My recent post about the Mr Freedom designs in the V&A collection sparked some memories from graphic artist Ian Harris, who sends this 1972 photograph of himself in a Mr Freedom hamburger print shirt:

//Ian Harris with his then-wife Maggie, Brighton, UK, 1972. Ian Harris Collection//

//Mr Freedom hamburger print shirt in the V&A’s collection. Note appliqué//

In the 1972 photo, the shirt’s hamburger appliqué is obscured; Harris had worked for Mr Freedom partner Tommy Roberts at his 60s boutique Kleptomania, and gave the late Roberts a number of items relating to his career a few years back. Included was the appliqué which Harris had kept for many years.

As Harris points out, his wife Maggie, a model, is sporting an Angie Bowie-influenced look in the photo above. Here she is in another early 70s shot, taken outside John and Lyris Mann’s Kensington boutique Strictly For The Birds:

//Maggie outside 4 Holland Walk, Kensington, London, 1971. Ian Harris Collection//

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Tags: Ann Green, Equinox, Holland Street, Ian Harris, Jimmy Page, John Mann, Kensington, Kleptomania, Lyris Mann, Richard Young, Strictly For The Birds

“There is a moment when ‘good taste’ becomes dead; what has been considered ‘bad’ is suddenly found to be invigorating. Fashion today has little to do with la mode and the tacky is often accepted as an essential part of the necessary ‘total’ look. It can be fun.”

Cecil Beaton, introduction to the catalogue for the 1971 V&A exhibition Fashion: An Anthology

Recent visits to the V&A’s Archive of Art & Design have proved fruitful, particularly a viewing earlier this week of the collection of  Pop Art clothing sold through London boutique Mr Freedom in the late 60s and early 70s.

//Design: Diana Crawshaw, 1971//

//Kiss Off t-shirt, Jim O’Connor, 1971//

//Design Christopher Snow/Trevor Myles, body design: Diana Crawshaw, 1971//

//Design: Pamla Motown, 1971//

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Tags: Christopher Snow, Diana Crawshaw, Dinah Adams, Elton John, Fashion An Anthology, Felix Dennis, Jim O'Connor, Michael Regan, Oz, Pamla Motown, Royal College Of Art, Sir Cecil Beaton, The Fabric Of Pop, Trevor myles, V&A

//Tommy Roberts, 1987. Photo: Christopher Clunn//

Sad to note the anniversary today of the death of Tommy Roberts, flamboyant design entrepreneur and subject of my book Mr Freedom.

//Dedication (right) with (left on cover-flap) list of abiding interests (courtesy Eve Ferret + Mark Summerfield) and Brian Aris portrait//

//Roberts opened Kleptomania with Charlie Simpson in Kingly Street, central London, in 1966//

//Neon arch sales counter display designed by Jeffrey Pine for Mr Freedom, opened with partner Trevor Myles at 430 King’s Road in September 1969//

Here – with a selection of images from Mr Freedom – is an extract from an essay I have written about Roberts’ role in the development of design in Britain for Chris Breward and Ghislaine Wood’s book British Design: Tradition & Modernity, which will be published by Bloomsbury next year.

It is arguable that wider recognition for Tommy Roberts’ audacious innovations in the promotion of street style, furniture, gastronomy, home-wares, interiors and collectables was undercut by his refusal to observe the sensitivities of England’s post-war design world.

Roberts adopted an ebullient public persona to match his stout physique and broad Cockney accent. “I’m the most vulgar man in fashion, darlin’!” Roberts proclaimed to the no-less outrageous Sunday Times fashion editor Molly Parkin in the heyday of his Pop Art fashion and objects emporium Mr Freedom.

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Tags: Chris Breward, City Lights Studio, Eve Ferret, Ghislaine Wood, Jeffrey Pine, Keith Roberts, Kilburn & The High Roads, Mark Summerfield, Molly Parkin, Mr Feed'Em, Paul Conroy, Practical Styling, Sunday Times, TomTom, Two Columbia Road

//Front cover of booklet for the Linz show features this 1973 Karl Stoecker portrait of Brian Eno in Roxy Music stage costume designed by Carol McNicholl//

Glam! The Performance Of Style – the exhibition which locates early 70s glam rock in the context of fine art and the interplay between “high” and mass culture – is opening at the Lentos Kunstmuseum in Linz, Austria later this month.

I was a consultant to Glam!’s curator Darren Pih of Tate Liverpool, where the show opened at the beginning of this year before moving on to Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle for the summer.

//The Let It Rock guitar mirror as exhibited at Glam! in Frankfurt. Photo: Andrei Luca//

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Tags: (No Pussyfooting), Andrei Luca, Brian Eno, Carol McNicholl, Club International, Darren Pih, Frankfurt, Glam! The Performance Of Style, Kansai Yamamoto, Karl Stoecker, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Paradise Garage, Robert Fripp, Schirn Kunsthalle, Tate Liverpool, Trevor myles

//Clockwise from top left: Cover, Helen And Desire, 1970; George O'Dowd, photo: Richard Bevan, 2013; Carnaby Street book and Palisades swing tag, 1970 and 1966; front cover, Anarchy In The UK newsprint fanzine, 1976//

I’m involved in a couple of events which open in London this week: artist Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered project Carnaby Echoes in the West End and photographer Nick Knight’s exhibition Punk at his Showstudio space in SW1.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Anarchy In The UK, Binder Edwards & Vaughan, Boy George, Colt Studio, Culture Club, David May, Deal Real, Derek Boshier, Derek Ridgers, Duke Vin, Gallery International, George O'Dowd, Goodge Street, Hazel Albarn, Helen And Desire, I Groaned With Pain, Jim French, John S. Barrington, Keith Albarn, Kleptomania, Let It Rock, Lloyd Coxsone, Martin Cole, Miranda Sawyer, Nick Knight, Olympia Press, Sado sex For The Seventies, SEX, Showstudio, Smash Hits, Street Theatre, The Foundry, The Roaring Twenties, Vivienne Westwood

//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.

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

//From the catalogue for next week's auction//

The spirit of great British boutique culture is summoned by a couple of lots in next week’s Pop Culture sale at Christie’s.

One is a previously unpublished June 1967 photograph of Jim Hendrix not in Carnaby Street as captioned, but outside the tobacconist Finlay’s, which was in Foubert’s Place. It’s evident from the carrier bag in his famous left hand that the guitarist had just visited  I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, which was next door to Finlay’s and the place where he bought the Hussar’s jacket worn in this photograph and at Monterey Pop that same month.

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Tags: Christie's, I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet, Jane Wentworth, Jimi Hendrix, Jon Wealleans, Kleptomania, Rave, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood, The Wick, Tony Sanchez

//Signed bar menu. Courtesy: Jonathan Ross//

//Signed back cover of So Alone, Johnny Thunders, Real Records,1978. Courtesy: Jonathan Ross//

As demonstrated by my recent post, the west London house of collector/gallerist Jonathan Ross became a hive for the art/boho/punk crowd flooding the capital in the  70s.

Among the visitors were Johnny Thunders and Iggy Pop, who both left their marks in different ways.

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Tags: Bob Gruen, Chrissie Hynde, City Lights Studio, Felix Dennis, George Melly, Isobel Strachey, John Armit, John Jesse, Johnny Thunders, Johnson & Johnson, Jonathan Ross, Julyan Wickham, Lucian Freud, Morrison Hotel Gallery, Sable Starr, Tchaik Chassay, The Rainbow, Tony Mackintosh, You're Gonna Wake Up, Zanzibar

//An early 80s window display by Simon Haynes: Geometrically arranged brightly coloured platforms and ladders//

//This giant "toy" portcullis was produced by Haynes for Practical Styling in the mid-80s//

//Haynes' neo-classical backdrop for another mid-80s display//

These photographs from the archive of artist/set designer Simon Haynes convey the scope and ambition of the great 80s British independent retail outlet Practical Styling, operated by Paul Jones and Tommy Roberts on the ground floor and basement of London’s brutalist CentrePoint building.

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Tags: Catherine McDermott, CentrePoint, Chris Breward, Paul Jones, Peter Denmark, Practical Styling, Simon Haynes, St Giles-in-the-Fields

//Photo: Tom Sheehan Collection//

As an addendum to my recent post about the staging of the very special late night London concert given by Ian Dury’s art-rock ensemble Kilburn & The High Roads in 1974, here’s the badge commissioned by manager the late Tommy Roberts to flag up the concurrent release of the group’s single Rough Kids.

Then a neglected pop promotional medium – badges were considered kids’ stuff; the sole prominent champion was Barney Bubbles, who produced a range to go with his branding of space rockers Hawkwind and pub-rock outfit Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers – the pre-punk barbed wire logo button was conceived and executed by Simon Haynes, designer of the ambitious stage set for the Kilburns’ gig at the King’s Road Theatre.

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Tags: Dawn, Handsome, Humphrey Ocean, Ian Dury, Kilburn & The High Roads, Let It Rock, Pye, Roberta Bayley, Rough KIds, SEX, Sex Pistols, Simon Haynes, Will Birch