Over at mrsgorman.com, Mrs G is celebrating Cheap Chic, one of the greatest fashion books of all time.
Cheap Chic is notable on many fronts, not least that it is the very first book to make mention of Sex, the shop opened by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at 430 King’s Road in the spring of 1974.
Exuding Them-ness from every pore, the enduring exquisite Duggie Fields pointed out that Sex was “not fashionable…bits of furs, porno embroidered T-shirts and humorous clothes. My idea of clothes is to make myself smile. I like that in others too. I don’t think clothes should be serious.”
This is an aspect of the boutique which is all-too forgotten; that, behind the commitment, subversive art and anarchic politics, lurked the wit and laughter which underpinned the late McLaren’s life and work. This attracted a clientele which was in no way “punk”, despite the revisionism of recent years.
Long before SEX served up, er, sex from 430 King’s Road, Mr Freedom – which started out from the same premises – supplied clothes which fused a celebration of sexuality with a bedazzling take on pop art and trash culture iconography.
This was outlined in a May 1971 eight-page colour feature in short-lived men’s magazine Club delivered to us piping hot from the archive of our pal Steven Millington.
The report by the ever spot-on Michael Roberts with photographs by Mike Berkofsky pointed to the fashion-forward velvet hot-pants, bumster trousers, ice-cream brooches and Disney licensing by Freedom founder Tommy Roberts and partner Trevor Myles (who exited to establish Paradise Garage).
By the time the Club piece was published, Mr Freedom had been based at 20 Kensington Church Street for six months. It’s interesting to note the range included “Teddy Boy suits” (as well as boiler suits and “huge bovver boots”), presaging in part the stock at Let It Rock when the late Malcolm McLaren took over 430 King’s Road from Myles in November 1971.
As it happened, Mr Freedom did not last much more than a year in Kensington. Lack of financial controls and overheads including the cost of operating a warehouse spelled the end of the shop, which was superceded by City Lights Studio in Covent Garden.
Still, the Club article provides a superb showcase for Mr Freedom, highlighting such clothes as the skull-and-crossbones tee as worn by Marc Bolan and Freedom designers Jim O’Connor and Pamla Motown’s wonderful and now highly collectible baseball suit.
Around the same time Michael Roberts took the opportunity to include Roberts and Myles in a separate Club piece on six of London’s leading auto-fiends, Tommy with his pillar-box red V8 Pilot and Trevor with the Paradise Garage Mustang tiger-striped and flocked by Electric Colour Co.
We’re really grateful to Steven M for thinking of THE LOOK as the place to showcase these fantastic editorial pages; check out his alter-ego Lord Dunsby’s sterling retrographic illustrative work here.
This evening’s launch of Kirsty Hislop and Dominic Lutyens’ estimable 70s Style & Design provides an opportunity to show off a couple of rare photos we’ve gathered from one of the places which receives extensive coverage in the book: the pioneering boutique Mr Freedom.
//Snapped at the Mr Freedom Kensington opening party, 1970. Top in hat: Pamla Motown//
The above shot of scenesters and fashion movers and shakers was taken at the opening party of the Mr Freedom branch at 20 Kensington Church Street in December 1970. From left they are: Micky Solomons, Mona (Solomons’ girlfriend at the time), and Ken and Pam Todd.
Top, in the hat, is designer Pamla Motown and we’re reliably informed that Ken Todd’s jacket was from Cockell & Johnson.
The shot has been supplied to us by Trevor Myles, who co-founded Mr Freedom with Tommy Roberts; not long after the Kensington store opened, they went their separate ways. Myles returned to the site of the original shop, 430 King’s Road, and relaunched that as Paradise Garage.
//Mr Freedom, 430 King’s Road, 1969: Trevor Myles, Tommy Roberts, John Paul and Gerald Tilling//
The first Mr Freedom was opened by Myles and Roberts in 1968, taking over the premises from Michael Rainey’s Hung On You.
Decorated by Electric Colour Company, one of its notable faces was flamboyant manager Gerald Tilling, while Roberts’ friend John Paul was brought in ahead of the move to the more ambitious store in Kensington.
//Pop art is covered from Allan Jones to Jon Wealleans’ design for the Mr Feed’Em restaurant//
Mr Freedom, Paradise Garage and Pamla Motown (in particular her association with fellow designer Jim O’Connor) all feature in the new book which is illustrated with 430 images, many rare.
//The vintage boom begins, featuring (centre) Anna Piaggi and Vern Lambert//
Hislop and Lutyens have covered the waterfront, checking for everyone from Swanky Modes, Fiorucci and Johnsons to Nova, the back to nature movement and radical architecture.
//Fold-out section including Nova, Wonder Workshop and Mr Freedom sportswear//
As John Dove points out, it took Malcolm McLaren’s unique combination of commercial nous and artistic insurrection to conduct a Dr Frankenstein and bring the tits tee back from the novelty graveyard for resurrection as a vital fashion statement.
//Steve Jones wears his tits with pride, 1976. Pic: Joe Stevens//
In the spring of 1975 McLaren found himself far away from home. The previous year he had overseen the transformation of 430 Kings Road into Sex, aided by his design partner Vivienne Westwood with creative input from friends including Bernie Rhodes and Gerry Goldstein and the practical help of Vick Mead, a master carpenter he had chanced upon in his south London neighbourhood of Clapham.
When the shop was open again McLaren had upped sticks across the Atlantic to work with the New York Dolls, but, as documented extensively elsewhere, their combined and gargantuan drink and drug habits mitigated against any hope of commercial resuscitation.
A final series of dates in the south had resulted in the collapse of the group. ”The Dolls had broken up in Florida in a drunken, drug-induced frenzy, and left me with just two assets: a Les Paul guitar and a convertible car,” says McLaren.
“From the swamps of a trailer park I sped with the guitarist Sylvain Sylvain to the Big Easy.
//McLaren wades in at the Nashville Rooms, April, 1976. Pic: Joe Stevens//
“There, on Bourbon Street, I found the sexiest t-shirt of all, one with a blue print of a pair of perfect-sized tits so as to transform the wearer, man or woman. This t-shirt was purchased in what you would consider today some kind of little tourist boutique.”
//Anarchy In The Eighties, The Face, February 1986. Photograph: Nick Knight//
“I remember the shop clearly; it was opposite a house in which, on the second-floor window, there was an open curtain. Every 10 seconds a girl on a swing traversed the street in mid-air, her legs wide to an open crotch, and then back through the window and the curtain closed; it was a knocking shop and she was advertising the wares.”
Suitably impressed, McLaren included the tee in the haul he took back to London a couple of weeks later.
//Sex in Forum, 1975. Photographs: David Parkinson//
Reprinted, mainly in blue on white, and worn by rebellious teenagers of both sexes, it was to become a staple during the Sex Pistols’ rise after the line-up coalesced in August that year.
Guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook were early adopters; Jones can be seen wearing it in the 1975 Forum magazine photoshoot on Sex and in photographs from many of the Pistols live performances.
Jones also makes sure that it is on full view during the epochal encounter with Bill Grundy on Thames TV’s magazine show Today in December 1976.
Thereafter it was worn by such SEX shoppers as Siouxsie Sue and was reproduced throughout the 80s by the likes of BOY and Kensington Market’s Pure Sex, who provided the design for a Nick Knight-shot celebration of the 10th anniversary of punk in The Face in February 1986.
Siouxsie Sue in her tits tee, 1977/ 666 version 2009//
It is still available, officially in a number of colourways from Westwood, or unofficially via such repro companies as 666.
//Westwood MAN and Anglomania tees//
Four decades after this strange design was innocently produced for an art school project, the tits tee is more popular than ever, though there is something beautiful about the fact that it doesn’t look likely we’ll ever know whose breasts they were originally.
“The model lived downstairs from us in Providence,” says Laura Gottwald. “I forgot her name.”
Today THE LOOK unearths a set of stunning photographs of the Sex Pistols not made public since they were taken by Abba’s favourite photographer nearly 33 years ago.
And even he - Wolfgang “Bubi” Heileman - appears to have forgotten them; not one appears on his site even though Heileman was clearly credited at the time.I went on the trail of the photos following the recent publication of Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming Tapes.
The cover features a crop of Johnny Rotten’s face which appeared as part of a group shot on the covers and dustsheets of editions of the original book.
This defaced image has long intrigued me; the band wear a particular selection of clothes I had seen in one other place, a poster I owned issued by German teen magazine Bravo.
Now, having tracked down a copy of Bravo from September 30, 1976, I see that the poster shot was just one of many in what is arguably the very first article to pick up on the fashion and style aspects of the Pistols.
//Front cover, Bravo, September 30, 1976//
In the magazine’s first five pages, ahead of gooey features on cover star Shaun Cassidy, Slik (whose frontman Midge Ure had already been approached to sing for the Pistols and would go on to form Rich Kids with bassist Glen Matlock) and the Bay City Rollers (whose career model was taken as a cue by manager Malcolm McLaren), the quartet showcase the very latest designs then being created by McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at Sex, alongside Rotten and Matlock’s adaptations.
//Double page spread, Bravo, September 30, 1976//
Journalist Gerald Buchelmater’s feature is based on the band’s performance at the 100 Club Punk Festival on September 20.Pitched somewhere between amazement and amusement – in line with the general reaction to the Pistols at this stage in their career – junkyard typography and “street” graphics (gutters, ring-pulls, dustbin lids, mangy strays) proliferate.
//”Wild backstreet boys…”//
Clothes and personal style are detailed, with special attention paid to Rotten’s ripped and adorned school blazer (which was to inspire Westwood and McLaren to create an inside-out felt version a couple of years later).
There are close-ups of safety pinned rips, scrawled slogans (from God Save The Queen) and examples of the Nazi insignia procured by McLaren from the military memorabilia store in Upper Street, Islington run by 60s singer Chris Farlowe.
Also picked out are Rotten’s Sex studded wristband and guitarist Steve Jones’ signature Nudie pin up decals on his Gibson. Rotten also wears his familiar Let It Rock era silver Lurex threaded Zoot suit trousers, laced brothel creepers and a grey Peter Pan shirt, while his self-made I HATE Pink Floyd tee is sported by drummer Paul Cook.
Glen Matlock has a candy-striped Let It Rock shirt, his Jackson Pollock-ed jeans (which were to be appropriated by The Clash) and the sling-back suede shoes McLaren had picked out of an old George Cox catalogue.
Jones, meanwhile wears two new and significant designs which point to the future direction at 430 King’s Road (within three months of the shoot it was overhauled and renamed Seditionaries).
//Bravo’s Pistols poster 1976//
His hand-painted Anarchy shirt is the Dangerously Close To Love version which he and Sex shop assistant Jordan had exhibited during the band’s performance on So It Goes.
There is a close-up of the Chaos armband as well as the inverted Third Reich eagle and silk portrait of Karl Marx bought in London’s Chinatown.”Only Karl Marx was ever used on the original Anarchy shirts,” emphasises McLaren.
“It was his book (Das Kapital) which started the Socialist and workers’ movements in the 19th century and apart from anything else, Vivienne and I liked his beard.
“Marx was significant because he was a writer/author and creator of ideas, not a politician like Lenin. And he was important to us in particular because he lived in London at one point.”
//”…Trash fashion”//
Jones is also wearing strapped bondage boots in green canvas and and light tan leather; these became a Seditionaries staple in a variety of colourways as a complimentary range to the bondage suit, which was first made public on September 3 when Rotten wore it for gigs at the Chalet du Lac nightclub in Paris.
Immediately prior to that his on- and off-stage attire was what you see here; in fact Rotten wore the pink jacket and zoot trousers for the taping of the So It Goes performance on September 1, so it’s likely that the Heileman session took place around then, a month before the magazine’s publication date.
The final group photograph appears to be from another shoot; Cook is in a You’re Gonne Wake Up tee, Jones wears a sleeveless Cambridge Rapist top, red Sex jeans and black slingbacks, Rotten has the tiny ripped red jumper he wore at early Pistols gigs and Matlock is in a Let It Rock leopard-print waistcoat, as also worn by his replacement on bass, Sid Vicious.
The row over authenticity and the pioneering punk fashions of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood just took a turn for the weird.
THE LOOK can exclusively reveal a series of designs bearing striking similarities to key McLaren and Westwood creations which have been trademarked without their knowledge by a company unconnected with either of them.
//Left: Westwood orb 1987. Right: Red Planet orb 2008//
And, in a bizarre move, the same company recently attempted to copyright a design entitled “Destroy Jesus”; this consists of key elements of the notorious “Destroy” shirt as worn by the Sex Pistols and sold through McLaren and Westwood’s shop at 430 King’s Road in it’s 1976-79 incarnation as Seditionaries.
The business behind this activity is Red Planet, most recently trading on eBay as Saint Art Junkie but previously known by a variety of names, including Too Fast To Live To (sic) Fast To Die Clothing Company.
Last week THE LOOK bought from Red Planet a t-shirt for £12 bearing a skull & crossbones logo and the phrase Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die. It came complete with a “free gift” tag carrying the same ident.
//Left: Vivienne Westwood t-shirt 2003. Right: Red Planet t-shirt purchased last week//
Operated by Tony Knight from an address in Droylsden, Manchester, the company has posted an announcement on eBay confirming that this trademark – number 1449591517 – along with others is registered with the Intellectual Property Office, the government body which controls intellectual copyrights. The cost of registering an apparel trademark with the IPO is less than £500.
The design is near-identical to the logo and name used by McLaren and Westwood for 430 King’s Road between 1972 and 1974. This has subsequently been revived and referenced by Westwood many times on t-shirts, knits and badges; THE LOOK has a Westwood tee bearing the phrase and logo bought as recently as 2003.
//Westwood MAN label 2000. Right: Red Planet Jeans trademark 2008//
The other trademarks registered with the IPO by Red Planet include two encircled orb and cross logos as well as the name “Worlds End apparel clothing”. Of course, World’s End is the name given to 430 King’s Road in 1980 (under which it continues to trade to this day). It is from here that Westwood carved out her reputation as an internationally recognized designer; the Gothic serif font used by Red Planet is close to the lettering she continues to use for her own-label designs.
//Too Fast To Live 1972. Pic: David Parkinson. Right: Red Planet tag, 2009//
An image indelibly associated with Westwood’s business is the encircled orb and cross, of which there have been a number of permutations since she introduced it with her “Harris Tweed” show of March 1987. It should be noted that the Harris Tweed Authority had the royal orb as it’s own trademark since 1911; it overlooked Westwood’s adoption since this was seen as introducing the mark to fresh generations of consumers.
Red Planet clearly states it is not associated with the Westwood business. The designer’s name on it’s eBay listing is Vivienne or Vivian Peters. Together with the company title and other references, this creates the keywords: “Vivienne”, “Westwood” and “red”.
//Red Planet Worlds End logo 2008. Right: Vivienne Westwood red label 2001//
THE LOOK was alerted to Red Planet’s trademark registrations by disgruntled individuals claiming they have been barred by eBay from marketing repro McLaren and Westwood clothing at Red Planet’s insistence.
“I had a Destroy shirt for sale and it was withdrawn,” says an individual who requested anonymity. “eBay said it breached Red Planet’s trademark ownership. I thought that Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood designed these punk symbols of art?”
//eBay announcement posted recently//
In line with their non-conformist approach to the fashion business, neither McLaren nor Westwood has ever asserted their ownership of intellectual copyrights on the sale of reproductions of their 70s output of at least 30 t-shirt designs, bondage trousers, so-called Anarchy, Parachute, Peter Pan and muslin shirts and rafts of jackets and shoes.
The international trade in reproduction Sex and Seditionaries clothes is now a multi-million dollar business supplied by such specialists as Dangerously Close in the UK, Posers Of Hollywood in the US, 666 in Japan and King Mob, which closed operations earlier this year though was understood to have a manufacturing base in Thailand and traded on eBay.
Last year McLaren launched a campaign against reproduction clothes being marketed as originals, targeting in particular dealer/collector Simon Easton, who had sold a large number of disputed items to artist Damien Hirst for £70,000. Easton protested his innocence and outlined his case to THE LOOK here.
A spokesperson for Vivienne Westwood confirmed to THE LOOK that the company is looking into Red Planet’s IPO registrations, while McLaren admitted that he is flabbergasted by Red Planet’s actions. “This is extraordinary,” he adds. “The plot thickens.”
Our inquiries have revealed that Red Planet’s attempt to register “Destroy Jesus” with the IPO has failed, not because it infringes McLaren and Westwood’s copyright, but due to a moral objection being raised by an unnamed individual.
The IPO has confirmed to THE LOOK that “further proceedings” may be initiated into two more Red Planet trademarks
.When contacted by THE LOOK, Red Planet declined to respond to our inquiries.
***Three months after this story was posted Red Planet has contacted THE LOOK by submitting a number of comments disputing this story (though confirming they have registered these trademarks). The company has not made any direct contact via phone, post or email. We have written to Red Planet directing them to our legal representatives. The IPO has been unable to confirm whether it is carrying out the further proceedings indicated in the story. Until this matter is resolved we will not be publishing comments and have withdrawn any already made.***
The 20 photographs of Vivienne Westwood taken at 430 King’s Road by art student William English in January 1975 have long been the holy grail of imagery to emanate from the boutique in its incarnation as Sex.
As a selling exhibition of framed prints from the photo-shoot is launched with a private view at London’s Maggs Bros Rare Books, we present a double exclusive: a preview of the show and an in-depth interview with English himself.
The photo-shoot took place at the request of English (who had been a customer at 430 since it housed Paradise Garage five years previously) for the photographic portfolio which formed part of his application for film studies courses at a couple of London colleges.
“Vivienne was friendly and happy to be photographed,” recalls English, who was intrigued by the environment, which included a sculpture of a severed leg left in the store by its creator and made a centrepiece of the interior display.
That day English shot a single roll of film on a Nikon borrowed from his friend, the late David Parkinson.
“After taking a few pictures I asked her to pose like a mannequin, to become stiff and awkward rather than the usual ‘relax and look natural’.”
Apparently it was Westwood’s idea to don the translucent rubber suit which had been hanging nearby; Malcolm McLaren was absent in America applying his energies to relaunching the drug-addled New York Dolls.
In the event the photographs proved a hindrance to English achieving his ambition. “I was turned down by both colleges,” he says. “During the interviews they just blanked the photographs, wouldn’t even discuss them. In retrospect they may have thought I was aiming to get involved in making porn films!”
This isn’t the first time the images have come to light; some have appeared in books and, in 2004, they formed the basis of an exhibition at the Aquarium gallery and a companion limited edition boxed set Venus With Severed Leg.
Curated by Carl Williams, who runs the counterculture section of Maggs’ modern books department, the show which opens today not only captures the non-commercial, almost innocent atmosphere of the exercise, but also provides a flavour of the eerily-lit Sex in all it’s kinky, Peeping Tom glory.
“The shop always had a very distinctive ambience and felt like an art installation rather than a place of business,” says English. “Of course everything was for sale but it felt unique, very much an extension of Malcolm and Vivienne’s personalities.”
Inquiries about Sex Against Fashion should be made to Carl Williams.
To discover more about the photo-session, as well as insights into bubble cars, the Leicester connection and avant-garde film-making, read the full interview with William English below.
The contribution to 20th century commercial design by pioneering Shoreditch art collective Electric Colour Company has been overlooked for far too long; among their achievements was the realisation of fabulous frontages and retail environments for a clutch of the most important boutiques in fashion history, not least Mr Freedom, Paradise Garage and City Lights Studio.
//Trevor Myles receives a parking ticket outside 430 Kings Road, spring 1971. Pic: David Parkinson//
Now THE LOOK presents for the first time a selection of the photographs taken by the group and the late photographer David Parkinson to document their commissions, which included trade show displays, nightclubs, accessories, custom cars, furniture and signage.
Among the images are never-seen-before exterior and interior shots of 430 King’s Road in its Paradise Garage incarnation, prior to the takeover by Malcolm McLaren in November 1971.
Electric Colour Co was formed in 1969 by artists Andrew Greaves, Jeffrey Pine, David Smith and Roderic Stokes. “It was originally supposed to support our fine art practice but became so involving that it took up all our time, ” says Andrew.
//The premises in Phipp Street, Shoreditch. Pic: David Smith//
ECC also proved geographical pioneers, settling in Phipp Street, Shoreditch. “There wasn’t a particular ethic or collective aesthetic, except perhaps a reaction to the conservatism of the existing fine art establishment,” says Andrew. “We had an amount of conceptual freedom which, when coupled with a vaguely maverick attitude, could have given us a broader working platform than more design-focused groups.”
Rod Stokes emphasises the importance of music. “We’d meet in the evenings to compare favorites, or attend gigs, from Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Captain Beefheart to Albert Ayler, The Incredible String Band, Varese and others.”
//Electric Colour’s work in Design magazine, February and April 1971//
David Smith says they responded to “music that ‘took it to the next level’, whether it was the Beatles, King Crimson, Soft Machine, Velvet Underground or Mothers Of Invention”. He adds: “This now sounds like a playlist for the average American oldies station, but at the time it was a continuous stream of innovative music and our own affirmative soundtrack.”
An important factor is that, like McLaren, they sprang out of the 60s art scene rather than pop or fashion. “We tended towards what was happening with Fraser, Waddington or Kasmin rather than Twiggy or Jagger,” says David.
//Mr Freedom, 430 Kings Road 1969. Pic: David Parkinson//
This was evident from the get-go. EEC’s first project was the shop front for Trevor Myles and Tommy Robert’s Mr Freedom at 430 Kings Road in the former Hung On You premises operated by Michael Rainey – you can read the full Mr Freedom story in Chapter 16 of THE LOOK.
As with their other commissions, the team were given a brief description of the concept, for which they produced non-technical drawings and illustrations.
//Exterior of Blueberry Hill, 89 King’s Road 1970. Pic: David Smith//
Late in 1970 ECC fitted out the mysterious and short-lived King’s Road fashion outlet Blueberry Hill, which lasted all of six weeks before the landlords closed in and converted it into a betting shop. None of the Electric crowd nor Trevor Myles can recall who operated or designed the clothes for this unusual and forward-looking shop; can anyone out there be of assistance?
Better known is Paradise Garage, the outlet Trevor Myles opened at 430 King’s Road in the spring of 1971 after splitting from Tommy Roberts (see Chapter 18 of THE LOOK). These and a number of other images supplied by the ECC team provide intriguing interior aspects to the premises which have subsequently housed Let It Rock (1971-72), Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die (1973-74), Sex (1974-76), Seditionaries (1976-79) and World’s End (1980 to date).
//Interior, City Lights Studio, Covent Garden 1972. Pic: Jeffrey Pine //
As well as customising Myles’ Mustang, complete with tiger-stripe flock covering, ECC designed City Lights Studio, Tommy Roberts’ darkly glam reaction to the failure of the Mr Freedom Kensington store. The first fashion outlet to open in Covent Garden, City Lights was a powerful influence on the Japanese designers then making an impact in the West.
In the mid-70s the members went their separate ways: Andrew into teaching and fine art, which he continues to practice to this day while Rod is also a working artist with a riverside studio in Cadiz.
Jeffrey Pine designed such shops as Trevor Myles’ Secret Ingredient, Howie in the Fulham Road and the third version of Mr Freedom (opened in the middle of the Kings Road in 1973 by Roberts’ former partner John Paul). He also created stage sets for Roxy Music gigs, and went on to work with his partner Katharine Hamnett. Jeffery has since returned to sculpting and painting.
David returned to art teaching briefly and now lives in California where he also continues to paint. “By coincidence I’ve resumed contact with my ex-art school tutor Derek Boshier,” he says.
In David’s words, Electric Colour Co “helped shape and fulfill our ideology”.
And what was that?
“To produce work which freely crossed between the worlds of fine and applied art.”
Christie’s much ballyhoo-ed sale of “the finest collection of 20th Century fashion in private hands” last week achieved a respectable total of £270,000, with sales secured for 165 of the 225 items.
//Paco Rabanne dress: £15,000/YSL suit: £10,000//
Highlights for vendors Mark Haddawy and Katy Rodriguez, co-owners of US retailer Resurrection, included Paco Rabanne’s aluminium panelled dress fetching three times the estimate at £15,000 and a YSL safari suit achieving nearly 10 times the predicted price at £10,000.
//Pierre Cardin cape: £5,000//
With such one-offs as the red vinyl Cardin bubble cape attracting £5,000, the vintage business is using the sale to steady the buffs during this stormy economic period. Hence this week’s claim by Cameron Silver of LA retailer Decades that “many people are turning to vintage as a guilt-free way to shop.”
//Nostalgia Of Mud and Witches dresses: £1,000 each//
Although many World’s End items attracted buyers, the Christie’s website does not record sales for more than a third of the 47 items from 430 King’s Road.
This, combined with the withdrawal of four before the sale began, underscores the increasing nervousness over authenticity of pieces purported to emanate from the shop between 1974 and 1980 in its guises as Sex and Seditionaries.
//Unsold: Estimate £2,000-£4,000//
Among the 18 not present in Christie’s sale results are a number previously flagged as fake by Malcolm McLaren (whose name is omitted from the design partnership he conducted with Vivienne Westwood in the online auction results).
//Unsold: Estimate £1,500-£2,500//
These include a “Destroy waistcoat” and “No Future jacket” as well as three muslin tops, a “No Future jumper” and pairs of red corduroy, serge/satin and fringed bondage trousers.
//Unsold: Estimate £2,000-£4,000//
Two challenged by McLaren were authenticated by New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain and sold: a gilt leather hood went for £1,250 and a pink sleeveless Peter Pan shirt made £1,125.
//Sylvain’s hood: Sold for £1,250//
McLaren remains sceptical, describing Sylvain’s assertion that he supplied the guitarist with the hood as stage gear as “outrageous”.
Withdrawn items from the catalogue included a Chaos armband with an estimate of £100-£150 and muslin shirts which went on display in New York but did not make the journey across the Atlantic.
These were also rejected as fake by McLaren when he viewed them at the company’s starry presale which was one of the events kicking off New York Fashion Week and was attended by Agyness Dean, Chloe Sevigny and Henry Holland.
//Christie’s NY: Muslins withdrawn from the Avant Garde sale//
“We thought there were simply too many muslins for the balance of the sale and for the current market,” says Christie’s textiles specialist Pat Frost, who was quoted in the Financial Times 10 days ago claiming McLaren hadn’t “handled the pieces”.
//Malcolm McLaren at Christie’s presale show NY September 2008//
The next stop is Christie’s Punk/Rock sale in NYC on November 24.
Centred on artefacts from the New York, SF and English punk scenes, the heading is something of a misnomer since the sale also features a catch-all from a 60s poster for Barbra Streisand to Frank Kozik skateboards and Kidrobot vinyl toys.
Punk/Rock has nine lots claimed to be designs from 430 King’s Road, including a number of ties ($2,000-$3,000), two Cowboys t-shirts ($1,000 – $1,500 each) and a pair of Seditionaries bondage trousers ($300-$400).
/>//Seditionaries bondage trousers?//
Since the latter appear to THE LOOK to be dubious, there is little doubt that the punk-rock fakes furore ain’t going away any time soon.
Visit here for the auction results from the Avant Garde Fashion sale.
Our new t-shirt collection The Look Presents Nigel Waymouth draws on Nigel’s background not only in historic store Granny Takes A Trip but also his mind-bending artwork as part of Hapshash And The Coloured Coat.
//Posters for Pink Floyd at UFO and The Who single I Can See For Miles//
Hapshash was formed early in 1967 when Nigel hooked up with Michael English, who had worked on the first issues of Barry Miles’ underground newspaper International Times. The pair set about producing posters in day-glo colours for the UFO club, opened in Tottenham Court Road by the scene’s leading players, John “Hoppy” Hopkins and Joe Boyd.
“They wanted a distinctive style,” says Waymouth. “The idea was to pair us off and see what happened.”
Wherever there was a major pop culture event in 1967 there was Hapshash, providing posters for Jimi Hendrix’s series of dates at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in June and illustrations for OZ magazine; the editor Richard Neville says that the pair told him that their sole inspiration was LSD and that their regular “tripping partner” was Pete Townshend.
When they were interviewed for The Observer by George Melly, he described their artwork as “a rubbery synthesis of Disney and Mabel Lucy Atwell taken to the edge of illegibility”.
//14-Hour Technicolour Dream and Soft Machine posters//
For the 14-hour Technicolour Dream held at Alexandra Palace on 29 April 1967, they changed the ink colours for the posters, producing were a huge number of variants within the one print run.
//From left: English and Waymouth surrounded by their work with Guy Stevens//
Guided by maniacal Granny’s customer Guy Stevens, who was later to create Mott The Hoople and produce The Clash’s London Calling, they also formed a band of the same name, with Island act Spooky Tooth playing the backing tracks while Granny’s John Pearse, Waymouth and their friends improvised wildly.
“We were discovered to make music years before the Sex Pistols,” says Pearse proudly. “Guy said we could do whatever we wanted over the top while others came along to the sessions, like Amanda Lear and Brian Jones, who played piano, harmonica and guitar.”
//Featuring The Human Host…and Western Flier//
Housed in a Waymouth-designed sleeve and pressed on red vinyl, Hapshash & The Coloured Coat Featuring the Human Host & The Heavy Metal Kids is a strange brew indeed, with one side comprising a single track of chanting overlaid with various sounds, including Pearse scratching away in an untutored fashion at an amplified violin. A second album, Western Flier was released in 1969 and included contributions from Tony McPhee and Mike Batt, The Wombles musical mastermind.
//Nigel (left) at the Hyde Park legalise marijuana festival(c) Gabi Nasemann//
“The music sort of interfered,” admits Waymouth now. “There were other characters trying to get in and turn it into a proper pop group, so egos started to clash. My time was divided between the shop, the posters, designing fronts and clothes. I was all over the place and the hippy thing was becoming overblown. Plus the fact that we were probably over-enjoying ourselves. Basically we lost the plot.”
Originals from the Hapshash series are now among the most sought-after from the period – for the full run-down of every design see here.
Granny Takes A Trip was the radical boutique which changed fashion – and the way clothes are sold – forever.
//John Pearse, Sheila Cohen and Nigel Waymouth (in Granny’s print jacket)//
As presented in the definitive account in Chapter 10 of THE LOOK , Granny’s was created in late 1965 at 488 King’s Road by three young friends: artist Nigel Waymouth, his girlfriend Sheila Cohen and Saville Row-trained tailor John Pearse.
//Early 1966: Waymouth (right) with friend Michael Chaplin. Pic: Rex Features//
Opened early in 1966, everything about Granny’s was fashion forward; rather than following the prevailing Carnaby Street trend in pop disposability, the trio pioneered “vintage” and authenticity by trading in the original Victorian and Edwardian garments collected by Cohen.
//Mid 66: Low Dog//
These were supplemented by Pearse contributing fine tailoring in interesting fabrics, with Waymouth handling designs for long-collared shirts and tight trousers and the ever-changing retail environment.
Among the first customers were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who wore Granny’s on the album sleeves for Revolver and Between The Buttons that year.
//Granny’s guys: The Floyd and Ossie//
Within three months the shop was featured in the famous Time magazine feature which signalled the arrival of Swinging London, and a few weeks later the team rang the changes with the first overhaul.
//Late 66: Kicking Bear. Pic Topfoto//
Out went fin-de-siecle and Art Nouveau references and in succession came two giant and forbidding psychedelicised portraits of Native American chiefs: Low Dog and then Kicking Bear.
//Newsreel footage featuring Nigel and Granny’s from 1.00min//
The most familiar frontage was, of course, Waymouth’s pop rendition of 30s movie star Jean Harlow.
//1967: Pop art Jean Harlow//
This attracted the media from all over the world and featured in the George Melly-scripted movie Smashing Time. But the innocence of that image was far removed form the reality; with the Velvet Underground’s first album droning in the background amid the murk, Granny’s was actually a hip and heavy place.
//1968: Black and gold Dodge. Pic: Rex Features//
The vibe was reflected in the coup-de-grace delivered when the owners bolted the front-half of Pearse’s decrepit Dodge onto the shop window so that it jutted surreally onto the street. The car itself underwent a few makeovers – memorably in black and gold with glittering stars and also canary yellow – while Waymouth’s graphic design venture with Michael English, Hapshash & The Coloured Coat, dominated the poster and sleeve art of the Summer Of Love.
//1968: Canary yellow. Pic: Pictorial Press//
Hapshash mutated into a band which recorded two albums, and the original Granny’s team went their separate ways in 1969, leaving the business in the care of manager Freddie de Hornick.
//Granny’s in the early 70s//
He drafted in the New York hipsters Gene Krell and Marty Breslau who presided over the store’s next incarnation as provider of velvet suits and other fine accoutrements to the rock crowd into the early 70s with branches in LA and New York.
//488 King’s Road autumn 2007//
The premises became a greengrocer’s and then a restaurant before closing for a period. A couple of years back they were acquired by property developer/art dealer Tim Morel who is refurbishing the site to reopen as a gallery/coffee house and fashion store in tribute to the important place it occupies in British pop culture.
Sheila Cohen has disappeared from view, and not been in contact for several years with her partners in one of the most exciting adventures in rock and pop fashion.
As you know, I opened the stores, designed the interiors, created the brands and worked with my partner Vivienne Westwood on the designs.
I was specifically responsible for the vision, the aesthetic and deconstruction attitude, above all, to create clothes that looked wrong: anti-fashion. It was to become a style that turned into something that was finally labeled PUNK by the media.
The inside-out look on jackets, shirts and t-shirts and the words CHAOS and DESTROY, were used by me to push to the limits, this anti-fashion aesthetic. We made ugliness beautiful. I spent many a night designing the iconography of the t-shirts: DESTROY was actually put together in my office while managing the Sex Pistols.
The CAMBRIDGE RAPIST t-shirt was designed by me upon my return from managing the New York Dolls. It was about a particular incident that occurred in the shop and worried those when they were accused of selling a leather mask to a supposed rapist who was terrorizing the town of Cambridge. I made that upon the week of my return from NY.
Joe Orton was someone I much admired and PRICK UP YOUR EARS was a t-shirt I dedicated to him. The nude boy SEX PISTOLS t-shirt was the first t-shirt I designed about the name, SEX PISTOLS and the first and ONLY t-shirt about the Sex Pistols. It was printed by Bernard Rhodes in his kitchen but Bernard was a little nervous about the imagery of the naked boy. I ended up simply making a single nude boy Pink t-shirt for myself. I think I must have worn out more than 20 of them. One appears, I notice, in a book in Japan self-published by two important collectors, one of whom is the designer Jun Takahashi of Under Cover.
The I GROANED WITH PAIN Alexander Trocchi t-shirt was the first breakthrough for SEX. After all, we were selling leather wear, fetish wear, etc. and we needed a simple t-shirt with a statement that was evocative of sex (as it was the name of the store) and I chose this piece of writing to do just that.
The COWBOY t-shirt was a design I brought back from America and added the caption about boredom to use this design and incorporate a nihilistic statement performed what was necessary for me to create this anger and sense of euphoria to be able to scream “boredom” and “murder” and do obnoxious things in the street. This t-shirt, as gay as it may look on the surface, became one of the true iconographic t-shirts of the Punk scene at that time.
PISS MARILYN was a fun idea that I had been inspired briefly by Andy Warhol’s silkscreens of a photo of Marilyn Monroe. I wanted to do a version of that and used the word PISS, designing that writing so it looked like urine in yellow ink across the plain monochromatic print.
I have never liked mothers and FUCK YOUR MOTHER was a statement I threw over an extremely rude fist-fucking drawing that I again had found in NY, customizing it with Russ Meyer-type lettering. As you know, I had a brief relationship with Russ Meyer, someone I initially approached about making a movie about the Sex Pistols and got immersed into his extraordinary titles and graphics and borrowed them for this particular t-shirt.
The Anarchy shirt was a very specific idea. Along the corridor of my flat, we had boxes of old shirts I found manufactured in the early 60s when the style of “pin-through” collars (an American look) was fashionable. These shirts, all pin-striped made in cheap cotton, I wore and wore but I couldn’t wear enough of them and Vivienne one day decided to paint over them, to customize them, using my son’s little stencil set.
We decided on certain slogans: “Only Anarchists Are Pretty”, “Dangerously Close To Love”. I attached patches of Karl Marx that I discovered in Chinatown where they sold Maoist literature.
Chris Farlowe (a 60s rock singer famous for covering the song by the Rolling Stones’ Out Of Time) had a store next to The Screen On The Green cinema, which was of course famous for a number of Sex Pistols gigs. This store always intrigued me because it sold a lot of German and Nazi artifacts from the war. I would stop by and be intrigued by the SS wedding rings and a number of patches and emblems.
I purchased a lot and with these and the Karl Marx patches. With my own idea of just simply dyeing – but not fast-dyeing – pieces of cloth I then, with a wooden twig dipped in Domestos bleach, would write these wonderful anarchic slogans that had appeared on the walls of Paris like “A Bas de Coca Cola”, an ode to anti-Americans and to those great heroes of the anarchist movement like Bueneventura Durruti and his Black Hand Gang, famous in the Spanish Civil War. Much passion and love and dedication went into these shirts.
They became pieces of art, like paintings. No wonder collectors like Damien Hirst covet them and want to purchase them. We only made 30 or so as they took a lot of time and therefore became very expensive. I can’t imagine there are more than 6, 7, or 8 pieces remaining on the planet. One of course is in the Japanese book. And perhaps one is owned by Jim and Debdon at Camden Market, who attempt to make some of the best reproductions of those shirts.
But, as they are customized, you can’t help but reveal each particular artist’s qualities. That can never be copied completely. They are not manufactured. That is the whole point.
This was the dawn in this store, Seditionaries, that really testified to a whole DIY aesthetic, that prompted a host of copyists like Debdon and Jim who have had their stall in Camden since the 80s. The fact is that shirts and t-shirts have been bought from copyists and then attached with newly manufactured SEX & Seditionaries labels in an attempt to make them look authentic and pass them to the unknowing and ill-educated (who sadly include museum curators as well as unwitting fans).
That is what has prompted me to act in this regard.
I suppose this culture needs saving to reclaim its integrity.
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.
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.
//Orton (standing centre), Queen, July 1967/Seditionaries t-shirt design October 1978//
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 spring and 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.
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).
“When the Sex Pistols broke up in January 1978, I ended up in Los Angeles, staying and living for three weeks in The Tropicana, next to Duke’s Coffee Shop on Santa Monica Boulevard,” explains McLaren.
“Three doors along was, and still is, The Pleasure Chest. I got this and some other t-shirts there. Joe Orton was someone I much admired, so when the book came out I dedicated this to him with the quote from his diaries.”
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.
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’s reputation as a homosexual outlaw had already been 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 McLaren, who had paid tribute four 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.
//Orton on You’re Gonna Wake Up tee, 1974/Inside 25 Noel Road (c) Leicester Mercury//
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.
//Diary entry on the t-shirt and in John Lahr’s book//
The base image of the Seditionaries design was a cartoonish depiction of a homosexual orgy. 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, the playwright 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 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.
//Orton in Morocco 1965/Seditionaries 1978//
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.
The t-shirt briefly featured (in censored form) in Seditionaries music press mail-order ads, though 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).
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.
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.
"A big thanks to my good pal, the writer and journalist, Paul Gorman who I asked to help style the film. I wanted some strong passing references to the swinging London scene of the sixties. However, I didn’t want it to look in any way cheesy or kitsch. He knew exactly what line of approach to take..."
Thanks, John.
Read all about Blow Up here: jahwobblefilms
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/>//Seditionaries bondage trousers?// 
to be dubious, there is little doubt that the punk-rock fakes furore ain’t going away any time soon. 
