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I sourced one of the paintings which is in More Than Fair, the exhibition of Ian Dury’s artworks which opens at his alma mater, London’s Royal College of Art, next month. Dury gave the ultra-Pop Dany Bubbles to his friend and designer Barney Bubbles in the late 70s during their spell of collaboration which resulted […]
This is designer Ben Kelly at his 1974 degree show at London’s Royal College Of Art. Kelly adopted the alter-ego The Photo Kid, who is portrayed in the work by which he is standing. The Photo Kid wore clothes – in particular brothel creepers – from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop Let It Rock, […]
This photograph – taken by Joe Stevens in early 1976 in Fulham, west London – is featured in the exhibition Just Chaos!, which opens tomorrow (May 7) at Marc Jacobs’ Bleecker Street NYC bookstore BookMarc. The T-shirts worn by Simon and Hynde were among the first variants of a limited edition designed by Malcolm McLaren […]
As an addendum to my recent post about the staging of the very special late night London concert given by Ian Dury’s art-rock ensemble Kilburn & The High Roads in 1974, here’s the badge commissioned by manager the late Tommy Roberts to flag up the concurrent release of the group’s single Rough Kids. Then a […]
“It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs” Jonathan Swift, from a letter to his friend Esther Johnson, 1711 Ten Sitting Rooms was the title of a group exhibition curated by Jasia Reichardt at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1970. She organised a budget of £100 for […]
From the archive of the late Tommy Roberts, this image from British teen fashion magazine Mirabelle shows a particularly outré commission from fashion’s master of flamboyant retailing: a 7ft high rendition of a King Kong-style gorilla in blue fun fur created by the design team Sue and Simon Haynes.
Artist/designer Simon Haynes has allowed me access to some of the treasures in his archive. Over the next few weeks I’ll be dipping into it and presenting a selection of artworks, display items, stage sets and graphics he has created over the years.
I first wrote about Electric Colour Company – the design studio formed in the East End by four fine art students in the late 60s – in The Look and then in more detail here. In my view, ECC deserves much greater recognition for executing some very clever work in the field of retail design […]
Ian Dury was as much a visual as verbal stylist. The late performer’s wordsmithery comes into focus in daughter Jemima’s soon-to-be-released book ‘Hallo Sausages’, which also conveys his rich and idiosyncratic sartorial presence. Published by Bloomsbury on October 28, ‘Hallo Sausages’ presents lyrics to 170 of Dury’s songs, some scribbled and heavily anotated, others meticulously […]
This advert for Vince Man’s Shop – the small Soho boutique which sparked the modernisation of menswear design and retailing in the second half of the 20th century – was designed by Gordon Moore for issue 20 of the Royal College Of Art magazine ARK, published in autumn 1957.