Photo: Andrew Bunney.
Earlier this month I gave a talk to foundation year art and design students at Saint Martin’s as part of a brief to deliver work based on their personal opinions and beliefs.
The subject was the 1974 t-shirt You’re Gonna Wake Up One Of These Days And Know Which Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!.
We knew there was going to be a bit of a turn-out because the RSVPs ran way past the 100 mark on the day the invites were dispatched, but I don’t think any of us involved in Lloyd Johnson: The Modern Outfitter expected such a huge gathering for last night’s private view.
//Lloyd's lists.//
Popular music and the surrounding culture has been the primary inspiration for Lloyd Johnson’s work, so it’s important that The Modern Outfitter – which opens today at London gallery Chelsea Space – reflects the guiding relationship between sounds and vision with an especially selected soundtrack.
Album sleeves, photography, magazines and a variety of press cuttings and ephemera underline the widespread recognition for Lloyd Johnson’s designs over the decades. Lloyd paid particular attention to them in the assemblage of the contents of the table-top vitrines and a wall collage on the fifth day of the exhibition installation just before the weekend.
Included in the Lloyd Johnson show are photographs of performers wearing Johnson’s apparel – above is a 1979 shot of Iggy Pop in one of the label’s jackets paired with a Johnson’s Bluebeat hat (if memory serves, Glen Matlock, who was working with Pop at the time on his album New Values, told me that Iggy half-inched it from him).
//Boshier (right) with Hockney at the Royal College of Art, early 60s.//
Here are some iPhone images from last night’s talk by Derek Boshier at Chelsea College Of Art & Design.
Now the exhibition is getting to the nitty-gritty; yesterday Lloyd paid particular attention to the area dedicated to his businesses Cockell & Johnson and Johnson & Johnson, which produced peacock dandy and pop art fashion between 1968 and 1974 in Kensington Market. Above are the print shirts which will be displayed, below some of the detail – on the left a stockinged leg print designed by Jane Wentworth (then Wealleans), who has contributed to my Tommy Roberts book.
//Lloyd takes a break to chat to (from left): Chelsea Space director Donald Smith, Eve Ferrett + Mark Summerfield.//
Among friends dropping in at Chelsea Space to check out the Lloyd Johnson show installation yesterday were performer Eve Ferrett and her other half Mark Summerfield.
The installation of the the Lloyd Johnson exhibition got off to a flying start yesterday.
The key piece – a reconstruction of the 80s frontage of Johnson’s Kensington Market boutique – was made and put in place by the crack team headed by Rod Holt at Mojo Creative Productions.
“I had the three pieces of glass signage in storage,” says Johnson. “I gave those to Rod with a photograph from back in the day and he and his guys pulled off a major triumph by putting it together.”
Original fascia: Johnny "Mono" Graham outside Johnson's Kensington Market 1980s. Photographer unknown.
Photographer Ivan Jones dropped by this week to take my portrait for a forthcoming book about the design business Burro. Contributors have been asked to wear garments they bought from the company for Ivan’s portraits.
I was a regular customer of the Burro outlet in Covent Garden’s Floral Street (and wrote about the label here).
| Paul Gorman is a writer. This is his blog: art, books, conversation, cults, dancing, design, encounters, environments, events, film, galleries, groups, individuals, invitations, magazines, music, opinions, performance, photography, places, press, privacy, spaces, style, thoughts + views. |
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