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Thanks to artist Paul Kindersley for alerting me to the fact that images from an audacious photo-shoot by the late photographer David Parkinson were featured in an early 70s issue of Paul Raymond’s adult magazine Men Only.
A few months before Cosey Fanni Tutti upset the apple-cart as a member with Genesis Breyer P. Orridge of COUM Transmissions – the “wreckers of civilisation” who staged the Prostitution exhibition at London’s ICA – the performance artist/musician posed with another model for a 1976 issue of men’s magazine Club International.
In the histories of London street style, Kenny MacDonald’s King’s Road outlet Marx receives rare mention, yet from the mid-70s this unusual and tucked-away boutique was important in the development of the type of English tailoring-with-a-twist which has subsequently dominated a strand of menswear around the world.
//From top left: Chinese Communist Party pamphlet, 1971; McLaren in Let It Rock 1972; Proclamation by Engels and Marx, 1881; Title lettering, Belgian film poster, 1958// A year or so ago I established the source material for one of the first designs generated by Malcolm McLaren in the fashion partnership he conducted with Vivienne Westwood […]
//Left: Detail of photo of model posing in leather Sex hood, autumn 1974. Photo: © David Parkinson. Right: David Bowie in leather hood, summer 1974, Sherry Netherland Hotel, New York. Photo: Dana Gillespie// My recent post about David Bowie’s visits in 1974 to 430 King’s Road when it was in its Too Fast To Live […]
It’s been a busy and satisfying week, rounded off by publication today in the Architects Journal of an essay of mine on the cultural significance of 430 King’s Road.
Preparation for my paper at Ben Kelly’s interior design symposium Dead Or Alive has coincided with the refurbishment of the Worlds End shop at 430 King’s Road in Chelsea. The address is the subject of my talk; I’ll be detailing the history of 430 and how and why it was an important social and cultural […]
//Left, Saint Laurent point-toed patent brothel creepers, A/W 2014. Right: George Cox Buckle Diano made to the 1950s last// Last season’s foregrounding by Saint Laurent of the pointed brothel creeper is just one of a run of examples of fashion brands plugging into the purity of this quintessentially British rock & roll style minted in […]
//Malcolm McLaren, 1973. Photo: David Parkinson. Bryan Ferry, 1976. Photo Richard Wallis// A couple of years back I showed examples of photography by the late David Parkinson to car-nut graphic design maestro Jules Balme; I knew he would be interested in the incorporation of a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado in a 1973 Let It Rock fashion […]