RIP Billy Murphy: ‘There were many kings of the King’s Road but only one Emperor’

Dec 20th, 2014

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//Billy Murphy by Sean Moorman//

“There were many kings of the King’s Road at different periods of time but there was only one Emperor”

Lloyd Johnson

Very sad to note the passing of Billy Murphy, a thoroughly lovely bloke whose contribution to street fashion – particularly in Britain and specifically in and around the King’s Road – is sorely underrated.

I knew all about Billy’s significance in his field decades before I met him; as I wrote here, his shop 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”.

emp2

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

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Tags: Billy Murphy, Club International, Flip, Janet Street-Porter, Karl Stoecker, King's Road, Paradise Garage, Pru Walters, Sean Moorman, The Emperor Of Wyoming, Trevor myles, West One

Paul Gorman is a writer. This is his blog:
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@barney_bubbles_estate - the other IG account I ru

@paulsmith and Gene Krell at Paul’s store in Shi

@paulsmith and Gene Krell at Paul’s store in Shinjuku in 2006 for the launch of the second edition of my book The Look.

Between them is a Granny Takes A Trip jacket from Paul’s collection which dates from Gene’s time running the boutique at 488 King’s Road with Marty Breslau and Freddie Hornik from the late-60s to the mid-70s.

The jacket has a story relating to a British group whose name is lost to (my) memory - the elaborate embroidery and embellishments were added by the workers at Tomalex Ltd, the accessorising company run by Hornik’s aunt Alice Jarretzki.

My book Granny Takes A Trip: High Fashion & High Times is published by @whiterabbitbks in 2025.

📷 @jenr0ss, whose imprint Adelita published The Look among several other excellent books.

#grannytakesatrip
#grannytakesatriphighfashionandhightimes
@helen.jarrett

Dug out my copy of the first and only issue of Tom

Dug out my copy of the first and only issue of Tomorrow, @katharinehamnett’s extraordinary and extraordinarily prescient 1985 magazine addressing climate change, sustainability (generally and in fashion in particular) the ways in which U.S. foreign policy imperils the world and other concerns which impact us even more scarily 40 years later.

Highlights include Katharine’s manifesto for the mag (2), a Peter Kennard collage (3), the @paulogrady/ Lily Savage photo strip (4), an Oxfam fashion shoot photographed by Ed Barber with styling by Caroline Baker (5), and a story photographed by @marc_lebon_ and styled by Michael Roberts featuring recycled jewellery by @trustjudyblame and @tombinnsstudio modelled by Andrea Linz, @carmenejogo and @felixhoward (6+7).

#tomorrowmagazine
#paulgormanarchive

This is designer Kit Russell’s striking cover of

This is designer Kit Russell’s striking cover of David Bowie’s London, my next guide with @herb_lester which is published in January around what would have been the late superstar’s 78th birthday.

He may have ‘lived all over the world and left every place’ but London coursed through Bowie’s veins, informing his attitude, creativity and style.

Across 60-plus addresses, the map threads the needle from Brixton, Bromley and Beckenham to Chelsea, Marylebone, Pimlico, Covent Garden and other locales where Bowie lived, loved, performed and created (see slide 3).

You’ll be able to order your copy from @herb_lester soon - I’ve put a couple more links in the bio.

Grim day. Yet another reason to be happy that my m

Grim day. Yet another reason to be happy that my mother - whose birthday it would be today - isn’t around to witness yet another monumental act of mass stupidity.

She survived a lot, including being bombed out of her house and tea shop during the Blitz.

Here she is in her 20s on the left swaggering with her sister Mary (my old man did the trick of drawing a line down the back of her legs to make it look like she was wearing the stockings they couldn’t afford).

2. On her wedding day with my Dad at home on leave from his Antifa activities.

3. The bomb map of the area off North End Way in Hampstead with the arrow marking the house she lost opposite the Old Bull & Bush.

4. In her teens on holiday on the South Coast with Mary.

5. In Clapham surrounded by friends and family in the 90s

Alicia Felicia Gorman died a month after her 80th birthday on December 6 1998.

Oh and #fucktrump, #fuckvance, #fuckmusk, #fuckbannon and in particular #fuckrupertmurdoch, ghoul and enabler. Also #fuckjillstein, the stooge.

Storia Updated is the new edition of the @stoneisl

Storia Updated is the new edition of the @stoneisland history edited by @eugenerabkin and art directed by @simonfoxton which includes my essay From The Streets To The Stadium.

@simondoonan’s new book The Camp 100 is a doozy,

@simondoonan’s new book The Camp 100 is a doozy, covering the waterfront from Diaghilev to Death via the likes of @lilnasx, @gracejonesofficial, @dianaross and @rupaulofficial.

There are many more glorious stop-offs on the way including, to take a random selection, Luisa Casati (2), Edna Everage (3), poodles (4 - looking at you @poodle.666 + @deborahwoolfvintage), Madame Yevonde (5), @spicegirls (6 - glad to be of assistance), @samsmith (7 @benreardon), Art Nouveau (8) and Quentin Crisp (9).

Simon’s intro (10) is suitably waspish and on-point and @kz.hz’s illustrations are a delight.

The Glam 100 is published by @whitelionpublishing

With Pierre Cardin signing a copy of the Futurists

With Pierre Cardin signing a copy of the Futurists manifesto at his offices in the 8th in January 2012.

Photography: @_matthew_frost_

Link to my interview with Cardin for @viceuk in the bio.

Congratulations to Peter York for naming not only

Congratulations to Peter York for naming not only the usual suspects but also the creeps lurking in the shadows using anti-woke (ugh) tactics to their own ends.

Of course there is no attendant shaming since these creatures are brazen and beyond that. Fuck them all.

A Dead Cat On Your Table is illustrated by @martin.rowson1 and published by @bylinetimes

Rita was born 19 years ago today; she’s been gon

Rita was born 19 years ago today; she’s been gone 17 months.

I got the idea for her name from Hurricane Rita, which passed through where I was staying a few weeks before she was born after I put my name down for her.

I figured that she would be a handful and that she turned out to be, which made me love her all the more. Miss my companion very much.

#ritathedog

One of the many privileges of my life is having se

One of the many privileges of my life is having seen Lou Reed play Charlton football ground with @matthewcang in - oh gorblimey - May 1974.

The crowd hated him; we loved him and even incorporated his and his band’s rendition of Sweet Jane into our only performance together two years later.

I met him 22 years later. Oh well.

This photo by an unknown via the ever-reliable @weapons.etc

Loving my Proper Gander Made In The Borough apron

Loving my Proper Gander Made In The Borough apron from @theraggedschool

@stillthecrossbonesgraveyard
@zannaphotographer

A rare photograph of Sheila Cohen, whose antique c

A rare photograph of Sheila Cohen, whose antique clothing collection formed the basis of Granny Takes A Trip, the boutique she founded with Nigel Waymouth and John Pearse in Chelsea’s World’s End in 1966.

I’ve cropped this from a photo of the trio taken just before the shop opened in February that year, according to Nigel, who has loaned this from his archive for possible inclusion in my forthcoming book about the world that swirled around Granny’s in London, NYC and LA in the 1960s and 70s.

Described by Salman Rushdie (who occupied a room above Granny’s at 488 King’s Road over the summer of 1967) as ‘the heart of our little world… an awe-inspiring sign of the times’, Cohen died aged 65 in 2010, having disappeared from the scene when Freddie Hornik bought the boutique in 1969.

Read more about Cohen’s life and significance to the visual identity of the counterculture in Granny Takes A Trip: Dreams & Darkness in London, Los Angeles & New York, which is published by @whiterabbitbks next year and will include more photographs of Cohen, including a fantastic portrait taken by Nigel in 1965.

📷 Unknown.

#grannytakesatripdreamsanddarknessinlondonlosangelesandnewyork

Love Monsters, @bradleymakespaintings’ show at

Love Monsters, @bradleymakespaintings’ show at @studio73art - go go go!

The Picture Paper No 1 Vol 1 is an incredible publ

The Picture Paper No 1 Vol 1 is an incredible publication, the artist @nigelwaymouth’s six-page totally visual underground magazine published as one of his many activities in the wake of selling Granny Takes A Trip in 1969.

The cover photograph, The Teddy Boys Wedding by Philip Laar, was used as the basis by Nigel for a glorious painting which was, at one stage, displayed in the foyer of Tommy Roberts’ Pop Art Kensington department store version of Mr Freedom.

Love the way Nigel funded the print-run of The Picture Paper with an ad from the World’s End lifestyle boutique Oxus (5).

An incredible document, The Picture Paper measures 11.5 x 15in on newsprint stock and is an absolute treasure. Thanks to @waymouth_waymouth for the copies.

#grannytakesatripdreamsanddarknessinlondonlosangelesandnewyork

Thank you @waymouth_waymouth for these splendid lt

Thank you @waymouth_waymouth for these splendid ltd edition Hapshash and the The Coloured Coat posters signed by creators the late Michael English and, of course, Granny Takes A Trip founder @nigelwaymouth. .

Both designed in 1967, this is The Soft Machine Turns On while 2 shows CiA Vs UFO, made for an appearance by @pinkfloyd at the pioneering underground club.

There is a section dedicated to Hapshash’s exploits in radical graphic design in my forthcoming book Granny Takes A Trip: Dreams & Darkness in London, Los Angeles & New York, which includes introductions by @annasui and @amberbutchart and is published next year by @whiterabbitbks.

#grannytakesatripdreamsanddarknessinlondonlosangelesandnewyork

Rags of Evidence @dedelebas @johnmarchantgallery @

Rags of Evidence @dedelebas @johnmarchantgallery @taradara

A great series by @jeaniejeanphotos from Friday’

A great series by @jeaniejeanphotos from Friday’s launch of the Made In The Borough Shoppe @theraggedschool:

1. @frankie.smash
2. Melanie Pappenheim
3. @darrenccleary with scarf
4. @bfcmarcus
5. @narlynewnew
6. Overprinted scarves
7. Recycled tees
8. With fellow participants in Zanna’s @stillthecrossbonesgraveyard panoramic poster @jbparkstreet @bessgorman + Emma Gorman
9. @_hurtence_ millinery
10. Projection of the Crossbones film

The Shoppe, at 47 Union Street SE1, is open 12-5 today.

#madeintheborough

Zanna with @natthecatnine (1) and @narlynewnew (2)

Zanna with @natthecatnine (1) and @narlynewnew (2) at tonight’s triumphant opening of The @stillthecrossbonesgraveyard Shoppe @theraggedschool.

The magnificent @stillthecrossbonesgraveyard poste

The magnificent @stillthecrossbonesgraveyard poster photographed by Zanna has been blown up to 7m x 2.5m and is now posted on the burial ground’s wall in Union Street SE1 to mark the opening of the Made In The Borough Shoppe at 5pm today @theraggedschool.

The Shoppe is open all weekend with recycled and customised t-shirts, bespoke printed shirts, scarves, bags, aprons, ties and much much more including a @_hurtence_ stall.

Views of the poster including The Shard and from The Ragged School in 2+3 and detail at 4.

#madeintheborough

Did ye get healed? We did. Scenes from inside @a

Did ye get healed? We did.

Scenes from inside @anniefrostnicholson’s extraordinary Juicy Booth confessional @coaldropsyard last night.

It’s there until December; definitely returning on a regular basis. As @promonews.tv said, there should be one on every street corner.

If you’re in the area, go go go.

With @dukebrooks by @pippabrooks with one of the a

With @dukebrooks by @pippabrooks with one of the amazing @willwaterworth portraits of the divine @pamhoggfashion at her Monsters & Gods @emalinofficial this evening.

Lovely to see @paulkindersley + @michael_j_johnsto

Lovely to see @paulkindersley + @michael_j_johnston at @coco_crampton + @josephgoody_’s show @simsreed_gallery tonight…

Daily Mail - Poem Of Hate, ink drawing and newspri

Daily Mail - Poem Of Hate, ink drawing and newsprint, 55 x 75cm, Derek Boshier, 1977

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