Category: Chelsea

1930s

‘They had the t-shirt off his back’: The 40th anniversary of the creation of the notorious Cowboys t-shirt + the obscenity debate it sparked in the pages of The Guardian

This month – specifically July 26 – marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction for sale of Malcolm McLaren’s notorious Cowboys t-shirt in Sex, the revolutionary boutique he operated at 430 King’s Road with Vivienne Westwood. The shirt’s status as the most provocative of all punk designs is enhanced by the fact that it made […]

July 11, 2015

1970s

David Bowie’s unwitting role in the transformation of 430 King’s Road from Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die to SEX

It is a little known fact that David Bowie was an occasional visitor to 430 King’s Road when it was operating as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die. This manifestation of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s revolutionary boutique – which paid design tribute to the fetishistic studded leather attire of Britain’s early 60s […]

July 10, 2015

2010s

RIP Billy Murphy: ‘There were many kings of the King’s Road but only one Emperor’

“There were many kings of the King’s Road at different periods of time but there was only one Emperor” Lloyd Johnson Very sad to note the passing of Billy Murphy, a thoroughly lovely bloke whose contribution to street fashion – particularly in Britain and specifically in and around the King’s Road – is sorely underrated. […]

December 20, 2014

1970s

Jah Wobble talks Bohemian Chelsea, Aswad, Hawkwind, Sid VIcious and selling his Metal Box bass to the JAMC

This is nice; pal and fellow Chelsea Arts Club member John Wardle talks about the importance of the immediate neighbourhood, its artistic tradition going back to the likes of Whistler, the licentiousness of the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens in Victorian times, the Bohemian atmosphere engendered by the 70s slums around the Lots Road Power Station and […]

December 4, 2014

1970s

The Look and Vivienne Westwood: A question of attribution

Jenni Murray: You’ve said ‘clothes were politics long before fashion’. What did you mean by that? Vivienne Westwood: I have no idea. Jenni Murray: Was it something you said to Ian (Kelly) and now you’ve forgotten? Vivienne Westwood: No…is that what it says in the book? Jenni Murray: Yes Vivienne Westwood: Well then, he might […]

October 15, 2014

1970s

Worlds End: Norah Waugh, the 31 bus, Daniel Defoe, Black-Beard The Pyrate, Thomas Tew and the origins of the Saracen sword logo

The skull and crossbones was too much of a cliche. In a book from Foyle’s in Charing Cross Road I found the drawing of the pirate Blackbeard, Captain Teach, with his arm holding a Saracen sword. Malcolm McLaren, 2008. Over the spring and summer of 1980, the late Malcolm McLaren worked with Vivienne Westwood on […]

August 28, 2014

1970s

Malcolm McLaren exhibition: Bob Carlos Clarke + David Parkinson images of the ciré Sex mackintosh dress

//Photography: Bob Carlos Clarke 1976 (left) and David Parkinson 1975// Malcolm designed a very nice women’s mac. A real 50s style, it was made of very thin ciré and looked almost like a dress, with its circular skirt and stand-up collar. It was like something that the B52s might have worn – half a dozen […]

July 29, 2014

1970s

Unbelievable rarity: Undocumented Let It Rock clothing featured on 1972 budget LP + previously unpublished views of stock inside 430 King’s Road

It is relatively common knowledge among those interested in the careers of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and their series of extraordinary shops that they supplied clothes to the 1973 album Golden Hour Of Rock & Roll; Let It Rock at 430 King’s Road was clearly credited on the back of the record sleeve. But […]

April 12, 2014

1970s

David Parkinson: Fashion photography’s forgotten figure to be a GQ Icon

Ahead of the publication of my piece about the late photographer David Parkinson in GQ UK in a few weeks, here are a couple of masterful images which demonstrate his stylised, simultaneously gritty and glamorous approach. Both stem from issues of men’s magazine Club International; the 1974 cover shot model is wearing Parkinson’s decorated Lewis […]

April 4, 2014

1970s

The London Rock n Roll Show at Wembley Stadium 1972: Memories of Oz, Frendz and the Let It Rock stall

I acquired my first underground press publications in the summer of 1972, at about the point when the sector was taking the nosedive from which it never recovered. Still, better late than Sharon Tate, as they say. Aged 12, my taste had been whetted by sneak peeks at an older brother’s collection of magazines when […]

March 8, 2014