I Groaned With Pain: Malcolm McLaren’s own t-shirts to feature in exhibition of status quo-disrupters
//The t-shirts show the deliberate production of variants within the limited edition designed and written by McLaren and printed on the simple square pattern produced by Vivienne Westwood in 1974. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//
Two of Malcolm McLaren’s t-shirts from the very first production run of I Groaned With Pain – the notorious text design produced with Vivienne Westwood in 1974 – will be featured in Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges, the exhibition I am co-curating with David Thorp at Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery this autumn.
//T-shirt with central tear on light blue jersey with exterior seaming, labelled, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, 1974. 360mm x 375mm. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//
I Groaned With Pain is named after the first four words of the paragraph of text McLaren lifted from beat writer Alexander Trocchi’s erotic novel Helen And Desire (published in 1954 by Olympia Press under the pseudonym Francis Lengel).
Trocchi is among the subjects of Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges, which will examine the creative interplay between the post-war radical figures William Burroughs, Guy Debord, Asger Jorn, King Mob and Trocchi and their influence on McLaren.
I Groaned With Pain is a perfect example of how the latter channeled the work of these spiritual trailblazers in his endeavours to disrupt the cultural and social status quo of Britain in the 70s.
As McLaren wrote in 2008: “Vivienne had come up with a simple design that was absolutely super: two squares of fabric sewn outside, not inside. We decided that one size fitted all; it looked and felt sexy, subversive, full of style.”
//T-shirt with central tear on light green jersey with exterior seaming, unlabelled, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, 1974. 380mm x 365mm. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//
McLaren and Westwood had the shirts produced in very small runs of 10 to 20 in such colours as soft pink, peppermint green and baby blue. These were the only plain cotton jersey colour rolls McLaren was able to purchase in small quantities from a particular cloth merchant in east London’s Brick Lane.
“Back in 1968 I’d collected subversive literature from the Situationists and that included pornography by Alex Trocchi, who was at one time a member of that movement,” wrote McLaren. “I had also collected pamphlets designed by William Burroughs, a pop cultural icon if ever there was one. So I proceeded in true Burroughs style to cut out paragraphs from Trocchi’s ‘dirty books’, ones that felt good. And one I simply appropriated and brazenly copied in my own handwriting and had printed across the chest of these square t-shirts.
“I told Vivienne that we should tear them or put ball and chain zips across the nipples to add a sense of open lust. I finally felt I had arrived at the spirit of the outlaw in these clothes that clearly, for me, were anti-fashion.”
//Let It Rock label in one of the shirts. McLaren had not decided on the new name of the store at 430 King’s Road – Sex – when the design was first produced for sale in 1974. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//
At this time the heroin-addicted Trocchi was living in west London and subsisting by selling manuscripts and rare books from two stalls in Antiquarius, the indoor antiques and bric-a-brac market half a mile along the King’s Road from 430. Trocchi Rare Books opened in 1970; he ran it until his death in 1984.
In fact McLaren and future manager of The Clash Bernie Rhodes – who himself had operated a stall in Antiquarius and was responsible for the printing of the t-shirts – struck up an acquaintance with the writer and visited him at his apartment.
//Situationist International protest at jailing of their confrere Trocchi, 1960//
//Front cover, Olympia Press 1970 paperback edition of Helen And Desire//
//Text selected from Helen And Desire by McLaren//
//I Groaned With Pain t-shirt on pink with breast-height ball and chain zips. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//
Such was McLaren’s eagerness to kick-start the new phase of his retail venture with Westwood in the summer of 1974 that I Groaned With Pain was made available for sale in 430 King’s Road before the concept for Sex had been fully realised (and named as the successor to the previous manifestations Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and Let It Rock).
This is why there is no Sex label in either of these shirts, which are from that very first production run. One, in fact, has the black and pink Let It Rock tag, since the distinctive ‘SEX Original’ labelling had not yet been printed.
//Lindy (left and bottom right) in I Groaned With Pain on white jersey in the pages of British soft-porn magazine Parade, September 1976. Photographer: Not known//
Soon enough I Groaned With Pain was joined by other subversive designs, including the manifesto t-shirt You’re Gonna Wake Up and the top bearing the image of a naked African American football player. Via the younger customers of Sex and the crowd which coalesced around the Sex Pistols, Trocchi’s words from the mid-50s were to take on a new role in the provocation McLaren desired.
Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges runs from September 22 to November 14 at John Hansard Gallery, Souythampton University. More details soon.