My feature on the work of the late fashion photographer David Parkinson is in the June issue of GQ UK, which is out now.
Visit GQ online here.
‘The second nastiest little man I have ever met’ – John Deakin: Under The Influence + The Lure Of Soho
Mar 31st, 2014
//Deakin drinking, 1960s. John Deakin, courtesy Robin Muir//
//The cover of the new book features this 50s portrait of author JP Donleavy//
“The second nastiest little man I have ever met” – Barbara Hutton
“He was a member of photography’s unhappiest minority whose members, while doubting its status as art, sometimes prove better than anyone else that there is no doubt about it” – Bruce Bernard
The documentary portraiture of British fashion photographer John Deakin from the 1940s to his death in the early 70s is poised for a fresh round of appraisal with next week’s opening of the exhibition Under The Influence at London’s Photographers’ Gallery.
This coincides with the publication of Robin Muir’s companion book of the same title.
//Girl In Cafe, late 1950s. (c) John Deakin, The John Deakin Archive 2013//
//Tony Abbro of Abbro & Varriano, newsagents, 48 Old Compton Street, Soho, 1961. (c) John Deakin, The John Deakin Archive 2013//
Muir is Deakin’s foremost proponent, responsible for 2002’s A Maverick Eye. This collected Deakin’s so-called “street photography” in London and on the Continent compiled during bouts of employment for British Vogue. As the title suggests, the new book focuses on the inhabitants of the stamping ground most associated with Deakin’s lush life: Soho.
On Deakin’s death in May 1972, his friend and subject Bruce Bernard rescued what comprises Deakin’s body of work in this field from a set of tatty cardboard boxes under the bed in his Berwick Street flat.
The Teds are back: McLaren + Westwood’s Let It Rock in the NME and the Evening Standard August 1972
Mar 17th, 2014
//TOP: From the NME’s coverage of the Wembley Rock N Roll Show – staff model Let It Rock clothing outside 430 King’s Road. Photo: Robert Ellis./ABOVE: From the Evening Standard special issue – Teds and (left) LIR assistant Addie Isman outside Let It Rock.//
As a follow-up to my recent post about the Rock N Roll revival show held at London’s Wembley Stadium in August 1972, here is another selection from the media surrounding the event.
The New Musical Express dedicated a section to reviewing the show, decking staffers Danny Holloway, James Johnston and the late Tony Tyler in appropriate clothing from Let It Rock. The journalists were photographed outside Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s outlet at 430 King’s Road by Robert Ellis.
//Bo Diddley on the cover of the ES special//
//Angus McGill and Geoffrey Aqulina Ross were among the journalists who contributed to the ES special. I love the juxtaposition with the knife and fork/skull and crossbones logo promoting a Sunday Times feature by the architectural writer Ian Nairn, whose work has recently undergone critical appraisal//
The capital’s daily paper the Evening Standard’s special issue – billed as the official programme – also included images taken outside Let It Rock, including assistant Addie Isman in one of the store’s then-new studded t-shirts (this one emblazoned with the phrase Rock N Roll Ruby) and customer and prominent London Ted Bill Hegarty in full regalia.
The images of the Evening Standard special issue are from the copy owned by collector Takeshi Hosoya, whose Japanese clothing label Peel + Lift can be viewed here.
Many thanks to Robert Ellis for permission to use his shot in the scan from the NME. Visit Robert Ellis’s Repfoto site here.
Photography: David Parkinson shoots Acme Attractions
Jan 16th, 2014
//Original print of photo for Club International, 1975. Models include, from far right, Stephan Raynor, Don Letts and Martin Brading. Photo: David Parkinson//
I’ve been enjoying researching materials relating to the late photographer David Parkinson for a feature for GQ magazine, so thought I’d share some of the images I dug out of the Parkinson archive concerning the 70s King’s Road retro clothing store Acme Attractions.
Parkinson’s position as fashion editor of Paul Raymond’s sophisticated soft-porn magazine Club International enabled him to style and present Acme clothing for a wide readership, on occasion using the shop team as models.
Acme was opened by Parkinson’s friend Stephan Raynor (they’d known each other since they were part of a gang of style-obsessed teenagers in Leicester in the early 60s) with John Krivine, previously a Brixton-based jukebox dealer, in 1974.
//As the Parkinson photograph appeared in the magazine, flipped and tinted. Note ref to “Acme Tailors”//
//Parkinson used ties from his collection – including some sourced from Acme – for this March 1975 Club International feature//
Mr Freedom designs at the V&A: ‘When what has been considered bad taste is suddenly found to be invigorating’
Dec 20th, 2013
“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//
Coming this week: Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered Carnaby Echoes + Nick Knight’s PUNK at Showstudio
Sep 1st, 2013
//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.
Reginald Alan Westaway: Artist + outsider
Aug 7th, 2013
//Reginald Alan Westaway, 1928-2008. Nude self portrait, 1960s//
Property Of A Gentleman, the exhibition opening at Prague’s Svit gallery at the end of the month, will cast much-deserved light on the life and creative outpourings of Reginald Alan Westaway, the British outsider artist and recluse.
Westaway died in 2008, the walls of his house in Herne Bay, Kent, scrawled with diagrams and plans for a lute he was making at the point of his demise. The words were written in Latin and the discarded instrument was propped amid the detritus of decades: empty wine bottles, documents and reference papers, threadbare clothes, packaging and paper bags. The “drawing room” was frozen in time – the curtains hadn’t been opened for years- and the surfaces in the house were submerged under accumulations of spiders’ webs.
From this clutter emerged a complete oeuvre indicating a singular artistic life, self-catalogued and apparently self-sufficient. Westaway’s achievements would have rested in obscurity were it not for the devotion of M.Goldstein’s Nathaniel Lee Jones, who is collaborating with the artist Dirk Bell on the forthcoming exhibition, the Czech title of which is Majetek ušlechtilého muže.
//Self-portrait on air-raid instructions//
70s fashion: Ika in Ossie + Celia by Herb – but whose are the shoes?
Dec 29th, 2012
Here’s another gem from Herb Schmitz’s photographic goldmine: model Ika Hindley at west London restaurant Julie’s in an early 70s shoot for Dutch agency Kippa.
All satin, no tat, 1971: Kansai Yamamoto, Michael Chow, David Parkinson, Tommy Roberts, Barney Wan et al
Jun 14th, 2012
//From The Sunday Times Magazine, November 28, 1971.//
The joy of writing about a subject as rich as Tommy Roberts is that research turns up an apparently limitless supply of fabulous material.
Even the tangential stuff – such as this from my archive, a spread from a 1971 Sunday Times Magazine – gets me going.
Roger Burton on the Michael Hochong collection
Nov 4th, 2011
//Back of turquoise space suit.//
Following yesterday’s post about the exhibition of Michael Hochong’s incredible clothes, the Horse Hospital’s Roger Burton has given an account of how he came by the collection and his personal connection to this “very beautiful man”.
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