Homage to Ben Kelly’s Seditionaries facade in Vuitton’s High Tech A/W 15 show
//The simulation of the Seditionaries facade in industrial materials provided the entry and exit point for models on the runway today//
//With rings representing the positions where designer Ben Kelly exposed air conditioning vents to view, Kim Jones replaced the diagonal bar which occupied the central square over the door with the trademark Vuitton ‘V’//
//Ben Kelly’s portfolio shot of the facade he designed and installed at 430 King’s Road in December 1976//
Amid the references to the late Christopher Nemeth in today’s Paris show of the Louis Vuitton A/W 15 menswear collection (see my last post), artistic director Kim Jones used the staging to pay subtle homage to the two great maverick figures of London street culture – namely Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and specifically their 70s punk store Seditionaries.
The industrial sheen of today’s presentation was in keeping with the original aesthetic. McLaren and Westwood commissioned interior designer Ben Kelly to provide the stark facade of Seditionaries on the basis of his groundbreaking work for Paul Howie’s shop in Covent Garden, one of the very first British examples of High Tech architectural and interiors design.
“The materials were mesh, industrial flooring and flat grey paint with a very distinctive sculptiral shape to the shop front,” wrote design expert Catherine McDermott about Howie’s boutique.
//Howie, 138 Long Acre, Covent Garden, opened 1976. Design: Ben Kelly//
In this way the entrance and the interior of Seditionaries was just as radical – and imbued with the same shock of the new – as the fashions sold and the ideas circulated there.
Kim Jones’ invoking of the power of the Seditionaries design today is similarly of the moment. As I wrote recently Kelly – now professor of interior design and spatial studies at the University of the Arts London – is organising the ICA symposium Interior Design; Alive Or Dead, at which I will be making a presentation about 430 King’s Road. Read more about the event here and book tickets here.
I recommend taking a look at today’s Vuitton show, where Jones’ team included Judy Blame, Mark Lebon and Nellee Hooper. You may watch it on the LV site here.