The day the map turned dayglo: Punk London In The City 1975-78
This is the finalised cover of Punk London: In The City 1975-78, my map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates which will be published in a few weeks.
Category: London
A brief journey through David Bowie’s London from the 40s to the 10s with me and Herb Lester
As a tribute to the late rock star, I have joined forces with map-makers Herb Lester to create an online guide to David Bowie’s London from his birth at 40 Stansfield Road in Brixton in 1947 through his solo art show in Mayfair in 1995 to the giant retrospective David Bowie Is exhibition at the […]
Punk in London: Exciting new project coming in the New Year
These are just some of the research materials I have been sifting through for the last few weeks for a project with a fabulous partner coming in the New Year. We’re doing all we can to apply a fresh and vital approach to the much worked-over turf of Punk in London in the mid-70s. Watch […]
Found! The source of the Jerry Lee image in Let It Rock’s Killer Rocks On t-shirt
Let It Rock was digging in the ruins of past cultures that you cared about. It was giving them another brief moment in the sun. It wasn’t about doing anything new. It was an homage. It was nostalgia. Malcolm McLaren to Momus, 2002 Forty three years after its creation I can reveal the source of […]
Studio Prints: At A Printmaker’s Workshop in Kentish Town 1970
The 1970 BBC documentary At A Printmaker’s Workshop focuses on Dorothea Wight’s fabled Studio Prints in Queens Crescent, Kentish Town. It is also a marvellous snapshot of London on the cusp of change as inner city areas became invigorated by the arrival of interesting new businesses (with none of today’s dread “regeneration” and its companion […]
‘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 […]
The Spice Girls: My part in their rise and my non-appearance in the Wannabe video
Just when boys with guitars threaten to rule pop life – Damon’s all over Smash Hits, Ash are big in Big! and Liam can’t move for tabloid frenzy – an all-girl, in-your-face pop group have arrived with enough sass to burst their rockist bubble. From Music Week, April 1996 I see that next week marks […]
Funky but chic: Roxy in Kensington Church Street + the Ken Todd connection
I’ve been aware of the existence of the Kensington boutique Roxy for some time, particularly since the store name was used as the title of the feature on London street fashion in a 1972 edition of Japanese magazine An An. But my curiosity was pricked recently while browsing that same issue of An An which […]
Tender + tough: Jean-Francois Carly’s Surrender After portraits
Surrender After is the title of photographer/director Jean-Francois Carly’s show of nudes opening at Forge & Co in east London next week.
George Cox: The origins of the Diano brothel creeper + samples ordered by Malcolm McLaren in 1973
//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 […]