The jury is out on this autumn’s relaunch of the print edition of venerated British style magazine The Face; as I suggested here it’s going to take more than one splashy issue to assess whether the proposition has legs as we enter the 2020s (next May will mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of The Face by Nick Logan).
The late British abstract artist Robyn Denny is best known for his large-scale works, such as Great Big Biggest Wide London, the giant 1959 mural for menswear company Austin Reed’s Regent Street store.
I was flattered recently to receive an email from Jacob Shaw, bassist in art-rockers Wild Daughter, about the effect my work has had on certain visual elements of the group and in particular a performance during their recent ICA night The Moon Sextiles The Sun.
Continue reading Experimental + inspirational: Wild Daughter
“Those blue suede shoes had a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of desperate romantic revolt to change your life.”
Malcolm McLaren, notes on his life in fashion, 1997
I’m celebrating the 70th anniversary of the introduction of George Cox & Co’s first creeper at the Port Eliot Festival next week with Adam Waterfield, the fourth generation owner of the great independent British brand, and his son Alistair, a Central Saint Martins student and model who is very much involved in the family business.
My recent Rocketman post gave me cause to dig out my copy of the catalogue produced for the groundbreaking exhibition Fashion: An Anthology, staged by London’s V&A from October 1971 to January 1972.
//Above Taron Egerton as Elton John and Jamie Bell as Bernie Taupin meet “Tommy Roberts” in Rocketman. Stills from Kii Arens promo video for Egerton and John’s new single (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again//
During the production of Elton John biopic Rocketman there were plans for a scene set in London’s groundbreaking pop-art boutique Mr Freedom in the early 70s.
This was to set up the central character’s visual transformation during visits to the store under the influence of its charismatic founder and frontman, the late, lamented Tommy Roberts.
Continue reading Rocketman: Mr Freedom, Tommy Roberts and Jim O’Connor’s winged boots
I left school and home when I was 17 and, on the dole in 1978, supplemented my income working for a woman in her late 30s whose sugar daddy had put her up in a flat in a mansion block off Edgware Road. He rarely visited, and in fact died while I was in her employ. The family forbade her from attending the funeral and I realise now her tenancy was likely quite shaky.
“The sticker may be the most efficient art form ever invented”
Jeffrey Deitch, 2019
I have an essay in DB Burkeman’s just-published follow-up to his 2010 survey of the use of audacious and eye-catching stickers in art, design, fashion, music and social activism.
Here’s a couple of pieces of recently published journalism, one filed for the Netherlands-based biannual MacGuffin, the other for the second issue of Fred Perry Quarterly.
“I want to die with a million miles on my meter,
I want to die with well-used and worn tyres”
In The Land Of The Harley Davidson, Mary Cigarettes, 2011
It’s been a month or so since the death of the extraordinary singer-songwriter Mary Cigarettes; today I’m marking his passing with this selection from his Youtube channel.
Continue reading Pungent + prolific with a million miles on the meter: Sayonara Mary Cigarettes