Paul Gorman

Chelsea

Lloyd Johnson exhibition install day 3: Pop art prints

Lloyd Johnson exhibition install: Day 3

Now the exhibition is getting to the nitty-gritty; yesterday Lloyd paid particular attention to the area dedicated to his businesses Cockell & Johnson and Johnson & Johnson, which produced peacock dandy and pop art fashion between 1968 and 1974 in Kensington  Market. Above are the print shirts which will be displayed, below some of the detail – on the left a stockinged leg print designed by Jane Wentworth (then Wealleans), who has contributed to my Tommy Roberts book.

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Ideal Home: Biba beans + biscuit tins + wallpaper by David Bowie + Barney Bubbles

Biba tin of baked beans
Can of Biba own-brand baked beans. Packaging design: Whitmore-Thomas Partnership, 1973.

Chelsea Space director Donald Smith has invited me to contribute items from my design collection to his forthcoming show Ideal Home, which features the work of more than 50 artists and designers spanning 1913 to 2011.

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Favourite shoes: My corduroy + crepe-soled Bongos

Bongos - top

These are the only pair of Bongos, a crepe-soled, corduroy sample shoe manufactured by George Cox for Lloyd Johnson in the late 90s.

These unusual elastic-vented slip-ons were intended for Johnson’s Beatnik range, sold through his three London shops, at 406 King’s Road, in Kensington Market and at 293 Portobello Road.

In the event the design didn’t make it into production.

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The Cowboys came from Colt Studio

//Longhorns Dance by Colt (Jim French) from Manpower! issue 7, 1974.//

My theorising over the roots of the Cowboys t-shirt has uncovered the true source of the main image: a 1969 drawing by the artist Jim French reproduced in a 1974 issue of his magazine Manpower!.

French has an international following for his gay-themed photographic + illustrative work, via his Colt Studio image-bank and work as “Rip Colt” and “Luger”.

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Sex Pistols: The very first media mention

//From a review of the Queen Elizabeth College All Night Christmas Ball by Kate Phillips, New Musical Express, December 27, 1975.//

This is something of an exclusive.

Not published in the 36 years since appearing in the issue of the New Musical Express dated December 27, 1975, this is the very first media mention of the Sex Pistols (just seven weeks after their live debut).

These sentences were written by NME staffer Kate Phillips in her review of the All Night Christmas Ball on November 27 1975 at Queen Elizabeth College (then in Campden Hill, Kensington, west London).

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Photography: Kings Road summer 1976

//The Roebuck, 354 Kings Road, 1976.//

Thanks to Neal Purvis for alerting me to these captivating photographs taken in London in the hot summer of 1976 by German holidaymaker Klaus Hiltscher.

As Neal points out, Hiltscher captures the mood of the city in that specific period; I don’t believe my recall is playing tricks on me when I write that every day – from May through to September – was glorious in terms of the weather, and more often than not eventful in a variety of ways.

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