Out today, the November 2017 issue of British GQ includes a 10-page feature on my forthcoming book The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture.
Magazines
RIP Gary Warnett, streetwear guru and sneaker supremo
This is a terrible week for those of us interested in the accumulation of knowledge and expertise surrounding design, music and popular culture.
I was settling in to write an obituary for New York design hero Jim Walrod when news came through last night that British sneaker guru Gary Warnett – a similarly irreplaceable figure – had also unexpectedly died.
Warnett was 39; the cause was attributed to complications arising from pneumonia.
The former content editor for label Crooked Tongues, Warnett was a streetwear obsessive who worked with the world’s biggest brands. Still he found the time to pursue a wide array of interests as evinced by his excellent Gwarizm/Still Lameaphobic site.
Continue reading RIP Gary Warnett, streetwear guru and sneaker supremo
For Jim Walrod – ‘Decoration is the danger, function is the idea’: The On 1st experiment in conceptual art retailing
** This post is dedicated to the New York design thinker and doer Jim Walrod, who has passed away. Just a couple of weeks ago I mentioned my intention to post about On 1st to Jim over dinner. Of course, he knew about the store but was excited to see what fresh info I might have turned up. I’ll write about Jim when I have collected my thoughts; wherever he is, I am sure Jim will join us all in the necessary proclamation: Fuck Trump**
In conversation this summer, British artist Duggie Fields revealed to me that, during a sojourn in the US in 1968, he had been in line to work at photographer Bert Stern’s “architecturally mind-blowing” art store/publishing house On 1st in Manhattan’s east side.
My new book – The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture
This is the front of the jacket of my new book The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture, which is published by Thames & Hudson this autumn.
Continue reading My new book – The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture
Phallic Metallics: Erotic jewellery shoot by Hipgnosis for Club magazine 1976
I’m grateful to Stian Brekke for sending me a link to his site hipgnosiscovers.com for these arresting pages from a 1976 issue of US men’s magazine Club, launched as the sister publication the British Club International the previous year.
Continue reading Phallic Metallics: Erotic jewellery shoot by Hipgnosis for Club magazine 1976
Audacious early 70s Hipgnosis fashion shoots for Club International
When innovatory British men’s magazine Club International was launched in 1972, editor Tony Power and art director Steve Ridgeway assembled a diverse pool of contributors, including jazzer, art critic and cultural commentator George Melly, the Stately Homo Quentin Crisp, Rocky Horror Show founder Richard O’Brien, former White Panther Mick Farren, photographers David Parkinson, Mick Rock and Karl Stoecker, illustrators Bush Hollyhead and Brian Grimwood and the design studio Hipgnosis.
Continue reading Audacious early 70s Hipgnosis fashion shoots for Club International
Apollonia Van Ravenstein + Ara Gallant in originals of Seditionaries Mickey & Minnie and Exposé t-shirts
Images of the novelty t-shirt designs détourned by the late Malcolm McLaren for sale in Seditionaries in 1978 are rare, which is why this shot of Apollonia Van Ravenstein and Ara Gallant from a spread in a late 70s issue of L’Uomo Vogue is extra special.
Lives less ordinary: Jane England’s Turn And Face The Strange documents 70s cultural and social churn
Jane England’s Turn And Face The Strange is a valuable addition to the documentation of the social and cultural churn occurring at the edges of society in the 1970s.
The Paradise Garage Mustang pops up in mid-70s early learning book
As punk expert/collector and design academic Paul Burgess notes, references to 430 King’s Road turn up in the most surprising places.
So thanks to him for notifying me about this photograph of the coolest address in pop culture – and in particular the tiger stripe-flocked Ford Mustang which adorned the street outside during the Paradise Garage phase – in a 1976 light educational book for young children.
Continue reading The Paradise Garage Mustang pops up in mid-70s early learning book
Identity, Photography, Fashion: Images from new exhibition North
Here is a selection of amazing images featured in new exhibition North: Identity, Photography, Fashion, which is open to the public from today at Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery.
Continue reading Identity, Photography, Fashion: Images from new exhibition North