I’m grateful to Peter Stanfield, media and arts professor at the University of Kent, for alerting me to these great images of members of Shakin’ Stevens’ backing band The Sunsets sporting T-shirts designed by the late Malcolm McLaren for sale in his shop Let It Rock at 430 King’s Road in the early 70s.
Tomorrow I’m a guest of historian Amber Butchart at London’s National Film Theatre for a conversation and q&a about Punk fashion with her special invitee Jordan Mooney, SEX and Seditionaries superstar and inner member of the Sex Pistols circle.
I’ve put together a presentation from my archive to run during our chat, including images of Jordan’s striking series of visual personae and slides showing how the designs by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at 430 King’s Road were regularly featured in the fashion and national press from the early 70s to the time of Punk later in the decade.
//Selection of Let It Rock designs showcased in a May 1972 issue of The Sunday Times Magazine. Photos: Hans Feurer. Paul Gorman Archive//
Next week I will be taking part in a panel discussion on the fashion legacy of the late cultural iconoclast Malcolm McLaren at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts.
The other participants in the chat – chaired by Young Kim of the Malcolm McLaren Estate – are Louis Vuitton menswear artistic director and McLaren/Westwood collector and expert Kim Jones and Ben Reardon, editor of Man About Town; the new issue of his magazine contains a huge section dedicated to McLaren’s stylistic forays with and without Vivienne Westwood, including a fashion story photographed by Alasdair McLellan and styled by Olivier Rizzo and my essay Been There Done That Going Back.
The panel will be followed by the launch of Man About Town S/S 16 in the ICA Bar in partnership with specialist dealer Idea Books.
Tickets for the event are £7/£8 available here.
//Cover, Man About Town SS16. Otto in Buffalo hat and Rigby & Peller bra (prototype for Nostalgia Of Mud, 1982). Photography: Alasdair McLellan. Styling: Olivier Rizzo//
//Above left: Frankie in Buffalo hat, white Nike socks and my George Cox Diano creepers. Right: Natalie in Malcolm McLaren’s Chico hat (Witches, 1983), Buffalo jacket (Nostalgia Of Mud, 1982) and Bondage Trousers (Seditionaries, 1976). Photography: Alasdair McLellan. Styling: Olivier Rizzo. Hair: Duffy: Make Up: Lynsey Alexander. Man About Town SS16//
On a warm London afternoon last July I enjoyed a meeting with Ben Reardon, editor-in-chief of the biannual Man About Town, the magazine’s senior fashion editor Danny Reed and Young Kim of the Malcolm McLaren Estate.
//T-shirt purchased by Malcolm McLaren at The Pleasure Chest, Los Angeles in January 1978. Private collection/Malcolm McLaren Estate. Photo: Paul Gorman Archive. No reproduction without permission//
//Prick Up Your Ears, t-shirt design, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood for Seditionaries, 1979. Courtesy: Hiroshi Fujiwara Collection//
The trickster’s function is to add disorder to order, and so make a whole; within the fixed bounds of what’s permitted, an experience of what is not permitted.
Karl Kerenyi quoted in Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography Of Joe Orton, John Lahr, 1978
In January 1978, after the break-up of the Sex Pistols in San Francisco on the last date of the group’s ill-fated US tour, their manager Malcolm McLaren shifted base to Los Angeles for a few weeks to work out his next move.
Discussing options with record companies and holding meetings with movie companies to drum up business for biopic The Great Rock N Roll Swindle, the late McLaren had a ball, staying at the legendary rock’n’roll hang-out The Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard, hard by Duke’s Coffee Shop and a few blocks west of the sex shop The Pleasure Chest.
//Ben Reardon, Lou Stoppard + Dean Mayo Davies. Photos: Diane Pernet, Nik Hartley + SHOWstudio//
//Stills from Savages and Nostalgia Of Mud McLaren/Westwood catwalk collections, staged October 1981 and March 1982 respectively. Courtesy Malcolm McLaren Estate//
The cream of British fashion journalism – Dean Mayo Davies, Ben Reardon and Lou Stoppard – will be discussing the indomitable body of design work produced by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at tomorrow’s event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible.
From the SS16 menswear collections to the people flocking to Somerset House’s current celebration of The Jam, the aesthetic of “clean living under difficult circumstances” (as summarised by The Who’s first manager, Pete Meaden) is at one with what’s happening now in fashion…
Read the rest of my piece – with quotes from Dylan Jones of GQ/London Collections: Men, Soho tailor Mark Powell and Man About Town’s Ben Reardon – on the enduring appeal of Mod here.
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