Blessed & Blasted: Roots of the Anarchy Shirt part 3

This composition of images by Derek Harris from Christopher Gray’s Situationist text Leaving The 20th Century makes plain the significance of the visual vocabulary of the 60s anarchist movement on punk in general and Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood’s Anarchy Shirt in particular.

These are scans from Harris’ copy of Gray’s book; the photographs from reportage in the wake of the May événements and the Karl Marx image from a Situationist International pamphlet.

“I had been a student and the anarchic student movements in France really framed my critique,” McLaren told me in 2007.  “This particular shirt celebrated that.”

The original designs used as a base the deadstock Wemblex brand shirts stored in boxes at McLaren & Westwood’s flat in Clapham, south London in the mid-70s. “They were pin-striped and made in cheap cotton in the early 60s when the ‘pin-through’ collar style – an American look – was fashionable,” said McLaren.

“I wore and wore them and then, one day, Vivienne decided to paint stripes over one. She showed it to me and together we customised it, using my son’s stencil set, with slogans such as “Only Anarchists Are Pretty”, “Dangerously Close To Love”.

“As well as layering the stencils to increase the impact, I attached silk patches of Karl Marx I discovered in shops in Chinatown which sold Maoist literature.  I chose him because his book started the Socialist and workers’ movements in the 19th century. Also, Vivienne and I liked his beard.

“Marx was a writer/author, a creator of ideas, not a politician like Lenin. Marx represented a greater significance and was important to us because he lived in London at one point.”

In line with other creators of manifestos, McLaren was interested in juxtaposition.

“Around that time I would stop by the store operated by 60s singer Chris Farlowe in Upper Street, Islington,” he said.  “He sold German and Nazi artifacts from the war.  I was intrigued by the SS wedding rings and a number of patches and emblems. I purchased a lot and put some of them – such as a  Nazi eagle upturned – with the Karl Marx patch on the shirts.”

The elements outlined above and in parts one and two of this series of posts are on display in this clip – the Sex Pistols first televised performance, recorded for Granada TV’s So It Goes in August 1976 – in the original variants of the shirt modelled by Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and SEX shop assistant Jordan:

Thanks again to Derek Harris for sharing his research and to Hiroshi Fujiwara for images of items from his collection.