a new fur coat, Orton reflects that he looks better in cheap clothes because “I’m from the gutter. And don’t you forget it because I won’t”.
//The diary entry in Lahr’s book//
//And as it appeared in the Seditionaries design//
The biting tone and aphoristic ring could have come from one of the Sex Pistols themselves. Not that any of them wore it; Prick Up Your Ears’ joylessness reflected the circumstances in which it was produced. The band had long since split and John Lydon had not only launched his new group Public Image Ltd but also a legal claim against McLaren. Over in New York Nancy Spungen was dead and Sid Vicious had but a few months to live.
//Seditionaries: Beleaguered and boarded up//
Mirroring this disarray, Seditionaries itself was in free-fall. Open infrequently, Westwood was investigating fresh areas of fashion design and McLaren was preoccupied with the fall-out from the Pistols collapse and desparately trying to complete the band biopic The Great Rock & Roll Swindle.
//Mail order ad with Prick Up Your Ears below right//
The t-shirt briefly featured (in censored form) in the Seditionaries music press mail order ads, tough the recession bit hard during the winter of discontent, and, with fresh inspiration coming from 18th Century romanticism, piracy and the Burundi beat, the shop was boarded over in the latter half of 1979, awaiting transformation into World’s End.
Prick Up Your Ears was to receive wider exposure over the coming years when it was licensed by King’s Road neighbour BOY along with the rest of the 430 “punk” designs (for, it is reported, the paltry sum of £200, such was Westwood’s impecuniosity).
However, sales received a fillip in 1987 with the release of Stephen Frear’s biopic film Prick Up Your Ears. This, of course, starred Gary Oldman, fresh from his starring role in Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy as - who else? - one-time 430 King’s Road shop assistant Sid Vicious.
Many great images and insights into Orton’s life and work can be found at the lovingly put together Joe Orton Online, which includes the added bonus of the hilarious collection of letters fired off to national publications in the persona of busybody Edna Wellthorpe.
We know it’s a couple of weeks old but this exhilerating clip of Colourmusic performing their song Yes (to an audience including the irrepressible world-famous Beatle Bob) gives us a chance to boost on behalf of our friends at menswear “vintage salon” A Fine Tooth.
//Watch out for Bob//
Great isn’t it? There’s an opportunity to see the promo clip for the song at the end of this blog but first let us explain: Colourmusic were one of several groups hosted by A Fine Tooth and Tucsonscene.com at last month’s music industry jamboree SXSW in Austin TX.
//Racket magazine covers AFT//
This was another event which cements the strong bonds between the sharp-dressed fellers at AFT and a number of snappily attired performers: Of Montreal, OK Go, Sean Lennon, Vincent Gallo and Devendra Banhart are among those who have availed themselves of the company’s vintage selection and “throwback tailoring”.
//Devendra gets it on with A Fine Tooth//
A Fine Tooth is run by Vegas resident vintage expert and stylist James Kessler and San Franscisco-based Todd Hudson, who collaborates with Kessler on the company’s made-to-measure trouser business, handling patterns, managing production and finishing each pair by hand.
//OK Go get fitted right up//
The “guaranteed-to-fit” trousers are not tailored by size but by body shape; ATF has gone so far as to name nine (obviously “James” and “Todd” feature, but there’s also “Zack”, “Brady”, etc) and promises delivery in five days following online submission of height, weight and other details: waist, in-seam, seat and so on.
Congrats to Planet Notion for being quick off the mark with a news story about the debut next month of our wonderful new fashion label The Look Presents.
As writer Dave Dryden says, we’re reinventing iconic rock fashion for the 21st century, bringing the aesthetic of legendary designers and boutiques to a new generation of rockers.
The first range from The Look Presents is, of course, Wonder Workshop, whose designs were worn by everyone from Sid Vicious, Iggy Pop and Marc Bolan to Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, The Sweet and Paul McCartney.
Alongside the notorious Wild Thing there will be a range of amazing animalistic and tattoo-inspired t-shirts, including this incredible gold foil snake which wraps itself around the wearer’s black clad torso.
This year there are two more collections from The Look Presents at Topman - in July a new range of t-shirts and festival gear featuring the eye-popping graphics of Granny Takes A Trip founder Nigel Waymouth and in October the first ever High Street ready-to-wear collection of suits, shirts, ties and coats from designer to rock royalty Antony Price.
The Look Presents Wonder Workshop t-shirts are in the UK and online around the world priced £25 each from May 26 - keep an eye on Topman’s website for availability.
When young French actor Jules Sitruk appears as irritatingly cool French exchange student Didier in much-touted new Brit-movie Son Of Rambow, an entire vista of rock and pop fashion from the 80s, and one King’s Road store in particular, opens up.
//Sitruk in Son Of Rambow and a black version of the LaRocka jacket//
In a key scene, Sitruk is garbed in a red leather/black drill sleeveless Levi’s-style LaRocka! jacket from Johnsons, the greatest and most rocking fashion outlet of all time, whose customers ranged from Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards to Tom Waits, The Pistols, The Clash and yes, even Liza Minnelli.
//Johnsons R&R Suicide in Son Of Rambow and on the cover of The Face 1981//
In a separate scene in Son Of Rambow, costume designer Harriett Cawley pays yet another covert tribute when she places a tee from Lloyd Johnson’s Japanese-influenced and much-imitated Rock & Roll Suicide collection.
It’s not surprising the the visual nods to rock and pop fashion are of the highest quality. The team behind Son Of Rambow are steeped in music; as promo production company Hammer & Tongs, writer/director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith have been responsible for such hit clips as Supergrass’s Pumping On Your Stereo and Fatboy Slim’s Right Here Right Now, and continue to pump it up; among recent commissions is Vampire Weekend’s new single A-Punk.
//406 King’s Road London SW3 in the 80s//
As revealed in THE LOOK, Lloyd’s shops in Kensington Market and at 406 King’s Road became a hive of rock-influenced fashion from the Seventies to the Noughties, with labels such as Tex-Mex, Beat Beat, Johnsons The Modern Outfitters, R&R Sucide and LaRocka! reflecting many different areas of design influence and musical interest.
//Trudi Parsons in The Face 1981//
Lloyd’s creations under the R&R Suicide banner debuted with coverage in style bible The Face, with Siouxsie Sue on a 1981 cover and shop manager Trudi Parsons featured inside.
//Billy and Joe plump for Johnson’s//
Meanwhile Billy Idol and Joe Strummer both chose R&R Suicide shirts, the former on the sleeve of his breakthrough album Hot In The City and The Clash frontman on tour in the Far East in 1982.
One of the most charming aspects of the Johnson’s retail experience was that Lloyd and his staff became personalities in their own right, as seen in this rare advert for the style press shot by photographer Martin Brading in 1986. Among those appearing are Lloyd (bottom right), his wife Jill (centre), Trudi and her brother Dave Parsons (top right). Dave moved on to play bass for Transvision Vamp and, in the 90s, grungers Bush.
//George Michael in LaRocka BSA jacket and boots//
LaRocka! became so ubiquitous that it was often the only common ground between artists and celebrities as various as Nick Cave and Samantha Fox, as exemplified by the fact that, in the same year, George Michael wore Johnsons in the video for his US number one hit Faith while Tom Waits carried over his stagewear bought from the shop for his landmark London shows of 1986 to his role in Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law.
//At 3.12: “NOT the shoes!!”//
As seen in this scene from the film, his character only comes to life when screen partner Ellen Barkin threatens to throw his silver tipped LaRocka! boots out of the window.
//THE LOOK’s own “Waits” LaRocka! boots//
Towards the end of the decade the glam element of Johnson’s designs attracted those interested not just in rock but also clubwear.”When the leather jackets really took off I had this mad idea to do a gold biker jacket, jeans and boots to celebrate,” says Lloyd.
“I guess it was Elvis’s gold suit playing on my mind. And once again, instant success! Lux Interior from The Cramps bought the first outfit and then the fashion editor of The Face was so ecstatic when he saw it, we got the front cover and four pages inside. So I thought, why not do silver as well? The next thing there was a phone call from Vogue. Could they photograph Liza Minelli in the silver jacket for the cover?”
And now LaRocka is back, with Lloyd and Jill working alongside Trevor Myles on the reinvention of the brand for the 21st Century through Trevor’s company Secret Ingredient.
THE LOOK’S pal Trevor Myles has unearthed for us an amazing slice of rock and pop fashion history: a previously unseen and unpublished photograph of his shop Paradise Garage taken in 1971.
//Pic: Trevor Myles collection//
And, as if to take up the challenge, we are responding with a scan of a long-forgotten piece on the shop in Design magazine from the same year.
//Top left: The Paradise Garage Mustang, Design 1971//
Paradise Garage had already undergone some changes by the time Trevor took sole control of 430 King’s Road early in 1971, having been an unnamed clothes shop run by couple Bill Fuller and Carol Derry in 1966, Hung On You in 67/68 and Mr Freedom from 1968-70. And that was just the start. Under the command of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood from November 1971 it was to evolve consecutively into Let It Rock, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, SEX, Seditionaries, and, to this day, World’s End.
//SEX 1976 and World’s End 1984//
The snap of the shop at the top of this story was taken by one of Trevor’s friends in the early summer of 1971. The familiar landmarks of this cultural crucible - which measures no more than a few hundred square feet - are all in place: the phone box outside of which Westwood, Jordan and others were to pose for a Seditionaries fashion shoot in 1977, the forbidding brickwork of Chelsea Conservative Club next door, the ever-changing restaurant which shares the street number on the other side.
In 1971 Trevor had split from Mr Freedom partner Tommy Roberts and opened up this new establishment which sold Osh Kosh B’Gosh and used denim, Hawaiian shirts and other retro and rock & roll styles.
As revealed in Chapter 17 of THE LOOK, Trevor directed interiors team Electric Colour Co to cross South Seas charm with American authenticity. The bamboo sign was erected onto painted corrugated iron, a 50s petrol pump was placed outside (sometimes with Trevor’s tiger-striped Mustang parked nearby) while inside there were caged lovebirds, a jukebox and and even a tiny dance-floor.
And Design magazine quickly picked up on these radical moves being made down the wrong end of the King’s Road. In the Things Seen section of the September 1971 issue, it printed a photograph of the car alongside this copy: “Paradise Garage is not, as might be expected, the home of this flock-finish Ford Mustang - but the name of a shop doing brisk trade in second hand US boiler suits and dungarees. The proprietor of the shop, Trevor Miles (sic), also owns the Mustang: its tiger-striped finish, now looking a little grubby from King’s Road exhausts, was created by the Electric Colour Company.”
Paradise Garage became a focal point for creativity that year. New York Doll Sylvain Sylvain recalls hanging out at the store on a trip to London with his knitwear brand Truth & Soul, while the design team there included John & Molly Dove. While using the premises as an impromptu studio they created the infamous Wild Thing t-shirt which is reissued next month by our own new label The Look Presents.
//The NY club Paradise Garage and its logo//
The Paradise Garage name was snaffled in the mid-70s by the gay disco crowd who launched the historic nightclub at 84 King Street in Greenwich Village which spawned such giants of the dance scene as the late uber-DJ Larry Levan.
//New wave band The Perfectors outside Paradise Garage Cardiff 1980//
And by the late 70s it was also adopted by ex-Amen Corner member Alan Jones for his punk shop in Cardiff, which became a magnet for the burgeoning Welsh new wave and new romantic crowd, including Chris Sullivan and Steve Strange.
//New LaRocka styles from Myles’ company Secret Ingredient//
Trevor, meanwhile, moved on to to such brands as Million Dollar in the 80s and recently his company Secret Ingredient has been working with King’s Road legends Lloyd and Jill Johnson on reinventing their LaRocka brand for the Noughties.
//World’s End today//
The World’s End shop has become the home for the clothes which express Westwood’s Active Resistance manifesto, as discussed in her book Opus. In these post-globalisation times, it is staggering to conceive that, apart from a brief spell of financial insecurity in 1986-6, 430 Kings Road has now continuously traded in cutting edge ideas and adventures in rock and pop fashion for more than 40 years.
Stylist Claire Edmondson today talks THE LOOK through realising the stylistic vision of one of our favourite artists, Roisin Murphy.
A couple of weeks back we covered Murphy’s excellent grasp of visual style, as recently underlined by her collaboration with Scott King (formerly of Sleazenation) on the first promos for tracks from latest album Overpowered.
With the clip for new single You Know Me Better (released this week), Murphy has taken a fresh direction.”The point was to do something different - a little bit softer, more feminine,” says Edmondson, who explained that the American artist and photographer Cindy Sherman was a major reference point. Murphy and her team lovingly recreate images from Untitled Film Stills, in which Sherman explored archetypes and identity through self-portraits, employing wigs and clothes to alter her appearance.
//Cindy Sherman from Untitled Film Stills//
The lightness of touch avoids the direct approach taken by Tori Amos for the sleeve of her 2001 covers album Strange Little Girl, in which the American singer-songwriter replicated a number of Sherman images.
In a newly-released behind-the-scenes film, Murphy describes Sherman as a “massive influence”, though the looks are firmly fashion-forward: she wears Balenciaga, Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton and Miu Miu, as well as a number of vintage pieces. The overall effect is feminine, mysterious and a little oblique, kept fresh and modern by Murphy and Edmonson’s use of neck-ruffs, tulle, bows and gloves from east-end boutique No-One and up-and-coming Londoners Poltock & Walsh.
The look is also a contrast to the Scott King collaboration, which had a harder-edge and more modern feel. “Roisin usually does most of her own styling,” says Edmondson, “but because there were so many different looks required there was no way she’s have time to organize it all.
“So that’s where I came in. I shopped and called in clothes for about a week and then Roisin, myself and my assistant spent two evenings in a hotel suite in Soho putting all the looks together. We were really into the Louis Vuitton S/S 08 collection, with all it’s tulle and sugar pastel shades, so I think that was our starting point.”
Revealing that Roisin’s favorite outfit is the vintage green dress, with pink hotpants and neck ruff, closely followed by the Louis Vuitton dress she wears in the hallway, Edmondson describes the look as “quite feminine but still strong, which I think is an accurate reflection of who Roisin is in real life: very beautiful and feminine, but also a very strong person”.
Louis Vuitton S/S 08
It’s entirely appropriate that the S/S 08 LV collection is their starting point, since that was the result of a collaboration between Marc Jacobs and artist Richard Prince, inspired by his nurse paintings. Jacobs described the shoes for the collection as a “collage of a traditional Vivier, a nurse shoe and a classic pump from the sex shop”.
Prince collaborated with Cindy Sherman on a double self-portrait in 1980 when they were lovers, dressed in identical suits, ties and Andy Warhol wigs. Sherman too has collaborated with Marc Jacobs - working (and dressing up) with Juergen Teller on the 2006 campaign.
Edmondson enthuses about the experience of working with Murphy: “It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a fitting with a musician, because usually I’m being told to tone it down, but Roisin always wanted to push it.”
Great to see yet another fantastic collection from groovy women’s-wear label Once Upon A Time arriving in-store at Topshop.
Once Upon A Time has consistently delivered charmingly ultra-feminine and wearable garments which evoke the spirit of 60s/70s London, and Chelsea and Kensington in particular.
//Once Upon A Time evokes late 60s/early 70s King’s Road//
The creative explosion of that period - manifested by such boutiques as Che Guevara, The Universal Witness, Thea Porter and Biba - is one of the richest strands in THE LOOK, while Once Upon A Time partners and vintage clothes-hounds Donna Kernan and Dominique Miller also describe their collection of fairytale frocks, tunics and skirts as the “I’m With The Band” look.
//Ellen von Unwerth in Once Upon A Time//
This, of course, references the memoirs of Miss Pamela des Barres, a friend of THE LOOK who came to our infamous LA party in 2001 hosted by Rodney Bingenheimer (the event where Britney Spears wandered in from shooting a scene in the studio next door for her disastrous movie Crossroads, but that’s a whole other story).
//Miss Pamela surrounded by the GTOs//
Pamela - a member, lest we forget, of Girls Together Outrageously - was very much a part of that scene, having lived in London at the beginning of the 70s with her boyfriend Marty Breslau, partner in King’s Road shop Granny Takes A Trip.
This season’s prints from Once Upon A Time certainly embody the Alkasura ethic, and Dominique is the proud possessor of three very rare dresses from that shop, which was run by the benighted John Lloyd at 304 King’s Road from 1969 to 1973/4.
Lloyd was by all accounts a strange individual who became obsessed with religious cults and iconography; towards the end of his life - still in his 20s, he committed suicide by self-immolation in the mid-70s - Lloyd stalked the King’s Road in full monk’s habit.
//Rock & Roll Workshop tee//
Recently Rock & Roll Workshop’s Ben Cooney produced a glam jacket based on an Alkasura design as well as tees featuring a graphic of the shop’s label.
Before they formed Once Upon A Time, Donna made a name for herself with the cult label Donna De Francq and has designed for Laura Lees while Dominique is also a jewellery designer.
//Once Upon A Time Foxy Top//
What is it about that particular scene and period which is so inspiring? “I guess the freedom of the time is appealing,” says Dominique. “There were better bands and clubs then. Probably most things were better, weren’t they?”
Once Upon A Time are currently hosting previews of their A/W 08 boutique collection with prices at wholesale for delivery in August. Contact them via their myspace page.
The combo of rockin’ artist Vince Ray and premier vintage store Beyond Retro is a difficult one to resist, particular when manifested in his va-va-voom Voodoo Boots.
As Beyond Retro’s Nisha Thirkell says, Vince is “an underground legend”, having blazed the trail in British 50s-influenced noir tattoo art and applied it to all manner of objects, from the usual - t-shirts, martini glasses, ashtrays and crockery - to the unexpected: bathroom fittings!
