Category: Punk

1970s

Last few days of Punk @ SHOWStudio: Why this exhibition is true to the wit, elegance and design skills of the McLaren/Westwood partnership

In the period 1972-78 when the body of the partnership’s punk fashions were created, Malcolm McLaren’s art education and development as a largely conceptual visual artist was applied with Vivienne Westwood’s intuitive and sophisticated technical skills. The resultant potency of the work was achieved by such factors as: balance in the proportions; deft use of juxtaposition; […]

November 18, 2013

1970s

Before Wire and The Motors, The Snakes: My part in their punk rock obscurity

I went to a good school (it was approved, as my first editor would have it in the late 70s. You had to be there). I was taken on as a scholarship boy, one who showed enough promise for the fees to be paid by the council. But I was lazy, not as bright as […]

November 3, 2013

430 King's Road

Coming this week: Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered Carnaby Echoes + Nick Knight’s PUNK at Showstudio

I’m involved in a couple of events which open in London this week: artist Lucy Harrison’s multi-layered project Carnaby Echoes in the West End and photographer Nick Knight’s exhibition Punk at his Showstudio space in SW1.

September 1, 2013

430 King's Road

From Alphonso’s the Reading barber to free t-shirts and apples in Seditionaries: The unpindownable Johnny Deluxe dives into his family photo album

Here’s a selection of photographs from the family photo album of Johnny Deluxe, one of my favourite unpindownable Londoners. Deluxe is an artist, clothes-maker, performer, raconteur and all-round individualist. I’ll let him tell the story behind each. This was taken in March or April 1978. I was wearing a Seditionaries Destroy t-shirt and Boy zip […]

July 16, 2013

Barney Bubbles

“Bring me your dented and bent out of shape”: Johnny Moped documentary is on the way

In an age clogged up with boil-in-the-bag popular music documentaries, I’m looking forward to Fred Burns’ Basically, Johnny Moped, about the unpredictable outsider who emerged via associations with The Damned and Chrissie Hynde during the post-punk period to strut and fret his hour upon the stage. Moped and his band – Dave and Fred Berk […]

June 3, 2013

430 King's Road

London punk demi-monde Polaroids from Jonathan Ross: The return of Chrissie Hynde + Kate Simon with Tamasin Day-Lewis, Gina Louthan, Ruth Marten, Judy Nylon, Patti Palladin, Jon Savage and…John Betjeman

//All photos (c) Jonathan Ross// Here are more previously unpublished images from London’s punk demi-monde. Coincident to receiving Joe Stevens’ photograph of the pre-Pretenders Chrissie Hynde and photographer Kate Simon in Malcolm McLaren’s Sex Pistols Nude Boy shirts, collector/gallerist/Londoner Jonathan Ross supplied me with this fabulous selection of Polaroids taken at his west London house […]

May 8, 2013

430 King's Road

Chrissie Hynde + Kate Simon in Malcolm McLaren’s Sex Pistols Smoking Boy T-shirts

This photograph – taken by Joe Stevens in early 1976 in Fulham, west London – is featured in the exhibition Just Chaos!, which opens tomorrow (May 7) at Marc Jacobs’ Bleecker Street NYC bookstore BookMarc. The T-shirts worn by Simon and Hynde were among the first variants of a limited edition designed by Malcolm McLaren […]

May 6, 2013

430 King's Road

My Anarchy Shirt archaeology at Dazed Digital

Dazed Digital is featuring a précis of my investigation into the roots of the Anarchy Shirt as sold in Sex and Seditionaries at 430 King’s Road in 1976 and 1977.

May 2, 2013

Events

Bowie Style tonight: In conversation with Boy George at the V&A

Tonight I am hosting an event at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum: an ‘in conversation’ with Boy George about the importance and influence of popular culture’s greatest manipulator of visual identity, David Bowie.

April 9, 2013

430 King's Road

Observer article highlights Met’s embarrassing punk flaws

I’m quoted in today’s article in UK Sunday newspaper The Observer about the factual failings surrounding the punk clothing collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum Of Art’s Costume Institute.

February 17, 2013