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Special limited edition postcard: Rare 1972 portrait of Malcolm McLaren inside Let It Rock

Dec 14th, 2020

//The postcard, which measures 230 x 150mm (6 x 9in), is printed in a numbered limited edition of 150//

“Fashion seemed to be the place where music and art came together. Creating my own clothes was like jumping into the musical end of painting. The shop became a natural extension of my studio.”
Malcolm McLaren. The Look, 2001.

Featuring a rare portrait of Malcolm McLaren displaying his wares inside the recently opened Let It Rock in January 1972, this limited edition large-size postcard is a companion to my biography of the man published earlier this year.

The photograph on the front of the card was taken by the late David Parkinson, who documented the refurb of  the premises at 430 King’s Road carried out by McLaren and his art school friend Patrick Casey; the address had previously housed Trevor Myles’ Americana boutique Paradise Garage.

//The postcard arrives clad in black, McLaren’s favourite anti-colour. “Black expressed the denunciation of the frill,” he wrote in the introduction to my book The Look//

The card shows McLaren revealing the detail on a flamboyant drape jacket made to his design by the East End tailor Sid Green, while he is surrounded by the accessories and ephemera which constituted Let It Rock’s environmental installation. Against the black walls, Day-glo socks from Whitechapel wholesaler Kornbluth vie with Frederick Starke red rockabilly shirts, Sun Records 45s, French rocksploitation movie posters and deadstock clothing.

It makes for a beguiling image: the 25-year-old – then still legally Malcolm Edwards – is caught making the leap from art school to fashion retailing by, as he later described it, “jumping into the musical end of painting”.

Limited edition numbered postcard hand-numbered and printed 4/1 col. offset on 350gsm single sided board stock, trimmed to size.

Printing: Something Else.

Price: £12.50 each or £20 for 2. P+P: £5 UK, £10 rest of the world. All postage with tracking and/or signature.

Payment via PayPal to this address.

I’m happy to sign cards on request.

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Perfect Binding: A psychogeographic portrait of counter-cultural Leicester from the late 50s to the early 70s

Feb 8th, 2020

//The premises of Jack English Snr’s lighting shop in Leicester’s Granby Street provide the book’s cover image//

//Will English (right) with Helen Robinson and Steph Raynor in a transport cafe c.1970. Photo by Rose Kendall//

//David Parkinson and his Messerschmitt bubble car, 1974. Photography: Will English//

Perfect Binding, the recently published book by British experimental filmmaker/broadcaster/bookseller William English, is a psychogeographic portrait of a particular strain of cultural activity in a particular place at a particular time: the Midlands city of Leicester from the 1950s to the 70s.

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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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27 acknowledgements: Vivienne Westwood, Ian Kelly + Picador’s defence collapses as they accept The Look as a primary source for the designer’s 2014 biography

Aug 31st, 2015

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There has been a breakthrough in my challenge to Dame Vivienne Westwood, her co-author Ian Kelly and publisher Picador over their lifting of substantial amounts of material from my book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion for the designer’s 2014 “authorised biography”.

The paperback edition of Vivienne Westwood published last week contains a whopping 27 acknowledgements citing me and The Look.

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David Bowie’s unwitting role in the transformation of 430 King’s Road from Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die to SEX

Jul 10th, 2015
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//David Bowie recording the Diamond Dogs LP at Olympic Studios, Barnes, south-west London, January 1974 during his residency in Chelsea’s Oakley Street. Photo © Kate Simon//

1. BLOW UP TFTLTYTD front

//Malcolm McLaren and Gerry Goldstein in front of the Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die facade, 430 King’s Road, London, summer 1973. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//

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//Malcolm McLaren in Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die designs, Chelsea, London, from New Musical Express, April 6, 1974 . Photo: © Pennie Smith//

It is a little known fact that David Bowie was an occasional visitor to 430 King’s Road when it was operating as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die.

This manifestation of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s revolutionary boutique  – which paid design tribute to the fetishistic studded leather attire of Britain’s early 60s Ton Up Boys and rockers and sold the cult clothing associated with 40s mobsters and Latino zoot suit rioters – succeeded the 50s outlet Let It Rock in the early spring of 1973, as noted at the time by the fashion writer Catherine Tennant in British Vogue.

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//From British Vogue, April 1, 1973//

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‘Designers + Customisers in 3D’: Electric Colour Company in new issue of GQ Style

Apr 9th, 2015

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Electric Colour Company were intent on enlivening the visual landscape of grey London town by desecrating polite notions of decor and good taste

My feature on the pioneering but sorely undervalued design studio Electric Colour Company appears in the current issue of UK GQ Style.

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The Look and Vivienne Westwood: A question of attribution

Oct 15th, 2014
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//Vivienne Westwood quoted on p85 of her new book written with Ian Kelly and published by Picador this month. This is also spoken in Westwood’s accent by the actress Paula Wilcox in the audiobook which has been published here and in the US//

The Look-p22 copy

//Westwood’s former partner Malcolm McLaren said this to me during a 1999 interview. Subsequently I quoted him on page 22 of my book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion, first published in 2001, second edition 2006//

Jenni Murray: You’ve said ‘clothes were politics long before fashion’. What did you mean by that?

Vivienne Westwood: I have no idea.

Jenni Murray: Was it something you said to Ian (Kelly) and now you’ve forgotten?

Vivienne Westwood: No…is that what it says in the book?

Jenni Murray: Yes

Vivienne Westwood: Well then, he might have got a misquote from somewhere.

Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4, October 14, 2014

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I respect Dame Vivienne Westwood’s achievements; she has been a significant figure in shaping our collective visual identity.

As someone who is driven to investigate and interpret visual culture, that is important to me. I dedicated a chapter and sections to Westwood’s contribution to fashion with and without Malcolm McLaren in the 2001 and 2006 editions of The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion.

But she is ill-served by the sloppy new book Vivienne Westwood, recently published by Picador and written by actor/author Ian Kelly. Read the rest of this entry »

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‘Pop culture’s one-man production line’ – Tommy Roberts book in new issue of GQ

Aug 3rd, 2012

Tommy Roberts book in GQ Sept 2012

The September 2012 issue of GQ features this David Parkinson photograph of the interior of Tommy Roberts and Trevor Myles’ Mr Freedom at 430 King’s Road.

One of a number of previously-unpublished photographs in Mr Freedom – Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero, this shot captures the extraordinary fit-out Myles and Roberts’ commissioned from pioneering East End design team Electric Colour Company.

Read my post about ECC’s achievements  – with interviews and many illustrations, still the only piece to be published anywhere about this important but sorely neglected group of British artist/designers – here.

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All satin, no tat, 1971: Kansai Yamamoto, Michael Chow, David Parkinson, Tommy Roberts, Barney Wan et al

Jun 14th, 2012

//From The Sunday Times Magazine, November 28, 1971.//

The joy of writing about a subject as rich as Tommy Roberts is that research turns up an apparently limitless supply of fabulous material.

Even the tangential stuff – such as this from my archive, a spread from a 1971 Sunday Times Magazine  – gets me going.

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The Emperor Of Wyoming, 404 King’s Road

Apr 20th, 2012

//Stetson, embroidered shirt and hand-tooled leather belt from The Emperor Of Wyoming. Photo: David Parkinson for Club International, February 1974.//

Billy Murphy’s boutique The Emperor Of Wyoming was an extremely important staging post not just in the story of British rock and roll fashion but also the development of the vintage scene in this country.

Opened by Murphy at 404 King’s Road in 1972, TEOW specialised in selected items of Westernwear and American clothing at a time when the pickings were slim for such garments in London.

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