//Susie Bubble pays tribute to Shop, The World According To…, Shop At Maison Bertaux, Posh, Shopgirl//

Rifling through her memories of Pippa Brooks and Max Karie’s Soho boutique Shop (which later mutated into The World According To… and then shifted base to Shop At Maison Bertaux), fashion blogger Susie Bubble has nice things to say about me and my work and includes in her selection of images the cover of the first edition of The Look.

This featured Libby Peder’s photograph of Pippa and James Dearlove, her musical collaborator in Posh, All About Eve Babitz and Shopgirl.

It was as Shopgirl that Pippa and James played the launch party, which was held across the road from Shop  at the club Astral and featured DJ sets by others in the book, including Jeff Dexter, Count Indigo, Dan Donovan + Don Letts and Jay Strongman.

//2001 invite to the party launching the first edition of The Look//

Read about that eventful night on THE LOOK blog.

Read Susie Bubble’s post Shopped-Out here.

I got to know Pippa through Shop and Posh, who I saw live a few times in the 90s. Sadly I missed this performance at Wembley Stadium on the same bill as Bon Jovi (is it me or is Pippa absolutely bricking it when she leans down to take a slug of water?):

Tags: All About Eve Babitz, Count Indigo, Dan Donovan, Don Letts, James Dearlove, Jay Strongman, Jeff Dexter, Libby Pedder, Max Karie, Pippa Brooks, Shop, Shopgirl, Susie Bubble

//From The Look blog 2009//

A few years back I wrote a series of blogs about the so-called “Wild Thing” jacket worn by Iggy Pop on the cover of his and The Stooges’ album Raw Power; in 2008 I had brokered a deal for the jacket designers John and Molly Dove to reissue a t-shirt range – including a version bearing the Wild Thing’s panther head – via Topman.

Around that time I also hooked them up with the current owner of the jacket, US maverick pop culture entrepreneur and collector  “Long Gone” John Mermis (who I’d met as far back as the mid-90s at his extraordinary Long Beach mansion).

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Derek Harris, Frederic Raphael, Iggy & The Stooges, Iggy Pop, JOhn Dove, Jon Savage, Kensington Market, Kings Cross Cinema, Let It Rock, Lewis Leathers, Long Gone John, Mick Rock, Nova, Paradise Garage, Patrick Casey, Vivienne Westwood, Wild Thing

//Trevor Myles, Mustang and 430 King's Road, late summer 1971. Photo: Michael Roberts//

//From Michael Roberts' article Men & Their Machines, Club, October 1971//

Trevor Myles’ decision to incorporate a flocked and tiger-striped 1966 Ford Mustang as part of his retail space Paradise Garage naturally attracted a lot of attention during the brief existence of this unusual fashion outlet at 430 King’s Road in Chelsea’s World’s End in 1971.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Andrew Greaves, City Lights Studio, Club, David Smith, Design, Electric Colour Company, Hot Car, Jeffrey Pine, Paradise Garage, Rod Stokes, Trevor myles

//George O'Dowd in Street Theatre, 12 Ganton Street, central London, 1978. Photo (c): Boy George Collection//

I’ve been acting as a consultant to artist Lucy Harrison on her latest site specific project Carnaby Echoes, which focuses on the culturally fertile area of central London adjacent to Soho.

With the starting point of the opening of Murray’s Club in Beak Street in 1913, Harrison is mounting her artistic response to 100 years of musical history with archival material and fresh interviews with some of the area’s leading lights.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Axiom, Beak Street, Boy George, Carnaby Street, Culture Club, Fans, George O'Dowd, Jon Baker, Lucy Harrison, malcolm Garrett, Mark Lebon, Murray's Club, New Sounds New Styles, Old Compton Street, Peter Small, Roaring Twenties, Street Theatre, Sue Clowes, The Foundry, The Regal

I’m making a presentation on Bowie’s visual style and in particular his relationship with clothing designers as part of the V&A’s Sound & Vision event today.

Among those I’m referencing will be the theatrical costume designer Peter J. Hall, who was commissioned to create the stagewear for the 1983 Serious Moonlight tour. I wrote about their fruitful working relationship here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: David Bowie, Ola Hudson, Peter J. Hall, V&A

This film by Rik and Jane Gadsby of the May 2006 London launch of the second edition of my book The Look has just been posted online; it really evokes the good time that everyone had that night.

Pippa Brooks and her band All About Eve Babitz played and DJs included George O’Dowd.

The party was held at the premises of Raymond Revuebar, which by that time was Two II Much (dunno what it is these days). I was very touched when Kevin R. talked about how important he viewed the book and my work. “This is our culture,” he says in the clip above.

Enjoy.

Tags: Boy George, Jane Viva Gadsby, Kevin Rowland, Mark Powell, Pippa Brooks, Raymond Revuebar, Rik Gadsby, Two II Much

//Interior, 430 King's Road, Chelsea, May 1971. Note coconut matting, shack-style dressing room doors, trompe de l'oeil gate painted on stockroom door... and fake tiger. Photography: David Parkinson.//

I first wrote about Electric Colour Company – the design studio formed in the East End by four fine art students in the late 60s – in The Look and then in more detail here.

//Amid the singlets, printed sweatshirts and appliqued denim, a bamboo cage housed birds of paradise, suspended from the matting covered ceiling.//

In my view, ECC deserves much greater recognition for executing some very clever work in the field of retail design and interiors in the period 1969-1973.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Andrew Greaves, Blueberry Hill, City Lights Studio, Electric Colour Company, Let It Rock, Paradise Garage, Seditionaries, SEX, Time Out, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Trevor myles, Worlds End

//Bernard Lansky with Elvis Presley in Lansky Bros, 126 Beale Street, Memphis, 1956.//

I interviewed Bernard Lansky, who has died aged 85, for my first book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion early one morning in March 2000 at his menswear store which was by then located in Memphis tourist attraction, the Peabody Hotel.

His son Hal had forewarned me: “You’d better get there early; once the customers start arriving at 8.00am he won’t have time for you.”

Just as their most celebrated client set fire to popular music as a means of cultural expression, so Lansky and his brother Guy (who was bought out in 1980) formed the template for street fashion by servicing a hitherto ignored subculture  – namely the black stylers, hipsters, roustabouts and juke-jointers crowding the city’s segregated area around Beale Street in the post-War period.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 1999, Bill Belew, Bruce Weber, Elvis Presley, Graceland, Lansky Bros, Memphis, Michael Gorman, New York Times, Nudie Cohn, Peabody Hotel

Signed copies from a selection of my work are now available from this site – click on the button in the right-hand column or select SHOP from the menu at the top of the page.

At the moment you can buy:

• Mr Freedom – Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero

• Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work Of Barney Bubbles

• In Their Own Write: Adventures In The Music Press (now out of print)

• The Look Of London (the new map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates)

From time to time I’ll also be making available signed copies of other out of print work, including my book with Goldie, Nine Lives (£9 inc P+P), and the increasingly rare second edition of The Look Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion (£45 inc P+P).

Inquire here about these titles and for purchases outside the UK.

TAGS: None

Tomorrow (October 11) is the publication date of The Look Of London, my map collaboration with the pre-eminent modern guide-makers Herb Lester Associates.

“This map is a reminder that London, with all its individuality and character, is still very exciting,” writes Paul Smith in the foreword; he opened at 44 Floral Street WC2 in 1979.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Andrew Spyropoulos, Bazaar, Bill Green, Burro, Cecil Gee, East End, Harry Bilgorri, Herb lester Associates, House Of Beauty & Culture, Jack Geach, John Michael, John Stephen, Kensington, Lew Rose, Louis Austin, Mary Quant, Michael and Gerlinde Kostiff, Moda3, Paul Smith, Peder Bernhardt, Shop, Soho, Soul II Soul, Vince Man's Shop, World