//David Bowie As The Elephant Man by Derek Boshier, 1980 © Derek Boshier c/o Flowers Gallery//

Today the National Portrait Gallery unveiled Imaginary Portraits, a selection of works by artist Derek Boshier, who is the subject of a monograph I am editing.

Prominent are two studies of David Bowie; an oil-on-canvas painting executed in New York in 1980 while Bowie was rehearsing for his role in Bernard Pomerance’s play The Elephant Man at the city’s Booth Theatre and a 1981 ink-on-paper drawing which resulted from Boshier’s design for the sleeve for the album Lodger a couple of years earlier.

//Outer gatefold sleeve, Lodger, David Bowie, RCA, 1979. Design Derek Boshier, photography Brian Duffy//

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Tags: Bernard Pomerance, Boston, Brooklyn, David Bowie, Gallery 360, Imaginary Portraits, Light Industry, Lodger, Lord Snowdon, Malcolm Morley, National Portrait Gallery, Paul Moorhouse, Royal College Of Art, The Elephant Man

//Dany Bubbles, 1963-66. Pencil and acrylic, 29" x 20" (framed)//

I sourced one of the paintings which is in More Than Fair, the exhibition of Ian Dury’s artworks which opens at his alma mater, London’s Royal College of Art, next month.

Dury gave the ultra-Pop Dany Bubbles to his friend and designer Barney Bubbles in the late 70s during their spell of collaboration which resulted in a series of triumphs: single sleeves such as Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, What A Waste and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, the 28 wallpaper covers of the album Do It Yourself, the Blockhead logo…

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Tags: Blockhead logo, Do It Yourself, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Ian Dury, Jemima Dury, Jules Balme, Kosmo Vinyl, London Life, Royal College Of Art, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Tony Bennett, What A Waste, Will Birch

This is designer Ben Kelly at his 1974 degree show at London’s Royal College Of Art.

Kelly adopted the alter-ego The Photo Kid, who is portrayed in the work by which he is standing. The Photo Kid wore clothes – in particular brothel creepers – from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop Let It Rock, as did Kelly; the shoes, pink socks and belt in this photograph all came from there, while the Hopalong Cassidy & Topper top (see Ian Harris’s comment below) was picked up at a Paris flea market.

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Tags: Ben Kelly, BKD, Covent Garden, Geoff Hollington, Haçienda, Keith Wainwright, Let It Rock, Long Acre, Paul Howie, Royal College Of Art, Seditionaries, Smile, The Photo Kid, Vivienne Westwood

This advert for Vince Man’s Shop – the small Soho boutique which sparked the modernisation of menswear design and retailing in the second half of the 20th century – was designed by Gordon Moore for issue 20 of the Royal College Of Art magazine ARK, published in autumn 1957.

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Tags: Alex Seago, Any Day Now, ARK, Bill Green, Burning The Box Of Beautiful Things, David Bowie, David Collins, Design, FReddie Burretti, Gordon Moore, Helen Hanley Centre, Independent Group, John Bratby, Kevin Cann, Oui, Peter Blake, Playboy, Richard Smith, Robyn Denny, Rodney Bennett-England, Roger Coleman, Royal College Of Art, Sean Connery, Soho, Soup Kitchen, Terence Conran, The Sombrero, Toni del Renzio, Vince Man's Shop

//Dennis Hopper in front of a Dr Pepper sign, 1965. Robert Walker Jr.//

A recent post triggered this memory from designer Diana Crawshaw of an encounter with Dennis Hopper. It occured at the Royal College Of Art summer ball in 1965, “when he was very young and so was I”:

At the ball everyone was wearing white or silver (it was that summer when The Knack came out).

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Tags: 1965, Beach Boys, Clive McLean, David Hockney, Dennis Hopper, Diana Crawshaw, Hustler, James Dean, Jimmy Smith, Ladbroke Grove, Robert Walker Jr, Royal College Of Art, The Knack

I am currently working with Tommy Roberts on a book about his life and career in fashion. Tommy has been assembling a selection of anecdotes and stories which will feature as occasional tasters here over the coming months.

This reminiscence stems from the period in the early 70s when Tommy operated City Lights Studio. Situated at 54 Shorts Gardens WC2 with a darkly glamorous interior design realised by Electric Colour Company’s Andrew Greaves + Jeffrey Pine, City Lights was the first fashion store in London’s Covent Garden, the neighbourhood then dominated by the capital’s fruit and veg market.

City Lights Studio, which came into being at the end of 1972, was a fashion emporium I created in tandem with Willy Daly, a colleague and friend since we had worked together at Mr Freedom.

City Lights was situated in an imposing high-ceilinged loft atop a building in Covent Garden. Our studio designed, wholesaled and retailed an extremely stylish and tasty array of men’s and women’s wear, shoes, hats, jewellery and other fashion accessories.

For this story I’m concentrating on the menswear.

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Tags: 54 Shorts Gardens, Andy Mackay, Angela Bowie, Antony Price, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, Covent Garden, David Bowie, Derek Morton, Kandinsky, Let It Rock, Malcolm McLaren, Paul Smith, Phil Manzanera, Roxy Music, Royal College Of Art, Willy Daly