Rare film: Malcolm McLaren on how to make subversive trousers

Sep 26th, 2015

To celebrate today’s opening of the exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining The Dots From The Situationist International To Malcolm McLaren, this rare footage of McLaren talking about the genesis of the bondage trousers design has been issued by the Malcolm McLaren Estate through Dazed Digital.

The film is entitled Subversive Trousers and is from Being Malcolm, which was written and performed by McLaren and produced with Première Heure for Canal Jimmy. The series won a prestigious French TV award.

efbub guardian

//From today’s Guardian Guide//

Among the many rare items in the exhibition are materials related to McLaren’s collaboration with graphic artist Jamie Reid, as demonstrated by the exhibits below.

1141741

// Sex Pistols -Fuck Forever. Design by Jamie Reid for Great Rock N Swindle, 1979, produced as t-shirt by Reid 1987, with source of image, front cover of Picturegoer, January 1959, and original copy of Leaving The 20th Century, Christopher Gray’s collection of Situationist texts designed by Reid, 1974//

Read Dazed Digital on the show is here .

The Guardian Guide’s preview here.

Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges opens today (September 26) and runs until November 14.

Find out more here.

Tags: Being Malcolm, Canal JImmy, Christopher Gray, Great Rock N Swindle, Jamie Reid, John Hansard Gallery, Leaving The 20th Century, Picturegoer, Sex Pistols Fuck Forever

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

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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

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Photography: @_matthew_frost_

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

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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

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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.

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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

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@stillthecrossbonesgraveyard
@zannaphotographer

A rare photograph of Sheila Cohen, whose antique c

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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.

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📷 Unknown.

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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.

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1. @frankie.smash
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3. @darrenccleary with scarf
4. @bfcmarcus
5. @narlynewnew
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7. Recycled tees
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10. Projection of the Crossbones film

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

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

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If you’re in the area, go go go.

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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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