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The idea is to show in clothes and music that, in the post-industrial age, the roots of our culture lie in primitive societies. Malcolm McLaren on Nostalgia Of Mud and Duck Rock, 1983 Thanks to Hiroshi Fujiwara for tipping the wink over one of the sources of visual inspiration fed by Malcolm McLaren into the […]
The exhibition Disobedient Objects opens at the V&A tonight; here curator Catherine Flood – who originated the concept for the show – talks me through five exhibits which embody the spirit of contemporary protest. TEAR GAS MASKS MADE FROM WATER BOTTLES Disobedient objects are often those which are simply to hand and waiting to be […]
In the shop’s various incarnations I made clothes that looked like ruins. I created something new by destroying the old. This wasn’t fashion as a commodity; this was fashion as an idea. From his foreword to The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion, Malcolm McLaren, 2001 The first exhibition to examine the late cultural […]
Well done to vintage collector/dealer Sharon of Sweet Jane’s Pop Boutique blog for spotting this wowser on a Facebook group: a 1971 article in teen fashion and music magazine Jackie about the game-changing fashion outlet Paradise Garage run by Trevor Myles at 430 King’s Road. Paradise Garage is important because it was the first shop […]
Looking forward to the opening tonight of Nick Abrahams’ new work Lions And Tigers And Bears. Abrahams is releasing a companion single which includes a recording of a snail eating a lettuce. snail, eating – from ‘Lions and Tigers and Bears’ from nicholas abrahams on Vimeo. Lions And Tigers And Bears runs at the Horse […]
John Beck and Matthew Cornford’s intelligent and measured book The Art School And The Culture Shed may be a slim volume but it packs a hell of a punch in locating the ravages wreaked on our cultural life over the past 20 years by privatisation, the failings of local councils and town planners and the […]
Six years ago on The Look blog I posted images and memories supplied by Terry Slobodzian, who ran boutiques Explosion and Lacy Lady in the upstate New York town of North Tonawanda in the late 60s and early 70s. Such shops as Slobodzian’s and The People’s Space (run by Tommy Hilfiger in the neighbouring Emira) […]
It’s that man again; Kosmo Vinyl has another exhibition of his artful football-based collages. On the heels of last year’s Is Saitch Yer Daddy?, England Expects coincides with this year’s World Cup in Brazil and reflects – in Vinyl’s “lick-and-stick” style – on the national team’s engagement in the competition past, present and possible. The […]
When I first saw it I was questioning a lot of things, not least my adequacy. Things like inspiration, influences, references . . . where do things come from? Copying things—not as “homage’”or “pastiche”, but dying to get inside a thing. Inhabit it. Nostalgia too. Using machines. Colour. Systems. Perpetual motion. Automatism. Copying things. Graham […]
I love my calico Fennica 48 drinking jacket right down to it’s beer barrel buttons.