//Wild Daughter at the ICA last month. The gold phallus worn by James Jeanette was created by leathermakers Whitaker Malem//

//Still from Wild Daughter’s Mr G, directed by Douglas Hart and styled by Elie Grace Cumming//

I was flattered recently to receive an email from Jacob Shaw, bassist in art-rockers Wild Daughter, about the effect my work has had on certain visual elements of the group and in particular a performance during their recent ICA night The Moon Sextiles The Sun.

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Tags: Antony Price, Breakaway, Bruce Conner, Dan Donovan, Dennis Hopper, Douglas Hart, Elie Grace Cumming, Jacob Shaw, James Jeanette, Mark Moore, Mr G, Stuart Mackenzie, The London Leatherman, The Moon Sextiles The Sun, Whitaker Malem, Wild Daughter

// In George Cox creepers: Malcolm McLaren, 430 King’s Road, January 1972. Photo: David Parkinson / Slowthai, Northampton, 2018. Photo: Ewen Spencer for Arena Homme + //

“Those blue suede shoes had a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of desperate romantic revolt to change your life.”

Malcolm McLaren, notes on his life in fashion, 1997

I’m celebrating the 70th anniversary of the introduction of George Cox & Co’s first creeper at the Port Eliot Festival next week with Adam Waterfield, the fourth generation owner of the great independent British brand, and his son Alistair, a Central Saint Martins student and model who is very much involved in the family business.

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Tags: Adam Waterfield, Alistair Waterfield, Andrew Greaves, Arena Homme +, Central Saint Martins, Comme des Garçons, David Parkinson, Ellie Grace Cumming, Ewen Spencer, Fred Perry, George Cox, Glastonbury Festival, Harold The Ted, Jonathan Baron, Le Kilt, Lewis Leathers, Northampton, Olly Alexander, Port Eliot Festival, Sam Rock, Slowthai, Years And Years

//Cover, Fashion: An Anthology catalogue, V&A, 1971//

//Frontispiece: a Beaton photograph of a model wearing a 1961 Balenciaga dress//

//Vern Lambert in Milan in the 80s. Photo: Alfa Castaldi//

My recent Rocketman post gave me cause to dig out my copy of the catalogue produced for the groundbreaking exhibition Fashion: An Anthology, staged by London’s V&A from October 1971 to January 1972.

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Tags: Adrian Emmerton, Alfa Castaldi, Anna Piaggi, Balenciaga, Cecil Beaton, Chanel, Charles James, Courrèges, Diana Crawshaw, Diane Saunders, Dior, Jane Mulvagh, Jim O'Connor, Karl Lagerfeld, Madame Grès, Pamla Motown, V&A, Vern Lambert, Vionnet

//Above Taron Egerton as Elton John and Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin meet “Tommy Roberts” in Rocketman. Stills from Kii Arens promo video for Egerton and John’s new single (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again//

//The pair of Mr Freedom winged boots acquired by Cecil Beaton for the V&A 1971 exhibition: Fashion: An Anthology//

During the production of Elton John biopic Rocketman there were plans for a scene set in London’s groundbreaking pop-art boutique Mr Freedom in the early 70s.

This was to set up the central character’s visual transformation during visits to the store under the influence of its charismatic founder and frontman, the late, lamented Tommy Roberts.

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Tags: (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again, Annie Liebowitz, Bernie Taupin, Cecil Beaton, Electric Colour Company, Elton John, Fashion An Anthology, Jamie Bell, Jim O'Connor, Jon Wealleans, Kii Arens, Pamla Motown, Rocketman, Rolling Stone, Taron Egerton, V&A

//Shopping list/instructions written for me by my employer in 1978. Advance was the dry cleaners in Edgware Road. I’m not now sure about Stanton Freres; was it the local off-licence?//

I left school and home when I was 17 and, on the dole in 1978, supplemented my income working for a woman in her late 30s whose sugar daddy had put her up in a flat in a mansion block off Edgware Road. He rarely visited, and in fact died while I was in her employ. The family forbade her from attending the funeral and I realise now her tenancy was likely quite shaky.

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Tags: Edgware Road, Holt's, Hyde Park Square, Joe Strummer, Marble Arch, Paddington, Pat Booth, Richard Young, Roddy Lewellyn, Safeway, Stanton Freres, Tramp

//My essay on Malcolm For Mayor with stickers by Scott King and Matthew Worley//

“The sticker may be the most efficient art form ever invented”

Jeffrey Deitch, 2019

I have an essay in DB Burkeman’s just-published follow-up to his 2010 survey of the use of audacious and eye-catching stickers in art, design, fashion, music and social activism.

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Tags: Anthony Lister, DB Burkeman, Fiorucci, Hysteric Glamour, Invader, Jeffrey Deitch, Jenny Holzer, Marilyn Minter, Mark Mothersbaugh, Matthew Worley, Maurizio Cattelan, Rizzoli, Scott King, Shepard Farey, Stickers Vol 2: More Stuck-Up Crap, Stretch Armstrong

//MacGuffin No 7, spring 2019//

//Fred Perry Quarterly Issue 2, Spring 2019//

Here’s a couple of pieces of recently published journalism, one filed for the Netherlands-based biannual MacGuffin, the other for the second issue of Fred Perry Quarterly.

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Tags: Fred Perry Quarterly, i-D, MacGuffin, Zoot Suit Riots

“I want to die with a million miles on my meter,

I want to die with well-used and worn tyres”

In The Land Of The Harley Davidson, Mary Cigarettes, 2011

It’s been a month or so since the death of the extraordinary singer-songwriter Mary Cigarettes; today I’m marking his passing with this selection from his Youtube channel.

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Tags: Cork Street, Derek Boshier, Flowers Gallery, Gavin Martin, Gregory Gray, Mary CIgarettes, Paul Lerwill, Rosetta Stone, Tom Robinson

“No fool can be silent at a feast” Solon, Greek lawmaker and philosopher 630-560 BC

West London antiques dealer James Jackson is inaugurating his newly refurbished premises with Fête des Imbéciles, an exhibition of works by the British artist Robert Rubbish.

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Tags: Federico Fellini, James Jackson, Jean-Luc Godard, Ken Russell, Le Gun, Meret Oppenheim, Robert Rubbish, Solon

//Window display for Impresario at the New Museum, Sept 16 – Nov 20, 1988. Image from the New Museum Digital Archive//

//Introduction to the show. Image from the New Museum Digital Archive//

My biography of the late Malcolm McLaren will now be published in April 2020, exactly 10 years after his premature death at the age of 64.

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Tags: Adam Ant, Art & Text, Catherine McGann, Impresario: Malcolm McLaren & The British New Wave, Keith Haring, Marcia Tucker, New Museum Of Contemporary Art, Paul Taylor, Vivienne Westwood, William Olander, Witches