//Left: Detail of photo of model posing in leather Sex hood, autumn 1974. Photo: © David Parkinson. Right: David Bowie in leather hood, summer 1974, Sherry Netherland Hotel, New York. Photo: Dana Gillespie//

My recent post about David Bowie’s visits in 1974 to 430 King’s Road when it was in its Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die incarnation prompted Facebook friend and DJ Graham “Sugarlump” Evans to alert me to Polaroid photographs of David Bowie trying out make-up, hair and styling options in preparation for his Diamond Dogs tour of the US that year.

// Polaroid taken by Dana Gillespie in New York in 1974//

In one, as Evans points out, Bowie posed in a leather hood of similar style to the model sold at 430 as it was transformed over a period of six months from TFTL to fetish emporium Sex.

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Tags: Anarchy In The UK, Brian Epstein, Cambridge Rapist, Dana Gillespie, David Bowie, David May, Henry Edwards, James Dean, Jamie Reid, Kevin Cann, Michael Collins, Peter Cook, Robert Fraser, Sex Pistols, Susan Shaw, The London Leatherman, Tony Zanetta, Vivienne Westwood

//Nicholas de Jongh’s front-page report, The Guardian, August 2, 1975//

//Sex Original-labelled Cowboys t-shirt courtesy Hiroshi Fujiwara Collection//

This month – specifically July 26 – marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction for sale of Malcolm McLaren’s notorious Cowboys t-shirt in Sex, the revolutionary boutique he operated at 430 King’s Road with Vivienne Westwood.

The shirt’s status as the most provocative of all punk designs is enhanced by the fact that it made waves immediately: the same day the shirt went on sale, the first customer to wear it in public was arrested. Within 24 hours, the store itself was raided for indecency.

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Tags: Alan Jones, Cowboys t-shirt, David "Piggy" Worth, Dr Colin Phipps, Glen Matlock, Hiroshi Fujiwara, John Lydon, Paul Cook, Roy Jenkins, Steve Jones, The Roebuck, Vagrancy Act 1924, Vivienne Westwood

Tags: Andy Rosen, British Museum, Duck Rock, Pirate, Proud Gallery, V&A, Vivienne Westwood, Witches

//Detail, Frederick’s catalogue. Photo: Johnny Deluxe//

Congratulations to our pal Johnny Deluxe for this fantastic spot; he happened upon this kitsch sketch of an original tits t-shirt while leafing through an early 70s Frederick’s Of Hollywood catalogue.

//Catalogue page. Photo: Johnny Deluxe//

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Tags: Alice Cooper, Dennis Hopper, Frederick's Of Hollywood, Iggy Pop, Janusz Gottwald, Jizz Inc, Johnny Deluxe, Laura Gottwald, Los Angeles Free Press, Max's Kansas City, Opening Ceremony, Rhode Island School Of Design, Robert Watts, Time, Vivienne Westwood

//Malcolm McLaren and Andrea Linz with a Hambleton Shadow Man in the West Village, NYC, April 1983. © Bob Gruen/www.bobgruen.com. Please contact Bob Gruen’s studio to purchase a print or license this photo. Email: websitemail01@aol.com Phone: + 212-691-0391//

//Witches Shadow Man skirt, 1983. Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood and Richard Hambleton. This image (c) www.paulgormanis.com//

An under-acknowledged art world connection forged by Malcolm McLaren during his fashion design partnership with Vivienne Westwood was to the godfather of street art, conceptual artist Richard Hambleton.

During his forays in New York in the early 80s, McLaren was struck by Hambleton’s eerie representations of The Shadow Man figure; there was one on a wall in Bethune Street in the West Village, near the studio of McLaren’s photographer friend and ally Bob Gruen.

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Tags: Andrea Linz, Bob Gruen, Hank O'Neal, Keith Haring, Nick Egan, Richard Hambleton, Vivienne Westwood, Witches

//Clockwise from top left: Gene Vincent with one of The Houseshakers, Magnet Club, Chelmsford, UK, February 1971. Photo: http://gene.vincent.fanclub.voila.net; Let It Rock assistant in Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps top, Wembley Stadium, August 5, 1972. Photo: Masayoshi Sukita; Vincent’s quote as featured on the Sex t-shirt You’re Gonna Wake Up, 1974//

‘Gene Vincent for me was the embodiment of rock’n’roll’

Malcolm McLaren 1997

On September 22 1971, Gene Vincent was a mid-week booking to play a “rock revival” night at central London club The Marquee.

Times were tough; at just 36, the soft-spoken American rocker was apparently way past his heyday and beset by severe health problems brought on by the combination of alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs taken to dull the constant pain in his left leg. This was the result of a crippling motorbike accident in his youth and the lingering effects of having been in the 1960 car-crash which killed Eddie Cochran.

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Tags: bernie Rhodes, Billy Fury, Gene Vincent, Hal Carter, Jeff Beck, Joe Foster, John Collis, London Rock & Roll Festival, Masayoshi Sukita, Patrick Casey, Rev Ola, The Marquee, Vivienne Westwood, Wembley Stadium, You're Gonna Wake Up

//One of the two bondage suits which have been removed from the Met collection. They were previously granted prominence in the museum’s 2006 exhibition Anglomania. This image is from the frontispiece of the show’s lavish catalogue//

Years after concerns were raised about the authenticity of around half of the punk fashion pieces in the Metropolitan Museum Of Art Costume Institute collection, cleaning house has finally begun at the New York institution with the expulsion of two bondage suits purporting to have been original 70s designs by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

A museum spokesperson has confirmed that the suits have been “formally de-accessioned”. A relatively rare process in international-standard curatorial circles, de-accessioning occurs when information undermining the provenance and authenticity of a museum object comes to light.

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Tags: Anglomania, Boy, Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Pirate, Seditionaries, SEX, Sex Pistols, Simon Doonan, Vivienne Westwood, Witches, Worlds End

//Starr on location in Let It Rock drape. Note bust darts.  From the front page of Disc & Music Echo, December 16, 1972. Photo: Uncredited//

In the autumn of 1972 the small King’s Road boutique Let It Rock, which had been open for less than a year, received a fillip when the owners Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were asked to contribute costumes to the production of 50s Britrock movie That’ll Be The Day.

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Tags: Addie Isman, An An, David Essex, David Puttnam, Disc & Music Echo, Let It Rock, Marit Allen, Masayoshi Sukita, Ray Beck, Ringo Starr, Ruth Myers, Sandy Lieberson, Stardust, That'll Be The Day, The Roebuck, UK Vogue, Vivienne Westwood

/Left: Andrew Greaves of Electric Colour Company in the back of Paradise Garage, May 1971. Right: Vivienne Westwood in the back of Let It Rock, January 1972. Photos: David Parkinson//

Preparation for my paper at Ben Kelly’s interior design symposium Dead Or Alive has coincided with the refurbishment of the Worlds End shop at 430 King’s Road in Chelsea.

The address is the subject of my talk; I’ll be detailing the history of 430 and how and why it was an important social and cultural locus over a number of decades.

//Back wall of 430 King’s Road on the opening of Mr Freedom, September 1969. Interior: Electric Colour Company. Photo: David Parkinson//

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Tags: Andrew Greaves, Ben Kelly, Croydon Art School, Electric Colour Company, Frederick Freed, GQ Style, ICA, Let It Rock, Mr Freedom, Paradise Garage, Screaming Lord Sutch, Vivienne Westwood

//A US vintage company is unwittingly featuring this forgery as an original t-shirt from Seditionaries on its Instagram feed. The unpleasant item is an example of the accelerating trade in McLaren/Westwood fakes, where previously non-existent designs – often with repellent overtones – are touted as ultra-rare one-offs//

//Banal content: More examples of previously non-existent designs marketed as McLaren/Westwood originals – complete with Seditionaries-style labels – from a Chinese retailer’s site last year. Note the design at bottom left has a fake label whereas the one at the top of this post does not//

//Above: A selection of more of the crude new designs touted as original garments on Japanese auction site Seditionaries Shop, which claimed more than 300 sales at prices averaging £150//

Since Malcolm McLaren’s death nearly five years ago there has been a palpable rise in the plundering of the designs – in particular the graphics produced for t-shirts – he created with Vivienne Westwood in the 1970s.

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Tags: Addicted To Chaos, Beijing, fullbreach77, Seditionaries, Vivienne Westwood