//Hipgnosis fashion shoot for Club International, 1972//
An antiques restorer friend has pointed out that the early 70s fashion shoot by design studio Hipgnosis I recently featured here calls to mind the preoccupations with the female form of the late German artist Paul Wunderlich.
My friend – who wishes to remain anonymous – has offered as evidence a print of Wunderlich’s work Vor dem Vorhang (“Before the curtain”). The story of how he came by the artwork one squally day in central London seven years ago is remarkable:
“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
//Simon Haynes in his ICA sitting room, 1970. Source publication: Unknown//
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 each artist and gave them the brief of making a sitting room in spaces of either 15 x 18 feet or 12 x 24 feet.
I was alerted to the show’s existence by participant Simon Haynes, whose work I have been featuring here. Haynes’ Pop environment, which was produced in collaboration with his wife Sue, developed the themes and materials they used in the boardroom interior and furniture created earlier that year for Trevor Myles’ and Tommy Roberts’ boutique Mr Freedom at 430 King’s Road.
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.
//Vinyl with The Clash, 1981.Photo: Bob Gruen //
Next month sees the opening of an exhibition of 53 collages tracking the fortunes of West Ham United FC over a season; they are all the product of expat football fan and music industry maverick Kosmo Vinyl.
The show’s title, Is Saitch Yer Daddy, is taken from 60s graffito adorning a wall near West Ham’s home ground. Residency in New York for many years hasn’t dampened the ardour for The Hammers of this figure who played key promotional and managerial roles for Graham Parker, Stiff Records, Ian Dury and The Clash.
//Robert Watts in front of Products by Implosions Inc. Photographer: unknown//
Malcolm McLaren’s adaptation of the infamous Tits t-shirt is one of punk’s most familiar designs, as applied by he and Vivienne Westwood to shirts sold in SEX and Seditionaries, worn by members of the Sex Pistols and replicated hundreds of thousands of times since.
Such is its distorting androgynous power that a version was chosen along with another McLaren/Westwood design – the Cowboys shirt – to represent the core aesthetic of the movement when the forthcoming Costume Institute exhibition Punk: Chaos To Couture was announced earlier this month.
//Detail, Ian Dury's Billy Bentley boxing gown, commissioned from Sex, 1974. Photographer: Adrian Turner.//
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 typed and displayed to best effect in the book design by another member of Dury’s extended family, Jake Tilson (brother of Dury’s widow Sophy; their father is the eminent British artist Joe Tilson).
Making a merit of the archival jumble Dury left behind on his death in 2000 (a bunch of lyrics were found in a carrier bag bearing Barney Bubbles’ familiar Blockhead logo), this is a lovingly put-together document, the songs and Jemima Dury’s reminiscences adorned by a bank of rare, personal and professionally-taken images.
To celebrate the publication of ‘Hallo Sausages’, here’s a selection of key items from Jemima’s Dad’s wardrobe with some background material sourced from my recent book about one-time Kilburn & The High Roads manager Tommy Roberts. Jemima has also contributed a couple of images from her own archive.
Meanwhile, at the end of this post, there’s an opportunity to win a signed copy of ‘Hallo Sausages’.
//Onstage at London's Lyceum, 1981. Photographer: David Corio.//
Pearly King jacket
Rooted as he was in London lore, Dury added this authentic Pearly King jacket to his stage ensemble in the late 70s. According to Sophy Dury, he later found out it had belonged to an Eastender named John Snow (hence “JS Of Mile End” on the back). Snow’s mother had loaned the jacket to her friend Mrs. E. Rainbird, who wore it on VE Níght.
In a 1985 letter to the BBC radio broadcaster Libby Purves (who interviewed Dury that year) Mrs Rainbird wrote that she recognised the jacket from his TV appearances. Purves complied with her request to pass the letter outlining the provenance to Dury, who put it in one of the jacket pockets, where it remains.
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.
