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Category: 1980s

1950s

À la mod: My piece for The Guardian on the enduring appeal of Mod

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 […]

August 13, 2015
1980s

Four out-of-this-world Barney Bubbles pieces and a wild Practical Styling bookcase to feature in the Out Of The Ordinary sale at Christie’s in September

//Left: The Ian Dury Cocktail Cabinet. Right: The AC/DC Desk//   //Left: The Rebel, signed ‘Sal ’81’. Right: The Tree Of Drawers// Four extraordinary works by the late Barney Bubbles are to feature in Christie’s Out Of The Ordinary sale, the annual event which is fast becoming one of the highlights of the auction calendar.

July 25, 2015
1980s

Malcolm McLaren in Witches trenchcoat on the steps of the British Museum 1983

This portrait of Malcolm McLaren was captured among the columns outside the entrance to London’s august British Museum by Andy Rosen in 1983. In the photograph taken during promotion of the Duck Rock album, which was released at the start of 1983, McLaren sported a rare trenchcoat design from the Witches collection he and Vivienne […]

June 9, 2015
1970s

A cause for celebration: Digitisation of all 239 issues of Spare Rib

Great news that the British Library has digitised the archive of one of the most important magazines of modern times: Spare Rib. If you don’t know it or haven’t seen the publication, you are in for a treat. As the British Library’s politics and public life curator Polly Russell says, Spare Rib was “funny, irreverent, […]

June 2, 2015
1980s

Richard Hambleton + Malcolm McLaren = Witches x The Shadow Man

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 […]

May 27, 2015