As Out magazine’s Listed Londoner this month, Duggie Fields gives voice to the concerns of many of us: the desecration of this city’s fine buildings by evil property developers – abetted by lax local authorities and supine architects – in the name of “regeneration”.
Continue reading Duggie Fields: Listed Londoner speaks out against ‘regeneration’
This is The Malcolm, the award designed by Marc Newson for the visual arts bienniale Performa; the inaugural award was presented a couple of weeks back by Greil Marcus and Lou Reed to the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson for his 12-hour piece Bliss.
Honouring the late Malcolm McLaren, The Malcolm goes to artists under 40 who demonstrate “the most innovative and thought-provoking performance” during Performa’s three-week bienniale.
Continue reading Marc Newson’s tribute to Malcolm McLaren for Performa
Following yesterday’s post about the exhibition of Michael Hochong’s incredible clothes, the Horse Hospital’s Roger Burton has given an account of how he came by the collection and his personal connection to this “very beautiful man”.
Continue reading Roger Burton on the Michael Hochong collection
The exclusion of designer James Tormey – and in particular his early 70s covers for a series of Raymond Chandler books – from Phil Baines’ history Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 has long rankled with me.
I was expecting to find out more about the man whose remixes of Hollywood classic stills led me to Chandler in my early teens. But there is no mention of Tormey or these covers, which hummed at the time with the revival of interest in 40s cinema, and film noir in particular.
Continue reading Penguins: James Tormey’s Raymond Chandler covers
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.
Continue reading Favourite shoes: My corduroy + crepe-soled Bongos
Can’t beat a bit of Chuck for a frolic.
Watch him move.
I saw him live a year or so later at The Rainbow. He played a 35-minute set and brought on his daughter for the lovey-dovey finale. It may have been South Of The Border.
When the Teds realised he had vamoosed rather than play an encore they tore up the place.
Twenty-odd years later I was in the green room for an edition of The David Letterman Show which featured him and was shot in London. What struck me was Berry’s bearing and the agile grace with which he moved among the throng of well-wishers and fans.
That and the fact he was wearing the same pair of yellow Lionels I’d seen on him at the Rainbow…
Nathaniel Lee Jones and Pippa Brooks have created a world of wonder with their M. Goldstein stand at the Battersea Decorative Fair.
A recent post triggered this memory from designer Diana Crawshaw of an encounter with Dennis Hopper. It occured at the Royal College Of Art summer ball in 1965, “when he was very young and so was I”:
At the ball everyone was wearing white or silver (it was that summer when The Knack came out).
Continue reading Dennis Hopper: A memory from the Royal College Of Art summer ball 1965
I’m not sure I agree with their characterisation of Philip Sallon’s personality as “bubbly” but who wouldn’t endorse these wishes for a speedy recovery to one of London’s living legends?
My friend Donald Smith’s exhibition Acid Aalto opens at London’s Chelsea Arts Club tonight.