Pretty Punk Vacancy Contra Sado-Libertine Apathy

The Marquis de Sade looks on as Johnny Rotten 

acts pretty vacant for the cameras

 

'I have a very strong feeling that the opposite 

of love is not hate - it's apathy.' [1] 

 

I.

 

Consult any modern reference source and you will find apathy defined as a lack of emotion, interest, and/or concern. It is presented as a state of perfected indifference; a clinical curbing of enthusiasm. 

 

More often than not, apathy is also regarded in a negative light; as a psychopathological problem that sits on the same spectrum of diminished motivation as abulia and, at the extreme, akinetic mutism. Because they lack a sense of drive and seem to have no purpose or meaning, apathetic individuals are believed to have an inferior quality of life. 

 

Expressive individuals who like to openly display their emotions and endlessly bang on about their feelings, think apathetic individuals must be suffering from depression or some other brain disorder. It's not normal - and it's not natural - to be so cold and detached. It seems to betray not only an absence of passion, but a lack of soul - which is why Christians have historically condemned apathy as a deficiency of love and devotion to God and listed it among the seven deadly sins: sloth [2].

 

The Ancient Greeks, however, thought a little differently on this matter. And so, although the modern English term apathy (first used in 1594) is derived from ἀπάθεια (apatheia), it is important not to confuse or conflate the two terms. For the Stoics, for example, apatheia signified a desirable state of indifference toward events and things that lie outside one's control (and it is still considered a virtue today within Orthodox monasticism and certain schools of Gnosticism).    

 

 

II.  

Moving on from this brief history of apathy and its etymology, I'd like to discuss the concept as developed within the work of the Marquis de Sade, contrasting this with how the idea was expressed in the scene that developed in and around 430 King's Road in the mid-1970s. 

 

My aim is to show that although there were Sadean currents within punk as conceived by McLaren and Westwood - examined at length and in detail by Matthew Worley [3] - there's a world of difference between Johnny Rotten's pretty vacancy and l'apathie of those libertines who do their philosophising in the bedroom rather than at a pervy fashion boutique. 

 

 

III. 

 

According to Matt Worley: "Punk's cultural body bore Sadean scars." [4] 

 

It's a nice line. 

 

And Worley is right to suggest that, at some level, punk was "transmitting the echoes of Sade's howl through the mediums of popular music and fashion" [5]. 

 

However, while McLaren and his young protégés may have subscribed to an ideology of sex, style and subversion coupled to a kinky aesthetic incorporating safety pins, swastikas, and fetishwear, what they almost certainly did not do was read the works of the Marquis de Sade.

 

For if they had, they would have learnt that central to Sade's transgressive philosophy was the formal concept of l'apathie ...    

 

To understand what our punk friends missed, one might look to the Fifth Dialogue of Sade's La Philosophie dans le boudoir (1795), wherein the libertine Dolmancé encourages fifteen-year-old Eugénie to systematically discard traditional moral values in favour of l'apathie. 

 

He explains how the sensations resulting from apathy are vastly superior to those born of emotional sensitivity and advocates a total shift toward cold indifference and egoistic gratification: 

 

"Ah, Eugénie, believe me when I say the delights of apathy far outweigh those of virtue; the latter have only one application, whereas the former can excite and overwhelm one's whole being." [6]  

 

Thus, far from being a secondary concern, l'apathie - derived from the ancient Greek apatheia [7] - is an ideal given primary importance by many (if not all) of Sade's philosophically-minded libertines. 

 

More than a passive lack of feeling, l'apathie is a deliberate, active mechanism with specific functions; eradicating empathy, purging all moral sentiment, and ensuring the libertine's pleasure is derived entirely from the will. Complete indifference to the suffering of the victim thereby eliminates all emotional dependency upon the amorous object. 

 

As Bataille observed in Eroticism (1957), a sadist who indulges their raw impulses simply for instant gratification or bourgeois pleasure is merely a poor doomed creature ruled by vice. True sovereignty requires passion to be strictly disciplined and compressed. L'apathie is the ingenious method used to reject spontaneous emotion, converting raw impulse into a calculating, destructive energy that allows the libertine to abandon the all-too-human aspects of his character. 

 

Deleuze further formalised this in Coldness and Cruelty (1967), arguing that Sadean apathy is fundamentally directed against sentiment. Because moral guilt or emotional pleasure represents a dangerous dissipation of mental focus, the libertine derives ultimate satisfaction from pure mathematical and philosophical reasoning. His sex, as Lawrence would say, is in his head - but that's precisely where he wants it to be. 

 

L'apathie acts as a mechanism that clears away emotional noise, transforming sex into something experienced in the mind and imagination rather than the body and its organs, thereby allowing the ego to contemplate the pleasure of negating natural instincts [8]. By maintaining zero degree coldness, the libertine becomes a machine capable not only of acts of debauchery, but violent atrocity.     

 

IV. 

 

Early punk was to a large extent defined by a rhetoric of boredom, blank generational indifference, and pretty vacancy. The Sex Pistols explicitly stated that they didn't care and Rotten boasted of the fact that he had no feelings for anybody else (only his beautiful self) [9]. 

 

However, like almost everything else, this was merely a defensive (and stylistic) pose against systemic disappointment. The majority of punks, bless them, wanted to have fun, and to feel, and to have a rosy future full of career opportunities. Theirs was a form of faux apathy and feigned indifference - the fact that Rotten would often berate his audiences to get off their arses gives the game away. All too often punk was an expression of sincere moral outrage and a frustrated desire for change.     

 

V. 

 

In conclusion: punk's relationship with Sade remains purely superficial, transactional, and aesthetic and, as a form of Romantic idealism, punk has opposing goals to Sadism [10].  

McLaren and Westwood may have exploited aspects of Sade's work - mostly the tits and bums - just as they borrowed from numerous other sources in order to fuck the rich up the arse and generate cash from chaos, but, ultimately, they were more interested in anarchy and the politics of boredom than apathy and la philosophie dans le boudoir. 

 

 

Photo of Jordan (the first Sex Pistol) 

by David Parkinson (1975) [11] 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Leo Buscaglia, Love (Charles B. Slack, 1972), p. 112.  

 

[2] The word sloth comes from the Old English term slǣwþ, simply referring to pace meaning as it did slowness. But by the late 12th century, the term now written as slewthe or slouthe, had developed a markedly moral connotation and shifted to mean indolence. It was applied specifically to those who avoided their duties and neglected their responsibilities. 

      In the 14th century, it was finally adopted as the English translation of the Latin term acēdia (a state of spiritual apathy) and listed among the seven deadly sins. Thus, in Catholic theology, sloth is more than mere laziness; it's a culpable lack of effort to do good and a willful refusal of the joy that comes from purposeful living and divine goodness. To put this in punk terms, the slothful individual is vacant to the point of no longer caring about their status or condition (the original Greek term - ἀκηδία - literally meant an inert state without pain or concern).  

      Although I here wish to write primarily of apathy, I hope at some future point to return to the concept of acedia (sometimes written as accidie). I am particularly interested in how as it has been used in more modern times by figures including Aldous Huxley, who wrote an essay on the subject in 1923, and Walter Benjamin who in The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1925), describes acedia an 'indolence of the heart' that can lead to the ruin of great figures. Some readers might recall that I have previously said something on acedia in my 'Mourning Post' (25 April 2023). 

 

[3] Matthew Worley, 'Whip in my valise: British punk and the Marquis de Sade, c. 1975-85', in Contemporary British History, 36 (2), pp. 277-321. 

      In brief, this essay argues that punk was an attempt by McLaren and Westwood to fuse youth and sexual subcultures in order to provoke a dominant culture believed to be repressive. Worley examines the Sadean influences on this project conceived at 430 King's Road in the mid-1970s, suggesting that the Divine Marquis had a seminal impact on the punk movement. 

      The essay is available as a pdf at https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/104006/  

 

[4] Matt Worley ... p. 303.

 

[5] Ibid., p. 305.  

 

[6] Sade, Philosophy in the Boudoir, trans. Meredith Head (Creation Books, 2004), p. 94. 

 

[7] Sade explicitly borrowed the structural technique of l’apathie from ancient Greek philosophy, describing it in Juliette (1797-1801) as an outstanding example of the benefits that one gets from studying Stoicism. Like the Stoics, Sade believed in the sovereignty of reason, rigorous self-discipline (askesis), and independence from external distractions or stimuli (self-sufficiency). 

      However, Sade radically inverted the ethical purpose of Stoicism based on his fundamentally opposing view of existence. For example, the Stoics saw Nature and the Cosmos as essentially harmonious and benevolent. Sade, on the other hand, saw Nature and the Cosmos as destructive and chaotic. The Stoics also wished to eliminate the negative emotions (rage, fear, lust) in order to cultivate a healthy, happy human being. Sade was more interested in suppressing moral feelings (of pity and remorse, for example) so as to engineer a monster of coldness and cruelty who views others merely as disposable objects.  

      Ultimately, Stoic apatheia is about freedom from emotional turmoil in order that one can lead a good life; Sade's model of libidinal sovereignty sees l'apathie as a means to detach oneself from conscience and all human feeling in order to consummate nihilism. As Blanchot says, it's a shocking inversion of values.  

 

[8] The question of nature is not straightforward in Sade. On the one hand, he would agree that the deliberate destruction of all human feeling is unnatural. But, on the other hand, he would argue that by achieving complete insensibility to the suffering of others the libertine frees their passions from moral law and mimics the destructive indifference of Nature herself.   

 

[9] See the posts on the Sex Pistols' songs 'Pretty Vacant' and 'No Feelings' published on TTA on 30 July 2018 and 19 April 2023 respectively. 

 

[10] The 18th-century Romantic poet Novalis declared that the goal was to cast off apathy and to live a life full of passion and feeling; burning like a flame on the edge of ecstasy - and that sounds closer to the punk ideal of living fast and dying young than the Sadean ideal of l'apathie in which one puts the heart on ice and lives a life that is both unnatural and inhuman. See the post 'On Phlegm, Philosophy, and Apathy' (25 April 2023). 

 

[11] This famous photo by David Parkinson of Jordan (Pamela Rooke) modelling a red-rubber outfit from McLaren and Westwood's King's Road store, SEX, featured in a six-page article titled 'Sado Sex for the Seventies', written by David May, in the adult magazine Gallery International (Vol. 1, No. 4, 1975). 

      A copy of the magazine has thankfully been preserved by cultural historian and McLaren's biographer Paul Gorman in his archive. For more information - and to purchase your very own copy of the above in excellent condition (priced $300) - visit recordmecca.com  

 

    

Reflections on the Ghost of Vivienne Westwood

Walking down the King's Road, one encounters many ghosts but I was still rather taken aback by the spectral image of Vivienne Westwood rising up before me: 

 

 

Vivienne Westwood by Invader (2024)  

 

Known for his ceramic tile mosaics based on the pixelated art of early 8-bit video games, the French street artist Invader [1] has created a spooky posthumous portrait of the iconic British fashion designer wearing a version of the Destroy shirt created in collaboration with her partner Malcolm McLaren. 

 

Readers familiar with the photo taken at Seditionaries upon which the portrait is based, will note how an alien figure has replaced the swastika and inverted crucifix of the original design:

 

 

Vivienne Westwood by Norma Moriceau (1977)

 

 

On entering the tiny store based at 430 King's Road - forever preserved in its final incarnation as Worlds End - one can't help but remember the dead: not just Vivienne, but Malcolm, Jordan, Sid, Debbie Wilson, Tracie O'Keefe ... et al.  

 

And one can't help wondering if there are ways of being haunted by the past which are vital and allow for a critical nostalgia which troubles the present and enables us to live yesterday tomorrow. 

 

To paraphrase Heidegger, mayn't it be the case that only a ghost can save us now ...? [2]

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] Invader is a pseudonymous French street artist whose work can be found in major cities in numerous countries around the world, often in culturally and/or historically significant sites, although Paris remains the primary location for his work. 

      Often deriving inspiration from the video games he loved to play when growing up in the 1970s and '80s - Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Super Mario, etc. - he often publishes books (and maps) to accompany his installations (or 'invasions' as he calls them). 

      As one might imagine, like Banksy his works have attracted the attention of wealthy collectors and have sometimes been stolen to order off of the walls upon which they were installed (something he has tried to counteract by selecting sites that are more difficult to reach and creating larger works with more delicate tiles that cannot be removed without damaging the piece). When legitimaely sold in galleries, his work can fetch six-figure sums. 

      Shepard Fairey, again as one might imagine, was an early admirer, writing: 

      "Invader's pop art may seem shallow, but by taking the risk of illegally re-contextualizing video game characters in an urban environment that provides more chaotic social interaction than a gamer's bedroom, he makes a statement about the desensitizing nature of video games and consumer culture. In a postmodern paradox, a game like Grand Theft Auto takes the danger of the streets and puts it in a safe video game, while Invader takes a safe video game icon and inserts it into the danger of the streets." See Shepard Fairy, 'Space Invader', Swindle magazine, No. 3, 2004.

 

[2] Heidegger's famous statement - Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten - appeared in a 1966 interview with Der Spiegel, published posthumously in 1976. It reflects his belief that modern humanity is trapped in a crisis that cannot be resolved through human agency alone. 

      Not that he was referring by his use of the term 'god' to a traditional religious deity or a personal savior, anymore than by my use of ther term 'ghost' I am referring to a sheet-wearing apparition or supernatural entity in the clichéd sense. Like Heidegger, I'm calling upon an event outside of human control that triggers a radical and transformative cultural shift that allows for a new revealing or mode of being; or, like Mark Fisher in his hauntological writings, I'm referring to a manifestation of a lost future or a potentiality that has not been actualised.  

      The interview with Heidegger, conducted by Rudolf Augstein and Georg Wolff, was translated by William J. Richardson and can be found in Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, ed. Thomas Sheehan (Transaction Publishers, 1981), pp. 45-67. Click here to read on the Internet Archive.  

      See Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Zero Books, 2022) - a work on which I published a three part post in November 2023: click here for part one on lost futures and here for part three on hauntology.   

 

On the Three Punk Graces: Vivienne, Jordan, and Soo Catwoman

The Three Punk Graces: Soo, Jordan & Vivienne 

(SA/2025)

 

 

I.

 

The ancient Greeks may have famously had their Charites, but punk mythology has given us our very own version of the three Graces ...

 

Vivienne, Jordan, and Soo Catwoman may not have personified Classical notions of charm, beauty, and elegance, but they did embody the McLarenesque virtues of sex, style, and subversion; not so much the daughters of Zeus, as the offspring of Kháos (i.e., born of  a reality outside the known, familiar, and reliable world in which most people choose to make their home). 

 

 

II. 

 

Jordan, or Pamela Rooke as many commentators now insist on calling her (presumably in an attempt to unveil what they think of as the real human being beneath the beehive and facepaint and intimidating sexual persona) [1], was always more than just a superstar sales assistant; she was effectively the gatekeeper controlling access to 430 Kings Road, the sanctum sanctorum of punk, ensuring that the clothes were only worn by those who deserved to wear them [2].  

 

Everybody's favourite bleached platinum-blonde was the one who embodied the ethos and aesthetic of SEX so perfectly that we might legitimately call her the first Sex Pistol. And so it was only right that Jordan was the one to introduce the band on their first TV appearance in August 1976, attempting to inject a little further chaos into the proceedings by dancing and rearranging the furniture at the side of the stage [3]. 

 

Crucially, not only was Jordan willing to transform herself into a walking work of art and wear McLaren and Westwood's designs no matter how outrageous, but, when required to do so, she was also prepared to flash the flesh and get her tits out for the cause; stripped on stage by Johnny Rotten, for example [4], or posing with Vivienne and other members of the SEX fraternity for a notorious series of photos in the shop taken by David Dagley [5]. 

 

 

III. 

 

Although she wasn't a member of the Bromley Contingent, Sue Lucas - better known as Soo Catwoman - was a crucial (and much photographed) figure on London's early punk scene and a confidente of the Sex Pistols, at one time sharing a flat with Sid Vicious.  

 

Her distinctive feline image was so powerful that she was even chosen to feature on the front cover of the first (and only) edition of the official Sex Pistols' fanzine, Anarchy in the U. K. [6] and she was widely acknowledged - even by Rotten - as being one of the true creators of punk style.     

 

It goes without saying that I will always have affection for Miss Lucas - despite Bertie Marshall's less than flattering portrait of her [7]. But I can't say I'm impressed with her belated attempt to reclaim, protect, and market her own extraordinary look, in the naive belief - common amongst many punks - that authenticity is of absolute importance and that style is something that cannot (and should not) be copied [8]. 

 

IV. 

 

Finally, we come to the queen bee herself: Vivienne Westwood ... 

 

If, as argued here, Jordan was the one who put the sex in the Sex Pistols - and Soo was the Sex Pistols' devotee who demonstrated that theirs was first and foremost a revolt into style - then Vivienne, in collaboration with her partner Malcolm McLaren, was the woman who not only politicised sex and weaponised style with her fabulous clothes, but encouraged an entire generation to think it reasonable to demand the impossible. 

 

If, in her later years, Westwood became - like so many of the punk generation - increasingly irritating, it remains the case that she was an astonishing and massively influential figure and, as with Jordan and Soo Catwoman, I will always think of her with a certain fondness and admiration. 

 

In fact, despite certain competing loyalties, I feel increasingly generous toward Westwood in the years between 1971 and 1984 (i.e., the years stretching from Let It Rock to Worlds End when she was involved - in one way or another and for better or for worse - with McLaren).  

 

I would even go so far as to say that no one - not Jordan or Johnny Rotten, Soo Catwoman or Steve Jones - ever looked as magnificent as Westwood in her own designs and no one was as messianic about punk at the time as Vivienne, as this lovely photograph taken outside Seditionaries in the summer of 1977 by Elisa Leonelli illustrates:   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] It might be noted that Jordan chose the unisex autonym when aged 14, long before punk, so it was more than merely a nickname.   

 

[2] As she told one interviewer in 2016: 

      "Some people would come in the shop and just want to grab something because they had money and I would say [...] 'You can’t buy that. You shouldn't buy that, it's not for you'. [...] I wasn't prepared to sell things that looked awful on people just because they had the money to buy it. It would have been bastardising something beautiful just for the money." 

      McLaren and Westwood endorsed this policy of only selling things to those who could justify their wanting to purchase a piece of clothing (i.e., individuals who had the right attitude and shared their ideological perspective). 

      Following Jordan's death, the interview was reproduced in Dazed magazine (22 April 2022): click here.

 

[3] I'm referring of course to the band's brutally intense performance of 'Anarchy in the U. K.' on So It Goes, presented by Tony Wilson (Granada Television, 28 August 1976); one of the great moments in televised rock 'n' roll history, watched by an amused Peter Cook and an outraged Clive James. 

      Jordan, who has been asked by the show's producers to cover up the swastika armband on her Anarchy shirt, announces the Sex Pistols by declaring them to be "if possible, even better than the lovely Joni Mitchell": click here to watch the entire episode on YouTube. Jordan appears (briefly) at 1:09-1:14. And the band are introduced by Wilson beginning 21:14 ... Bakunin would've loved it.       

  

[4] The gig I'm referring to when Jordan graced the stage with the Sex Pistols and ended up topless took place at Andrew Logan's Studio, on 14 February, 1976.  

 

[5] The photos by Dagley were taken to illustrate an interview Westwood gave to Len Richmond for the adult magazine Forum, in which she discussed the kinky sexual politics she and Malcolm were promoting (involving bondage and rubber wear). As well as Jordan and Westwood, Steve Jones, Danielle Lewis, Alan Jones, and Chrissie Hynde, also pose provocatively for the pictures. They can be viewed on Shutterstock: click here.

 

[6] The 12 page fanzine, designed by Jamie Reid in collaboration with Sophie Richmond, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, and photographer Ray Stevenson, was intended to be sold on the 'Anarchy' tour in December 1976.  

 

[7] See p. 68 of Marshall's memoir - Berlin Bromley (SAF Publishing Ltd., 2007) - where he describes Lucas as a wannabe member of the Bromely Contingent who not only slept with everyone's boyfriend, but essentially just barged her way on to the scene; "she thought she could replace Jordan but didn't have the charisma or the originality, she was in the right place at the right time with that one look".  

 

[8] I discuss this topic at greater length in the post 'Of Clowns and Catwomen' (8 December 2016): click here.  

 

Bonus 1: An interview with Jordan by Miranda Sawyer for an episode of The Culture Show entitled 'Girls will be Girls', (BBC2, 2014): click here.  

 

Bonus 2: Soo Catwoman singing 'Backstabbers' (Spit Records, 2010); her version of the O'Jays 1972 hit: click here.

 

Bonus 3: Finally, here's an amusing piece of film from the BBC archive showing a bemused Derek Nimmo getting a punk makeover courtesy of Vivienne Westwood, while Jordan and members of the Sex Pistols watch on. The clip is from Just A Nimmo, originally broadcast 24 March, 1977: click here.  

 

 

For a sister post to this one on three more punk graces - Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, and Helen of Troy - please click here. 

 

  

In Praise of Hobble Skirts and Bondage Suits

Jordan and Vivienne having a fag break outside Seditionaries in 1977 

wearing bondage suits as a fashionable young Edwardian 

in a hobble skirt time hops from 1911  

 

 

I. 

 

It's funny, but one of the paradoxical lessons of fashion is that restricting the movement of the body can liberate the wearer. We see this, for example, in the Edwardian era (1901-1910) and in the even briefer punk period ruled by McLaren and Westwood (1974-80); the former giving us the hobble skirt and the latter the bondage suit ... 

 

 

II.

 

The English word hobble probably has a Dutch-German etymology. 

 

But whatever its origin, it means the same thing: you're not going to walk evenly, quickly, or very comfortably once you've been hobbled. In other words, hobbling is a technique for the production of artificial awkwardness; one that causes the individual to shuffle, sway, and - if not careful - lose balance and stumble.          

 

The hobble skirt, which came with an outrageously narrow hem circumference of less than 36 inches, was very popular with those fashionable few in the know. The design was so extreme that some hobble skirts impeded a woman's stride to a mere six inches (i.e., about four times less than normal). 

 

Now, I know that some feminist fashion historians interpret this in a purely negative light. But it might be argued that the hobble skirt was a way in which newly emancipated women experimented with their own freedom (their own bodies, their own clothing) and mocked the Victorian idea that they were vulnerable and in need of male protection and assistance by pushing it to a ludicrous extreme. 

 

Ultimately, whatever the politics of the hobble skirt, what cannot be denied is that a tight hemline and high waistline produces a marvellous silhouette.      

 

 

III.

 

Some people believe the hobble skirt to have been inspired by the Japanese kimono; others credit Mrs Edith Ogilby Berg - one of best dressed women of the period - with inspiring its creation ... 

 

In 1908, Mrs Berg attended a Wright Brothers demonstration in France and asked for a ride, becoming the first American woman to fly as a passenger in an aeroplane (even if the flight only lasted a little over two minutes). 

 

Not wanting her skirt to be billow in the wind during the flight, she had quickly fastened a rope around the hem of her ankle-length skirt. And when, with the rope still in place, she tottered from the aircraft after landing a fashion designer in the crowd of spectators had a moment of inspiration - et voila! the hobble skirt (or la jupe entravée as he termed it) was conceived [1]. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Predictably, the gentlemen of the press had a field day, the hobble skirt causing a mixture of outrage and merriment. Numerous editorials were written condemning them; sometimes on the grounds of health and safety and sometimes in the name of public decency and common sense. Hundreds of cartoons and comic postcards were also produced, mocking the women who wore them. 

 

But of course, these fashionable women didn't care; they loved the fact the hobble skirt brought them attention and knew long before Adam Ant that ridicule is nothing to be scared of [2]. And if you stumbled while wearing one and fell in the canal, or in front of a runaway horse, well ... C'est la vie! 

 

Scorning the actions of those women who made alterations to their skirts to allow for greater movement - adding subtle slits, hidden pleats, and buttons at the skirt's hem - the hardcore hobble devotees would sometimes even tie their legs together at the knee; a point which brings us nicely on to the bondage suit designed by Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood over 65 years later and sold in their King's Road store Seditionaries.

 

 

V.

 

If obliged to choose just one outfit to epitomise the punk aesthetic, it would have to be the unisex bondage suit. 

 

The story goes that Malcolm had returned from a trip to the States with a pair of standard-issue green cotton army trousers which he instructed Vivienne to copy in shiny black sateen. McLaren then had the genius idea of a metal zip that went right up between the legs and, perhaps more crucially, a strap between the knees, restricting the wearer's movement and giving the trousers their name [3].   

 

After designing a matching jacket with straps, zips, snap fastenings, and D-rings [4], the couple had created one of the most iconic garments of punk style, which later came in tartan and with the addition of a detachable bum flap to give a primitive element to the outfit.

 

The tagline for Seditionaries was clothes for heroes - and that was exactly how the wearer would feel as they hobbled along going Nowhere in their bondage outfit; daring, defiant, and dandyish. They had, with their own irreverence, escaped the world of normality [5] - just like the hobble skirt wearing women had done all those decades earlier.        

 

 

 

Funny girl Fanny Brice in a hobble skirt (1910) and 

punk designer Vivienne Weswood in a bondage suit (1977)

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The French fashion designer may have been Paul Poiret; he it was who claimed credit for the hobble skirt (just as he did for wide-legged trousers in 1910), although it's not entirely clear whether the skirt was uniquely his creation. The fact is, skirts had been rapidly narrowing for several years already. 

      However, just as I'm happy to think of Mary Quant as the inventor of the miniskirt - even though that's not entirely true (again, the era-defining skirt of the 1960s was the result of a trend for rising hemlines and a wider cultural shift towards youthful informality and fun) - I'm happy also to think of Poiret as both the inventor of the hobble skirt and the man responsible for convincing women to throw away their corsets. As he never tired of boasting: I freed the bust, but shackled the legs!       

 

[2] Lyric by Adam Ant from the song 'Prince Charming', released as a single from the album of the same title by Adam and the Ants in 1981 (CBS Records): click here to play on YouTube. 

 

[3] To watch a short film on YouTube in which McLaren talks about making a pair of bondage trousers and dressing a generation who were bored, nihilistic, and in search of a new identity, please click here.    

 

[4] Paul Gorman informs us that the matching bondage top "was modelled on an oiled canvas jacket produced by the traditional British outwear brand Barbour". However, by the time McLaren and Westwood had finished transforming the piece with straps and whatnot, it "resembled a high fashion straightjacket". 

      Gorman also notes that the duo also designed a pair of bondage boots, "in canvas and soft leather", for those who wanted to complete the look. See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), pp. 318-319.  

 

[5] For my own experience of wearing bondage clothes inspired by McLaren and Westwood's original design, see the post published on 16 October 2015: click here. 

What's in a Word: Punk

 'The cult is called punk; the music punk rock ...'

 

 

I. 

 

In a pre-Grundy television interview, Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten is asked by Maggie Norden:

 

"What about the word 'punk' - it means worthless, nasty - are you happy with this word?"

 

A crucial question to which he replies: 

 

"No, the press gave us it. It's their problem, not ours. We never called ourselves punk." [1]

 

It's a somewhat surprising response which every idiot who proclaims that they'll be a punk until they die might care to consider ...

 

 

II.  

 

When Rotten refers to the press, he was more than likely thinking of posho freelance journalist and photographer Caroline Coon, who, having risen to prominence as part of the British Underground scene in the 1960s, attached herself to the new youth movement spearheaded by the Sex Pistols in the mid-70s [2].

For it was Coon, writing for the influential music paper Melody Maker, who famously described this anarchic subculture held together with safety pins and bondage straps as punk - a name by which, for better or for worse, it has been known ever since (despite Rotten's disavowal of the term) [3].

 

Personally, I always think it a pity when something as beautifully fluid, ambiguous, and messed up as the scene that grew out of 430 King's Road is identified and codified; to name is to know and to know is to kill. Calling the Sex Pistols a punk band was to suggest they were not something radically new or different; that they could, in fact, be compared with other groups and to prevailing rock trends.

 

That's undoubtedly true of the Clash - the band with whom Coon became most closely associated - but it's absolutely not true of the Sex Pistols as conceived by McLaren and Westwood. And not true either of Alan Jones, Jordan, and all those others who either worked at or hung around 430, King's Road. 

 

Assuming that a collective term of reference is at least provisionally needed, what should we call this assemblage of individuals ?   

 

Perhaps the best answer to this question was supplied by cultural critic Peter York, who, in October '76, referred to the "Sex shop people" and characterised them as the "extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars" [4]. 

 

That, I think, is spot on: and very much in line with how I think of the Sex Pistols and those closely associated with them - as more funny peculiar than punk; i.e., as unusual, strange, abnormal, deviant, perverse, extraordinary, singular, exceptional, outlandish ... 

 

The photo below perfectly captures just how queer things were before being named and tamed by the media and the music business and before an army of identikit punks emerged.         

 

The Sex shop people: (L-R) Steve Jones, Danielle, Alan Jones, 

Chrissie Hynde, Jordan, and Vivienne Westwood 

Photo by David Dagley (Forum, June 1976)

 

Notes

 

[1] The full six minute interview with McLaren and Rotten - including a pre-recorded performance of 'Anarchy in the UK' - was on the tea-time current affairs show Nationwide (BBC1 12 Nov 1976). It can be found in the BBC Archive on Facebook: click here. A shorter version - without the band's performance - can also be found on YouTube: click here.   

 

[2] Acting on the recommendation of Alan Jones, then working as an assistant alongside Jordan at McLaren and Westwood's shop on the King's Road, Coon attended an early Sex Pistols gig and, like many others, she was captivated by what she saw happening both on and off stage and immediately began to document this new scene.  

 

[3] See Coon's Melody Maker article entitled 'Punk Rock: Rebels Against the System' (7 August 1976).       

      Although the word punk had already been used fairly widely for several years in connection to rock music in the US - and, indeed, has a much longer and more complex history than that: click here - it was Coon's piece that played a crucial role in introducing a slightly revised version of the term to a British audience and helping to identify a novel (but not radically new) genre of music.

      Coon obviously had a gift for this kind of thing as, interestingly, she was also the person who named the hardcore group of friends who followed the Sex Pistols as the 'Bromley Contingent'.

 

[4] Peter York, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. York was writing in an article entitled 'Them', in Harpers & Queen (October, 1976).

 

 

Pagan Magazine: Remembered and Reimagined

A mock-up cover illustrating how Pagan Magazine might look 

in 2024 based on a recent post on Torpedo the Ark

 

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of Pagan: The Magazine of Blood-Knowledge (1983-1992). 

 

And, whilst I have discussed the origins of this obscure publication previously on Torpedo the Ark and provided a full index of issues - click here - I think this might be an opportune moment to offer a few further remarks in response to a suggestion that Pagan be digitised and made available online and in answer to the following questions asked by this same person:

1. Can you explain why you chose the title Pagan for the magazine?

 

As far as I recall, this was inspired by D. H. Lawrence; not just his religious and occult writings, but the fact that he and his close friends belonged to a literary society as adolescents referred to by some as 'the Pagans' [1]. 

 

This small group would discuss all kinds of ideas and read authors including Marx, Nietzsche, and Darwin and I wanted the magazine to reflect the same degree of intellectual curiosity. My readings of Nietzsche in the mid-1980s only reinforced my view that this was the perfect name for the magazine and although I never used the following section from The Will to Power, it very much reflects the kind of thing that fired my imagination at the time:

 

"We few or many who again dare to live in a dismoralised world, we pagans in faith: we are probably also the first to grasp what a pagan faith is: - to have to imagine higher creatures than man, but beyond good and evil; to have to consider all being higher as also being immoral. We believe in Olympus - and not in the 'Crucified'." [2]

 

I still think it's a nice title, although that's partly due to the fact that I'm strongly inclined towards auto-descriptive words beginning with the letter P: punk, pirate, poet, pagan, etc. However, I would almost certainly change the subtitle - if it ever was the subtitle and not merely a strapline - as the irrationalist concept of blood-knowledge is one I have come to find problematic [3]. I think now I would be tempted to go with Pagan: the Magazine of Dark Enlightenment.

 

 

2. Can you remember the circumstances surrounding the production of the early issues?

 

Not very well. I was twenty at the time and studying for a degree in Leeds. That period is very much like a dream now and I don't remember much about it.  

 

Fortunately, however, I kept a diary and, apparently, it was on Thursday 7 April, 1983, that I suddenly had the idea of putting together a magazine that would reflect my new philosophy - a post-punk primitivism partly inspired by D. H. Lawrence and a second-hand copy of the Larousse Encyclopedia of World Mythology.

 

I designed a front cover - which, to be honest, is a complete dog's dinner - and began writing the text that evening. The first issue wasn't completed, however, until the middle of the following month, when I was in London at Charisma Records. 

 

It was there that I made a hundred photocopies of the ten-side issue on 16 May. Don't ask what happened to them, but I know that one was sent to Malcolm McLaren's office at 25 Denmark Street and it might be noted that the woman's face featured on the cover with a thick black band of makeup across her eyes was inspired by the dancers in the 'Buffalo Gals' video (a look McLaren borrowed from Ridley Scott's Bladerunner (1982)). 

 

The image of Priapus which also featured on the cover was intended to be a kind of logo, but, sadly, it didn't appear on any future issues and I think Pan became the presiding deity for the most part.   

 

The superior second issue, with original artwork by Gillian Hall - my on-off (mostly off) partner at the time - came out in July and was quickly followed by issue three, which was a poetry issue with a picture of Jordan (Pamela Rooke) on the cover. The magazine didn't really come into its own until the period 1986-89, which is when the vast bulk of issues were produced (on A3 paper). 

 

 

3. Were you part of the pagan/esoteric/occult scene in the 1980s?

 

No, not at all. 

 

My interests were very much to do with art, politics, and popular culture, rather than magic or witchcraft. I read books about the latter and had a T-shirt with a picture of Aleister Crowley on, but that was about it. 

Having said that, there were issues of Pagan on subjects including alchemy, astrology, and tarot, so it would be a little disingenuous to say I had no interest in (or knowledge of) these things. Further, I was a regular reader of Pagan News, edited by Phil Hine, who has since become an internationally respected author on chaos magic and related topics and we occasionally cross paths in London. 

 

However, my attempt to garner support for the magazine from Leonora James, the Gardnerian High Priestess who was then serving as President of the Pagan Federation, ended badly after she decided that images I had used by German Expressionist painters had paedophile undertones. She warned me that if I were to send her any future copies of Pagan Magazine she would immediately report me to the police!

 

After that, I had no further contact with people on the pagan scene until I met Christina Harrington, in 2004, and became involved with things happening at her magical little bookshop, Treadwell's [4].     

 

 

4. Finally, do you still identify as a pagan and do you see Torpedo the Ark as a continuation of the project you began with Pagan Magazine forty years ago?   

 

I don't really identify as anything to be honest and, whilst there are certainly posts on TTA that might be interpreted as pagan in character, the blog is ultimately a very different kettle of fish and has a radically different philosophy and perspective. I found it fun doing the mockup cover for an imaginary issue of Pagan Magazine published in 2024, but don't think my heart would really be in it if asked to produce an entire new issue. Some things are very much of their time and Pagan belongs in the 1980s like a fish belongs in water. 

 

But again, having said that, I obviously still read Lawrence and Nietzsche and I have presented two papers at Treadwell's recently - one on the magical allure of objects and the other on occultism in the age of transparency [5] - so, who knows, perhaps for the 50th anniversary I might be tempted to reboot the magazine. But I doubt it.      

 

 

Artwork for Pagan Magazine, Issue 2 (1983), 

by Gillian Hall

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See John Worthen, D. H. Lawrence: The Early Years 1885-1912, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 170.  

[2] Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, ed. Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1968), section 1034 (1888), p. 533.

 

[3] I have twice discussed Lawrence's concept of blood-knowledge on Torpedo the Ark: click here and here. 

 

[4] See the post dated 4 December 2012 entitled 'The Treadwell's Papers' - click here. 

 

[5] Details of both these events can be found on the TTA Events page: click here.

 

 

Out of the Punk Ruins and Into the Age of Piracy

Jordan as SEX punk (1976) 

and Worlds End pirate (1981)

 

'Twas a sunny day when I went to play down by the deep blue sea  

I jumped aboard a pirate ship and Malcolm said to me ...

 

 

I. 

 

One of the things I most love about the animated closing scene to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980) aboard the good ship Venus [1] is that it anticipates the radical move that McLaren (and Westwood) were to make the following year when they transformed Seditionaries into Worlds End and replaced the figure of the punk rocker with that of the pirate, obliging an entire generation to either set sail with them on a new swashbuckling new adventure, or risk being thrown overboard like that scurvy dog Johnny Rotten.

 

 

II.

By 1979 it was clear that Seditionaries was no longer the centre of the world:

"McLaren and Westwood's customer base was no longer drawn from the cutting edge of the capital's cognoscenti. Now visitors comprised curious provincials, cookie-cutter second-wave punks, Johnny-come-latelies and Sid fans." [2]

 

It was time to move on, or risk becoming trapped by old ideas and old looks - although, ironically, this meant leaving the 20th-century by travelling back to a more Romantic time. 

 

McLaren, now more excited by the outlaw than the rebel, began to conceive of a new age of piracy - one which Westwood was able to brilliantly materialise with her latest fashion designs. Their partnership was once more "firing into the future" [3] and it was all systems (C30 C60 C90) Go!  

 

Of course, this meant the shop at 430 King's Road would also require a major refit ... 

  

 

III.

 

Worlds End - the fifth and final version of the store - was arguably the most imaginative; a cross between a pirate's ship and the Old Curiosity Shop made famous by Dickens. Not as pervy as Sex; not as intimidating as Seditionaries, Worlds End was an unreal place of fantasy and promise. 

 

The large clock placed above the entrance with its hands perpetually spinning backwards, suggested the idea of time travel. But the fact that it had thirteen hours rather than the standard twelve made sure that one also aware that the time one was escaping to didn't exist - but might, one day.

 

In retail terms, Worlds End was certainly more successful than the earlier versions of 430 King's Road. And McLaren and Westwood's Pirate collection (1981) was a seminal moment in fashion history (it certainly inspired Galliano). 

 

Even now, the outfits seem astonishingly fresh and colourful; full of youthful exuberance and swagger. Jerry Seinfeld may have rejected the pirate look [4], but for many of us, the puffy shirt was once a must have back in the day and every now and then you'll still see models on the catwalk wearing clothes inspired by the clothes Malcolm and Vivienne created.  

  

Post-punk pirates Bow Wow Wow 

looking the part in 1981

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this scene earlier this year on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 438.

[3] Ibid., p. 450.

 

[4] I'm referring to the episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Puffy Shirt' [S5/E2], dir. Tom Cherones (1993), in which Jerry famously declares: "I don't wanna be a pirate!" Click here. 

Musical bonus: Adam and the Ants, 'Jolly Roger', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here.

 

Video bonus: Jordan outside Worlds End in 1981 speaking about the new age of piracy: click here.

 

For a related post to this one on Worlds End, please click here.   

Punk It Up (I'm a Sex Pistol Man Oh Yeah!)

Malcolm McLaren: screenshot taken from the video for 

'Punk It Up' (dir. Ian Gabriel): click here. 

A Sex Pistol - that's what I am / I punk it up / I'm a Sex Pistol Man, oh yeah!

 

 

I. 

 

These days, we're all supposed to agree that the Sex Pistols were a four-piece punk rock band fronted by the presiding genius of Johnny Rotten and that they existed from late 1975 through to January 1978, during which time they recorded and released four singles and one perfect album. 

 

But that's not a narrative I subscribe to or go along with. 

 

For me, the Sex Pistols was always a much wider, more interesting and more radical project, conceived by Malcolm McLaren, involving fashion and politics as well as music, and supported by a number of brilliant individuals, including Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, who had no performing role within the group. 

 

For me, the project begins in the spring of 1974 when McLaren and Westwood refurbish their store at 430 King's Road and rebrand it as SEX and Jordan is the original face of punk long before John Lydon ever reared his ugly head. 

 

For me, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records 1979) is, in many respects, a far more challenging and daring album than Never Mind the Bollocks (Virgin Records 1977) and it should be remembered by those punk purists who insist that the latter is the only true album, that the former featured some of the Sex Pistols' greatest hits [1] - just as the film of that title provided some of the most memorable moments in the Sex Pistols story [2]. 

 

And for me, the last Sex Pistols track doesn't appear on either of these albums and doesn't involve any members of the band who went under that name. Written by McLaren and Trevor Horn, and featuring Zulu musicians and backing singers, the track can be found on McLaren's debut solo album, Duck Rock (Charisma Records, 1983) ...

 

II.

 

'Punk It Up' resulted when McLaren spent a few weeks recording material for Duck Rock in South Africa and was asked by the locals to recount stories from his time as manager of the Sex Pistols, much to their delight and amusement:      

"'They couldn't believe when I told them about causing chaos across the land, taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from gullible record companies and sticking a safety pin through the Queens' lips [...] By the end of the story the Zulus were laughing and cheering [...]'" [3]

 

As Paul Gorman rightly says, whilst McLaren refused to allow his central role in the story of the Sex Pistols define him, he was always happy to look back on this period of his life and career and discuss it at length. And so, encouraged by the response to his storytelling, he wrote lyrics for the song 'Punk It Up' and affirmed that, at heart, he remained a Sex Pistol. 

 

'Punk It Up' is a brilliant track - full of joy, full of sunshine, full of chaos, and full of magic; elements that define McLaren's unique vision of post-punk that quickly moved from piracy to paganism and celebrated (amongst others) hobos, hillbillies, and hip hoppers. It almost makes 'Anarchy in the UK' seem a bit provincial ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The double A-sided single coupling 'Something Else' with 'Friggin' in the Riggin'' was the only Sex Pistols single to sell more than a quarter of a million copies.  

 

[2] I'm thinking here, for example, of Sid's performance of 'My Way', about which I have written here. 

 

[3] Malcolm McLaren quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 291.  

Passion Ends in Fashion: Notes on SEX

 

Malcolm outside his notorious boutique 

at 430 King's Road (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

When it comes to the band's name, there's an argument to be made that the Sex Pistols should have been stylised as the SEX Pistols, thereby emphasising the fact that their origins lay in the shop at 430 King's Road and Malcolm's penchant for the kinkier aspects of sexual activity and experience.

 

For Malcolm, as for Foucault, sex is best understood not as a natural function, nor as something to be scientifically studied in order to discover an essential truth about human identity, but, rather, as a sophisticated ars erotica - i.e., a form of pleasure which needs to be creatively cultivated and via which the subject might, in fact, lose (or reinvent) themselves. 

 

And for Malcolm, sex always needed to be thought in relation to two other terms beginning with the letter S: style and subversion (i.e., fashion and politics). Add these three elements together et voila! you produce a pair of bondage trousers.      

 

 

II.

 

McLaren's store at 430 King's Road - run in collaboration with his partner Vivienne Westwood - underwent a series of radical transformations and name changes during its history. 

 

It originally opened (in 1971) as the Teddy boy hang out Let It Rock, before then briefly becoming Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die (1973-74), selling a range of fashions for rockers who preferred to wear black leather jackets and biker boots, rather than drape jackets and blue suede shoes.   

 

In December 1976, the shop was reinvented as Seditionaries and it continued trading under that name until September 1980. As Seditionaries, the boutique adopted a brutalist aesthetic and attitude and stocked the clothes that are now considered the epitome of punk fashion (and sell for thousands of pounds at auction).  

 

In late 1980, the store was relaunched under the name World's End and resembled - as per Malcolm's design instructions - a cross between an 18th-century galleon and the Olde Curiosity Shoppe; punks had been superseded by pirates, Apaches, and buffalo gals. 

 

Each of these shops has a unique fascination and history and each has secured a place in the pop cultural imagination. But, for me, it is Sex that continues to most excite my interest ...

 

 

III.   

 

Quickly bored even with his own projects and uncomfortable with the idea of commercial success, in the spring of 1974, McLaren radically refurbished 430 King's Road and rebranded the shop as Sex: '"That is the one thing that scares the English. They are all afraid of that word.'" [1]

 

The façade included a 4-foot sign of pink foam rubber letters spelling out the new name in capitals. The walls of the interior of the boutique were also lined with pinkish foam rubber and covered with graffitied lines taken from erotic literature and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1967). Latex curtains, red carpeting, and various sexual paraphernalia used decoratively helped to create the sleazy (somewhat intimidating) look of an authentic sex shop.

 

Sex sold fetish and bondage gear supplied by existing specialist labels, as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood which were intended to be provocative rather than seductive. These included T-shirts printed with images of a nude adolescent smoking a cigarette; homosexual cowboys, bare female breasts; and - perhaps most notoriously - a leather mask of the kind worn by the Cambridge Rapist. 

 

Lines taken from pornographic texts were also often added to the designs, as were various Situationist slogans from May '68 - Sous les pavés, le plage, etc. - and references to some of Malcolm's heroes, such as the playwright Joe Orton.    

 

Pamela Rooke - known as Jordan - was hired as a sales assistant and quickly became the shop's face. 

 

In fact, Jordan embodied the spirit of the store better than anyone; better than the extraordinary clientele (which included members of the Bromley Contingent as well as the newsreader Reggie Bosanquet); better than members of the band; better even than Malcolm and Vivienne (though it can't be denied how great the latter also looked wearing her own designs) [2].  

 

Sex was far removed from the retro-revivalism of Let It Rock - although arguably Too Fast To Live possessed some of the same sense of danger and fetishistic appeal - and the customers who hung out at Sex were not the ageing Teddy boys who had so quickly bored and disappointed McLaren. They were, as mentioned, kids who had come out of glam and liked to dress up to mess up and weren't shy about challenging sexual and social conventions.

 

Paul Gorman provides an excellent summary:

 

"As an environmental installation, Sex was sensational; it literally assaulted the senses. The hectoring tone of the scawls on the 'soft' madhouse walls, the heavy jersey of the T-shirts showing severe images and text in queasy colours, the lack of natural light which produced a dull shine on the clinical black rubber garments and the powdery looking drapes, the clammy atmosphere, the 1960s garage-punk blasting from the BAL-AMi, all combined to make the experience unsettling, commanding commitment - a big Sex word - on the part of the visitor. When the door was closed, one felt less like a customer than a client entering a well-appointed dungeon, particularly when coolly appraised by the stern-faced Westwood." [3]  

 

Sex was, thus, a truly magical space aligned with McLaren's own artistic, sexual, and political obsessions. Whilst a million miles away from being what we now term a safe space inhabited by those who describe themselves as woke, it neverthless demanded that customers one day wake up and realise which side of the bed they were lying on [4].

Photo by David Dagley taken inside Sex in 1976 featuring (from L-R):

Steve Jones, Unknown, Alan Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Jordan, & Vivienne Westwood

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 220.

 

[2] As Paul Gorman notes, in 1975, aged 34, Westwood "cut a stunning figure stalking the streets of west and central London, with her shock of blonde hair complemented by such Sex designs as rubber knickers and stockings and a porn T-shirt or a studded Venus top". See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 251.

 

[3] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 226. 

 

[4] I'm referring here to the famous T-shirt conceived by Bernie Rhodes and known (by its abbreviated title) as 'You're Gonna Wake Up'. See the post published on Torpedo the Ark on 16 Dec 2012 on the political importance of making lists: click here.