Paul Gorman is…

Romantic revolt to change our lives: George Cox catwalk show and in-conversation celebrating 70 years of creepin’ at Port Eliot next week

Jul 21st, 2019

// 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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George Cox: The origins of the Diano brothel creeper + samples ordered by Malcolm McLaren in 1973

Jan 20th, 2015
Malcolm McLaren 1972 (c) David Parkinson

//Malcolm McLaren in a previously unpublished shot wearing original 50s George Cox Bingley D-ring brothel creepers to match his detail-perfect Teddy Boy garb. Photo taken inside Let It Rock, 430 King’s Road, January 1972. (c) David Parkinson//

Saint Laurent side buckle patent creeper copy 3976 buckle diano copy

//Left, Saint Laurent point-toed patent brothel creepers, A/W 2014. Right: George Cox Buckle Diano made to the 1950s last//

Last season’s foregrounding by Saint Laurent of the pointed brothel creeper is just one of a run of examples of fashion brands plugging into the purity of this quintessentially British rock & roll style minted in 1949 by the UK independent footwear company George Cox.

Among the first stylistic innovators to take the design out of Teddy Boy revivalism and apply it to contemporary fashion was Malcolm McLaren, who had been selling creepers for a couple of years at Let It Rock, the boutique he operated with Vivienne Westwood, by the time he visited the Cox factory in Northampton in November 1973. Here he ordered samples for six styles, some of which went into production for sale at 430 King’s Road.

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