//From top left: Chinese Communist Party pamphlet, 1971; McLaren in Let It Rock 1972; Proclamation by Engels and Marx, 1881; Title lettering, Belgian film poster, 1958//

A year or so ago I established the source material for one of the first designs generated by Malcolm McLaren in the fashion partnership he conducted with Vivienne Westwood in the 70s and early 80s.

Now I can reveal the inspiration: text contained in an unprepossessing Communist booklet celebrating the short-lived “Paris Commune” government of 19th Century revolutionary France.

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Tags: Abbie Hoffman, Chuck Berry, Friedrich Engels, Jerry Lee Lewis, Karl Marx, Let It Rock, Let's Rock, Little Richard, New York Dolls, Paris Commune, Patrick Casey, Peter Clifton, Steal This Book, The Anarchist Cookbook, The Little Red Book, The London Rock N Roll Show, Vive le Rock!, Vivienne Westwood, William Powell, Yvonne Gold

//Front and back of Vive le Rock/Punk Rock Disco and the radical political and military texts used as source material for the design//

There were T-shirts left over from the Wembley Rock & Roll revival festival in our cupboards in South Clapham; we had to do something with them. Sid Vicious liked them just the way they were and was often photographed in the original Vive Le Rock! design. But I needed to throw a few messages across them and reinvent them. So, I married the slogan and images of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis with words and drawings from various texts, using the title of The Anarchist Cookbook as well as the famous phrase of the Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durutti.

Malcolm McLaren 2008

Imogen Hunt is a recent graduate from London College Of Fashion who tells me she was inspired by my work to write her thesis for the college’s history of fashion and culture course.

Part of Hunt’s dissertation – on the importance of the Situationist International and King Mob to the development of punk style – is dedicated to an examination of the influences and source material for the double-sided design Vive Le Rock/Punk Rock Disco, which was printed on the front and back of t-shirts and tops first sold in Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s King’s Road store Seditionaries in 1978.

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Tags: Abbie Hoffman, Buenaventura Durruti, Christopher Gray, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Imogen Hunt, Internationale Situationniste, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ken Knabb, King Mob, Leaving The 20th Century, Little Richard, London College Of Fashion, Pierre van Paassen, Seditionaries, Steal This Book, The Anarchist Cookbook, The Return of the Durruti Column, The Toronto Daily Star, US Army Improvised Munitions Handbook, Vive le Rock/Punk Rock Disco, Vivienne Westwood, William Powell

//Malcolm McLaren in front of display of Belgian 50s rock n roll movie posters inside Let It Rock, 430 King’s Road,  January 1972. Note Vive le Rock! poster top left. Photo: David Parkinson//

//Taken by John E. Reed in 1956 to promote teen-movie Don’t Knock The Rock, the photo was reissued by London Records to mark the release of the four-track EP Little Richard And His Band//

//Front cover, You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down, Little Richard, Union Pacific, 1972. Designer: Unknown//

//As shown on this repro, McLaren’s design for the Little Richard shirt sold at the London Rock N Roll Festival held at Wembley Stadium in August 1972//

Yet another example of Malcolm McLaren’s astounding design talent is examined across a number of exhibits at the Let It Rock show, which opens at Copenhagen’s Bella Center on Sunday (August 3).

In 1972 McLaren expanded his investigations into 50s pop design culture by producing a series of t-shirt designs celebrating the great American rock & roll stars performing on the bill of the one-day festival at London’s Wembley Stadium that August.

McLaren continued to followed the path dictated by his formidable art education by creating new artworks out of the juxtaposition of found objects. A 1956 promotional photograph of Little Richard provided the main image for the shirt dedicated to The Georgia Peach.

In 1972 it also appeared on the cover of the UK compilation You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down; that year also witnessed a revival of interest in the pompadoured Richard Penniman after Let It Rock customer Charles (now Lord) Saatchi featured a Little Richard song in a 50s-styled TV advert for Libro jeans.

//The title lettering on the poster was isolated//

//Reed’s image was flipped vertically//

McLaren flipped the image, reversed it out and positioned the exuberant figure with the joyous title lettering from a  rock & roll movie poster he stocked in Let It Rock. Vive Le Rock! was, in fact, the French title of the 1958 US production Let’s Rock, so tied indirectly with the name McLaren had chosen for his own venture. In Britain the film was marketed under the tamer Keep It Cool.

//Poster for the American release of the movie, 1958//

//McLaren later incorporated the Vive Le Rock! elements into a fresh composite for sale in 430 King’s Road when it was Seditionaries in 1979. This also featured Situationist slogans, a quote from the early 20th century Spanish anarcho-syndicalist Buenaventura Durruti and “recipes” from William Powell’s The Anarchist’s Cookbook, first published in 1971//

The Copenhagen show features a Let It Rock installation complete with a series of large prints of previously unseen photographs taken by David Parkinson inside 430 King’s Road in January 1972. Included is a full version of the image at the top of this post, as well as a Vive le Rock! shirt and the Little Richard LP cover.

Let It Rock: The Look Of Music The Sound Of Fashion is at the Crystal Hall in Copenhagen’s Bella Center from August 3-6.

Read more here.

*This post was revised and updated to reflect fresh information on the source of the image on March 11, 2017*

Tags: Buenaventura Durruti, Charles Saatchi, Keep It Cool, Let's Rock, Libro jeans, Little Richard, London Rock N Roll Festival 1972, Seditionaries, The Anarchist's Cookbook, Union Pacific, Vive le Rock!, Wembley Stadium, William Powell, You Can't Keep A Good Man Down