On Three More Punk Graces: Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, and Helen of Troy

The Three Punk Graces II: Poly, Siouxsie & Helen of Troy

(SA/2025) 

 

 

I. 

 

The Greeks famously have had their Charites, but punk mythology has given us our very own version of the Three Graces: Jordan, Soo Catwoman, and Vivienne Westwood [1]. 

 

In fact, I would argue that those who came of age not in ancient Athens, but London in the mid-late 1970s, were doubly blessed. 

 

For I can easily name at least three other astonishing women who may not have personified Classical notions of charm, beauty, and elegance, but certainly embodied forms of radical alterity [2]: Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, and Helen of Troy ...   

 

 

II.

 

Not only was Siouxsie lead singer, lyricist and frontwoman of her own very successful band - Siouxsie and the Banshees - but she was a key member of that ultra-hip and ultra-loyal group of fans who followed the Sex Pistols in the very early days and became known as the Bromley Contingent [3].

 

In fact, having never really been much of a Banshees fan - I liked some of the early songs, but only ever bought one single and one album by them - it's Siouxsie's devotion to the Sex Pistols that really makes me feel a good deal of affection for her. 

 

Because of her later career as a performer who experimented with various styles of music - and her association with what is known as goth [4] - many commentators forget just how close she was to Rotten and company and how brilliantly she embodied the pervy punk aesthetic being promoted by McLaren and Westwood; quickly becoming notorious on the London club scene for her SEX inspired outfits (often wearing a cupless black bra, for example, with matching swastika armband).     

 

In September 1976, Siouxsie performed a short (mostly improvised) set on stage at the 100 Club Punk Special (an event organised by Malcolm McLaren); Marco Pirroni was on guitar, Steve Severin on bass, and Sid Vicious on drums.   

 

And then, in December '76, she and three other members of the Bromley Contingent accompanied the Sex Pistols to Thames TV where they were being interviewed by Bill Grundy for the Today programme .... and, well, everyone knows what happened (Go on - you've got another five seconds, say something outrageous ... etc.) [5]. 

 

Now, whilst Grundy was absolutely the cause of his own downfall, it has to be said that if Siouxsie hadn't pretended that she'd always wanted to meet him, then, well, who knows how things might have turned out. 

 

But she said what she said, and thus unwittingly instigated what became known as the Bill Grundy Incident which, in turn, triggered a full media meltdown and moral panic; the Daily Mirror famously putting a picture of her on the cover of one edition (Friday, December 3, 1976) along with the headline: Siouxsie's a punk shocker.    

 

Funnily enough, after all this tabloid fuss, Siouxsie began to distance herself from the scene and stopped following the Sex Pistols after the gig at Notre Dame Hall (London) at the end of December '76, preferring to focus her energy on her own career as a singer and songwriter, releasing her first single with the Banshees in August 1978 [6]. 

 

 

III. 

 

Punk was never really about the music and, to the extent that it was about the music, it was best suited to the singles format rather than the album. 

 

However, that's not to say there weren't great punk albums and one of these is Germ Free Adolescents (EMI, 1978) by X-Ray Spex; a group fronted by the uniquely talented singer-songwriter Poly Styrene.  

 

Poly was unarguably one of the most distinctive sounding and looking individuals to have come out of the punk movement [7] and is widely recognised (along with members of the Slits) as a seminal influence on the underground feminist movement known as riot grrrl in the 1990s.   

 

Funnily enough, whilst never a member of the Bromley Contingent, Poly was born in the town, but grew up in Brixton; the biracial child of a Scottish mother and a Somali father.    

 

At fifteen, she ran away from home and hit what remained of the hippie trail, hitch-hiking across the country from one music festival to another and trying to scrape a living as an alternative fashion designer and pop-reggae singer. 

 

But then, on her nineteenth birthday (3 July, 1976), she saw the Sex Pistols playing at the Pier Pavilion in Hastings and had her punk epiphany; forming her own punk band, X-Ray Spex, soon afterwards and taking the punk-sounding name Poly Styrene (one that reflected her obsession with the synthetic world of plastics and consumer culture that had boomed in the post-War era).   

 

The band released their debut single - 'Oh Bondage Up Yours!' - in September 1977 and although it was not a hit at the time (in part due to the fact that the BBC banned it), it is now (rightly) regarded as significant a punk anthem as 'Anarchy in the U. K.' by the Sex Pistols or 'White Riot' by the Clash. 

 

After this, no one ever again intoned the idea of little girls being seen and not heard (in the music business at least, if not wider society): click here to play [8]. 

 

Miss Styrene left the band in mid-1979 and whilst, to be honest, I was not interested in her later life and career, I was saddenned to hear that she died in April 2011 (aged 53) from metastatic breast cancer.  

 

 

IV.

 

Finally, we come to Helen Wellington Lloyd (née Mininberg), or, as she is better known by lovers of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), Helen of Troy; one of the most committed members of the Sex Pistols' entourage and very much part of the inner circle around the band, being a longtime friend (and, briefly, a lover) of Malcolm McLaren [9]. 

 

If anyone embodied what I termed earlier in this post radical alterity, then Helen was it; if only due to her achondroplasia - a rare inherited form of dwarfism - which obliged her to confront the ridicule and discrimination that came her way from those of regular stature [10]. 

 

Punk not only provided her with a more accepting community of creative like-minded individuals, but an identity that allowed her as a little person to openly declare her defiance of and contempt for normies (or those she called plebs) with their conventional notions of beauty, for example.  

     

Helen, a talented art student, was not just a pretty face, however; she it was who first came up with the idea of the Sex Pistols using the ransom note style typography for promotional materials (an idea enthusiastically taken up by Jamie Reid); and she it was who famously featured alongside McLaren in the Swindle, including the famous 'You Need Hands' dance sequence set in Highgate Cemetery - click here - surely one of the most touching scenes in British cinematic history.  

  

Again, as with Siouxsie and Poly Styrene, I'm not too interested in what happened to Helen post-punk; she sold her extensive collection of Sex Pistols memorabilia at Sotheby's (London) in 2001 - which included Rotten's 'Anarchy' shirt (as designed by McLaren and Westwood in 1976) - and then, it's believed, she returned home to South Africa. 

 

Obviously, one wishes her well (if she's still alive) - and obviously, dead or alive, she continues to play an active role in my own imagination.   

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post published on 25 August 2025 in which I discuss this trio of figures who were so central to the British punk revolution: click here.  

 

[2] By radical alterity I refer to Baudrillard's understanding of otherness as it appears throughout his work; i.e., something that is in danger of extinction today, but which might still possibly pose a challenge to the arrogance and narcissism of a closed culture when it is invested with force by a movement such as punk. 

      For me, the three figures discussed here are perfect examples of those Peter York once described as the Peculiars; individuals who are proud not to fit in or subscribe to a model of universal understanding, but to be alien and abnormal, as well as sexy, stylish and subversive. 

 

[3] The name was coined by the music journalist Caroline Coon in September 1976 and, despite the fact that several members of the Bromley Contingent weren't actually from this Greater London suburb (located ten miles southeast of the capital), the name was catchy and convenient enough to stick. 

      Core members included: Siouxsie, Steve Severin, Billy Idol, Simon Barker, Debbie Juvenile, Tracie O'Keefe, Simone Thomas, and Bertie Marshall (Soo Catwoman was often associated with them, but was never considered part of the group by other members or, indeed, by herself).    

      Siouxsie and Steve Severin first saw the Sex Pistols play in London in February 1976 and, after chatting to members of the band afterwards, they immediately became devotees.  

 

[4] Siouxsie often expressed her displeasure with this association and felt the term goth - like punk before it - was ultimately reductive and one used by journalists to oversimplify and categorise work they didn't understand.    

 

[5] For those readers who aren't familiar with the details of the Bill Grundy incident, let me briefly summarise: After Queen cancelled their appearance on the live television show Today show at the last minute, the Sex Pistols were offered the spot in order to promote their debut single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.', and explain what punk rock was all about. 

      Things started badly and quickly got worse when it was clear that Grundy was hostile and dismissive of the band and that the latter - particularly guitarist Steve Jones - were not prepared to take his bullshit, nor listen to his creepy sexual innuendo when speaking to Siouxsie. Suggesting to her that they might 'meet afterwards' triggered Jones into calling him a 'dirty sod' and a 'dirty old man'. 

      Stupidly, Grundy then challenged Jones to 'say something outrageous' - which he did; calling Grundy a 'dirty bastard' and a 'dirty fucker'. Grundy responded, 'What a clever boy! to which Jones hilariously replied, 'What a fucking rotter!'

      Predictably, the phone lines to the Thames switchboard lit up and the national press had a field day. Grundy was suspended by Thames and his career effectively ended. The Sex Pistols were fired shortly afterwards by their record label EMI and were now branded as public enemies. The interview - click here - has become one of the most requested TV clips of all time. 

 

[6] Siouxsie and the Banshees, 'Hong Kong Garden' (Polydor Records, 1978): click here. This debut single reached number 7 in the UK chart.  

 

[7] In many ways, Poly is as a uniquely-looking and uniquely-sounding character as Johnny Rotten and both must rank as amongst the most unconventional - but charismatic - performers in rock history. In order to appreciate this fact, here she is singing perhaps my favourite X-Ray Spex song, 'Identity', which was released as the band's third single (on EMI) in July 1978: click here. 

 

[8] It should be noted that the song is not simply a feminist rejection of male sexual oppression as some imagine; rather, as one critic points out, it's also 'an indictment of consumer culture, denouncing the blind impulses of the mainstream shopper', as the lines: Chain store, chain smoke, I consume you all / Chain gang, chain mail, I don't think at all! make clear. 

      See Lauraine Leblanc, Pretty in Punk: Girls' Gender Resistance in a Boys' Subculture (Rutgers University Press, 1999), pp. 45-46.    

[9] Helen met McLaren on enrolment day at Goldsmiths College, in 1969. Later, through her connection with Malcolm she became a regular on the early London punk scene, where she felt happy and secure surrounded by freaks like her who liked to dress up and mess up: 

      'For the first time I didn't try and merge into the background. I wanted people to look at me with my chains, safety-pins, foxtail and black eyes. For once being a dwarf didn't matter.' - Helen, quoted by Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan in Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2001), and cited on the page dedicated to her on the Punk77 website: click here. 

 

[10] I'm conscious of the fact that one must be wary of going too far in this; that too often well-intentioned depictions of dwarfs in books or films, for example, suggest that they are not simply people of reduced stature, but individuals who have special (almost magical) powers and status due to their condition. Unfortunately, that's not the case and idealising little people is just as bad ultimately as devaluing, denigrating, or disparaging them due to their size.   

      Those interested in working to create a more inclusive society for those with dwarfism might like to visit the websites of Little People UK (co-founded by the actor Warwick Davis) - click here - and the Restricted Growth Association (RGA) - click here.         

On This Day ...

Sex Pistols: Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones, and Paul Cook

Photo by John Gray (1975)

 

 

I. 

 

I know that English historians who specialise in the early modern period will be keen to inform everyone they meet that today is the 540th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth Field; i.e., the last major battle of the War of the Roses and the one in which Richard III bravely met his end (thereby bringing down the curtain on the Plantagenet dynasty and allowing the age of the Tudors to commence). 

 

And I know that English historians who prefer to get excited about the English Civil War will be reminding others that, on this day in 1642, Charles I raised his standard in Nottingham and effectively challenged the Parliamentarians to a fight (which, of course, did not end well for him and his fellow Royalists - losing not just his crown but his head seven years later). 

 

 

II. 

 

However, as a cultural critic more concerned with the art, fashion, and politics between 1870 and the present day, for me the most exciting event that happened on this date happened in 1975 at the Roebuck (354 King's Road) - namely, the first meeting between 19-year-old John Lydon and the other members of the band who were to become known as the Sex Pistols: Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock. 

 

As Paul Gorman notes, at the time Lydon "cut a remarkable figure visually [...] he had cropped and dyed his spiky fair hair [...] and wore distressed and customised clothing" [1], most notably a torn Pink Floyd T-shirt upon which he had scawled the words I HATE above the band's logo. 

 

Steve Jones - who christened Lydon 'Johnny Rotten' because of his green teeth - may have thought (rightly) that he was an arsehole, but he had also to admit Lydon had style, attitude, and intelligence. 

 

And Malcolm agreed: after Lydon auditioned to be the group's singer by miming to a self-chosen track by Alice Cooper that happened to be on the jukebox at SEX [2], McLaren instantly recognised the young man had star quality (the band members were not quite so convinced of this, but McLaren was insistent that they had found the perfect frontman - even if he couldn't sing). 

 

 

III. 

 

Nietzsche writes that he is the kind of philosopher who breaks history in two; that one day mankind will mark time before him and after him [3].   

 

Perhaps we might say the same of the Sex Pistols in relation to popular culture. 

 

Indeed, we might also say of the latter what Nietzsche further says of himself: one day, there will be associated with their name the recollection of something momentous; of a No-saying to everything that until they came along had been believed in as the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, but which was dismissed in 1977 with but a single phrase: never mind the bollocks!  

 

They were, by far, the most terrible band there has ever been; but also the most necessary; anarcho-nihilists who knew joy in destruction and believed in the ruins. 

 

What a shame then, that, fifty years on, Jones, Cook, and Matlock are performing punk karaoke with Frank Carter fronting a kind of ersatz version of the Sex Pistols and Rotten ... well, don't get me started on the abject figure he has become ... [4]   

 

 

 

Sex Pistols: Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and Paul Cook

Reworking John Gray's 1975 photo fifty years on (SA/2025) 

  

Notes

 

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 278.  

 

[2] The track in question was 'I'm Eighteen', released as a single in November 1970, it also featured on the album Love It to Death (Warner Bros., 1971). To listen to the song on YouTube, click here.

 

[3] See Ecce Homo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Pengin books, 1979), 'Why I Am a Destiny' (8), p. 133.    

 

[4] I make my views clear on Rotten in a number of posts written over the last 12 years: click here, here, and here, for example. 

 

 

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. 

That Time I Met Mr Pickle ...

 

I. 

 

One of my favourite scenes in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) is the closing animated sequence in which McLaren and his motley crew are all aboard the good ship Venus and Johnny Rotten, having been found guilty of collaboration, is forced to walk the plank. 

 

Abandoned by his shipmates, the singer finds himself literally all at sea where he is soon swallowed by a great white shark with the Virgin logo clearly visible on its fin [1].    

 

This scene replayed itself in my mind when, in 1983, the Virgin Group acquired Charisma Records (although it wouldn't be until 1986 that the latter was fully digested by the former; still maintaining at least a measure of independence until then). 

 

So, let us say that I was not a fan of Richard Branson and would laugh at Malcolm's stories about this hippie entrepreneur whom he vehemently disliked and derisively called Mr Pickle (either intentionally or mistakenly confusing the surname with that of an English food brand made by Crosse & Blackwell since 1922) [2].  

 

 

II. 

 

I first met Mr Pickle when, as a Charisma employee, I was sent an invitation by him and the directors of the Virgin Group to attend a party at the Manor, in Oxfordshire, to celebrate the first anniversary of Virgin Atlantic.  

 

The Manor, for those who might not know, was a recording studio housed in a 17th century Grade II listed building that had been bought by Branson in 1971, for £30,000, when he was only twenty-one years of age. It was where Mike Oldfield famousy recorded his precious Tubular Bells (1973) [3].

 

As pretty much everyone from Charisma was going to go, I decided I'd also (somewhat begrudgingly) accept Branson's invitation. And here, for those who may be interested, is my memory of the day based on an entry in the Von Hell Diaries dated 22 June, 1985 ... 

 

 

III. 

 

Unsure what to wear, I decided to go with the pink check suit I bought two years ago and which I've kept hanging in my closet - unworn - ever since. After my friend Andy arrived, we went over to pick Lee Ellen up from her place in Chelsea. Then cabbed it over to Kensal House (i.e., Virgin HQ), from where coaches transported everyone to the Manor. 

      Those of us from the Famous Charisma Label were segregated from the Virgin staff and we were seated as a group at the back of the bus. As Robin had kindly brought along several bottles of wine, however, no one seemed to mind about that and, amusingly, we were soon making twice as much noise as the Virginians on board (to be fair, perhaps that's why we were placed at the back of the bus).  

       The Manor was an impressive country pile (provided you have the capacity to be impressed by an assemblage of bricks) and set in very beautiful grounds that included trees, lakes, swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. Mr Pickle was there to meet and greet us personally as we got off the bus. 

      There were three large tents erected and Branson had laid on copious amounts of food and drink as well as various entertainments that one could sign up for, including horse riding and helicopter flights. But I was more interested in Shelley's friend Claire to be honest. Unfortunately, I ruined my chances with her when I split my lip open swigging champagne straight from the bottle. Note to future self: spitting blood à la Sid Vicious is probably not the most attractive look. 

      Ultimately, it was a dull event - even with the odd pop star in attendance - and the weather didn't help (typical English summer's day - wet and chilly). Glad when the coaches turned up to take us back to London. Mr Pickle dutifully came over to say goodbye and shake everyone's hand for a second time: very much Lord of the Manor. And very much not to be trusted ... [4]    

  

 

 

Not to the manor born ... Andy Greenfield and myself 

The Manor Studio (22 June 1985)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this scene in a post published on 4 March 2024: click here. 

 

[2] Use of this nickname is confirmed by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 355. 

      Gorman's assessment of Branson is one I fully endorse; essentially, a very clever businessman from a privileged background who knew a good opportunity when he saw one and had "cultivated a knack of appropriating aspects of youth culture to his commercial gain" (ibid., p. 356). 

 

[3] The idea of building a luxurious home recording studio was still novel at this time; the Manor was only the third such studio in the UK. Oldfield recorded his debut studio album at the Manor in 1972-73 and it was the first album released on the Virgin Records label (25 May 1973). 

      In April 1995, after the takeover of Virgin Records by EMI, the Manor was closed as a recording studio and the building, listed for sale in 2010 at £5.75 million, is now the country home of some toff or other.   

 

[4] Lee Ellen, Robin, and Shelley all worked at Charisma (in the press office, accounts, and A&R department respectively). The final line is my recalling McLaren's famous advice given to Helen in The Swindle: 'Never trust a hippie'.   

 

 

Why Growing Up is So Problematic for an Artist

@artstoheartsproject 

(Instagram 3 July 2025)

 

'The first half of life is learning to be an adult and the second half is learning to be a child.' [1] 

 

 

I. 

 

The above cartoon is funny, as Homer would say, because it's true. 

 

Or, at the very least, it touches upon an idea that might possibly be true; namely, that in order to be an artist one must retain some quality (or qualities) associated with childhood.   

 

It's an idea worth investigating further, I think ... 

 

 

II. 

 

I have always remembered an interview with Sid Vicious in which he adamantly insists that he doesn't want to be a grown up and that he and his bandmates are, essentially, just a bunch of kids. According to many people's favourite Sex Pistol: 

 

"When somebody stops being a kid, they stop being aware. It doesn't matter how old you are; you can be ninety-nine and still be a kid. And as long as you're a kid, you're aware and you know what's happening. But as soon as you grow up ... The definition of a grown up is someone who catches on to things when kids discard them." [2] 

 

That, as Jules would say, is an interesting point. 

 

And I suspect it was genuinely Sid's own view, though it also reflects the thinking of the Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren, who encouraged his young charges to be everything this society hates and by which he primarily meant childish, irresponsible, and disrespectful. 

 

This countercultural philosophy, first conceived by McLaren at art school in the 1960s, was central to punk as it developed in the UK in the 1970s. 

 

For Malcolm, like Sid, being a grown up meant conformity, compromise, and complacency. Being a child, on the other hand, meant remaining open to new ideas and experiences and viewing the world with wonder and a certain innocence - traits that also define an artist (at least in the minds of those who think of art as being more than a matter of paint on canvas).         

 

 

III.

 

Innocence: it's a word that Nietzsche uses in relation to his concept of becoming-child [3]. But it's not one I usually associate with D. H. Lawrence. 

 

However, Lawrence does occasionally speak in favour of naïveté and of the need for an artist to be pure in spirit; which doesn't mean being good in a traditional moral sense of the term, but having a supremely delicate awareness of the world and dwelling in a state of delight [4]. 

 

And Lawrence does say that a combination of innocence + naïveté + modesty might return some young writers and painters not merely to childhood, but to a prenatal condition; i.e., ready to be born into a new golden age.

 

For regression to the foetal state must surely, says Lawrence, be a prelude to something positive:

 

"If the innocence and naïveté as regards artistic expression doesn't become merely idiotic, why shouldn't it become golden?" [5]  

 

 

IV. 

 

Astute readers will note Lawrence's concern in that last line quoted above: there is always the possibility that innocence and naïveté don't result in artistic greatness, but, rather, in idiocy and what Lawrence thinks of as arrested development. 

 

And let's be clear: push comes to shove, Lawrence - like Nietzsche, but unlike McLaren and Vicious - doesn't reject adulthood. 

 

On the contrary, he values it above childhood and whilst he may value the positive qualities associated with children, he loathes those adults who behave in a manner that he regards as immature or infantile and dearly wishes they would grow up and put away childish things (as Paul would say). 

 

Referring to novelists, for example, who, in his view, are overly self-conscious, Lawrence writes: 

 

"It really is childish, after a certain age, to be absorbedly self-conscious. One has to be self-conscious at seventeen: still a little self-conscious at twenty-seven; but if we are going at it strong at thirty-seven, then it is a sign of arrested development, nothing else. And if it is still continuing at forty-seven, it is obvious senile precocity." [6]    

 

Such people, says Lawrence - and in many ways I'm one of them - who "drag their adolescence on into their forties and their fifties and their sixties" [7] and either can't or won't grow up, need some kind of medical help [8].  

 

  

Notes

 

[1] This is one of several well-known quotes attributed to Picasso on the relationship between art and childhood. Others include: 'Every child is an artist: the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up' and 'It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.'

 

[2] Sid Vicious interviewed by Judy Vermorel in 1977 for The Sex Pistols, a book compiled and edited by Fred and Judy Vermorel, originally published in January 1978 by Universal Books. 

      To listen to Vicious sharing his views on this question, please click here. Sid also speaks frankly, honestly, and directly to his fans from 'Beyond the Grave' on Some Product: Carri On Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1979) and confidently asserts that just as you can be ninety-nine and still be a kid, so too can you be a grown up at sixteen: click here. 

 

[3] See, for example, 'Of the Three Metamorphoses' in part one of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the third and final stage of which is becoming-child and the entering into a second innocence. 

 

[4] See D. H. Lawrence 'Making Pictures', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 230-231.

 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to These Paintings', Late Essays and Articles, p. 217.

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Future of the Novel', in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 152. Senile precocity is not a recognised medical condition and seems to have been coined as a term by Lawrence in this essay.  

 

[7] Ibid., p. 153.   

 

[8] This condition - increasingly widespread - is often referred to in popular psychology as Peter Pan Syndrome and is associated with the work of Dan Kiley; see his 1983 text, The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up. 

      Note that whilst Peter Pan Syndrome is not recognised by the World Health Organization - nor listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - it has a significant overlap with narcissistic personality disorder.

 

 

Suits You, Sir!

 1984 1992 2006

  

I. 

 

The modern suit - regarded in the early days as informal daywear comprising of jacket, trousers and, if a three-piece, a waistcoat  - has been around since at least the late 19th-century. 

 

Indeed, some fashion scholars trace the history of the suit back to the 17th-century and credit Charles II with being instrumental in bringing together the key components. Others think the main man was Regency dandy Beau Brummel, who helped establish Savile Row as the home of bespoke men's tailoring. 

      

Personally, I tend to think that the suit as we know it owes more to the rise of the Victorian business class and the industrial revolution. And what really interests me is how the suit developed in the 20th-century, particularly in the United States in relation to youth-driven popular culture - but that's a story for another day, another post. 

 

Here, I just want to briefly reflect on the memories triggered by the three suits I can be seen wearing in the image above: the first by Jane Khan, one half of Birmingham's best and brightest designers Khan & Bell; the second from the Italian high-end fashion house of Armani; and the third by punk Dame Vivienne Westwood. 

 

 

II.

 

Kahn & Bell was a fashion label and boutique established by Jane Kahn and Patti Bell in Hurst Street, Birmingham, in 1976; much loved by those who simply had to dress up in order to mess up.

 

By the mid-'80s, however, they'd decided to go their separate ways and Khan sans Bell was trading at the Great Gear Market [1] under the brand name of Khaniverous. 

 

And it was at Khaniverous, in April 1984, that I bought my first suit; a loud and colourful check design featuring a teddy boy style jacket with padded square shoulders and black velvet lapels. 

 

It was the kind of theatrical (some might say clownish) punk look that I adored. The suit also reminded me of one worn by Johnny Rotten when fighting his High Court case against Malcolm McLaren in February 1979. 

 

According to my diary from the time, Miss Khan was very friendly and the suit cost £75 (which is about £300 in today's money).  

 

I'm not sure I was ready to take on the world in that suit, but wearing it always made very happy. It was given it's final outing on my wedding day (20 October 1988); after that, the jacket was appropriated into my wife's wardrobe (along with my favourite Zorro style black hat).  

 

 

III. 

 

By the beginning of the 1990s, not only was I approaching 30 and so no longer to be fully trusted, but I was increasingly tired of the tartan-clad Jazz persona invented ten years earlier. And so, whilst still pretty much subscribing to the same anarcho-nihilistic philosophy of punk, it was time for a radical change of image, beginning with the purchase of a heavy linen suit bought from Giorgio Armani.

 

In other words, the Armani suit was not a belated attempt to become a yuppie and I had no desire to turn rebellion into money [2]. Indeed, part of the joke was to look rich whilst being poor; to be dressed as if keen for success whilst all the time celebrating failure.

 

I remember once wearing the suit to Warwick University for a meeting with Nick Land, in an attempt to make the point that being a mad Deleuzian doesn't necessarily oblige one to always dress in oversized black jumpers. 

 

Of course, Land was no more persuaded by my arguments in favour of expensive designer fashion than he was taken by my suggestion that the Ccru should retitle their magazine ***collapse as Stand Up! [3] 

 

To be fair to Nick, however, I don't think I was ever entirely convinced by my own arguments on this point either and, ultimately, this new Armani look never really worked. Thus, I almost inevitably drifted back to more avant-garde designers, including Vivienne Westwood ... 

 

 

IV.

 

This brings us to the final suit pictured above; an unstructured, linen/cotton design featuring a Prince of Wales check, from 2006. 

 

This suit always reminds me of happy days spent with my beautiful friend Dawn Garland, hanging around a bar in Bloomsbury (see photo below) before attending a series of lectures at Birkbeck by the (hugely over-rated) public intellectual Slavoj Žižek, on topics including Lacanian psychoanalysis and neo-Marxism. 

 

The suit - far more sober than the two drunken suits (one wool, the other silk) that I'd also purchased from Vivienne Westwood during this period - nevertheless always attracted attention when worn (particularly if I was accompanied by Miss Garland, who had her own unique style); some negative, but mostly positive and that's always welcome. 

 

For one doesn't wish to be too flamboyant and standoutish, but neither does one want to fade into the background or be just another face in the crowd; imperceptible, yes - indistinguishable, no thanks. 

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The Great Gear Market was located at 85 King's Road, London. It was a place known for its punk and alternative fashions and was where many young designers started out and many musicians shopped for outfits. Long closed now, it's perhaps not as well-remembered (nor as well documented) as Kensington Market.

 

[2] As Ian Trowell writes of Heaven 17's decision to wear expensive suits at the start of the 1980s, it was a look designed to confuse those whose anti-conformity simply meant conforming in another direction to another sartorial code or subcultural uniform. 

      See Trowell's article in SIG News #4 (UAL, September 2025); 'Let's All Make a Bomb: Heaven 17 and the Yuppie 1980s'. To read my take on this article, see the post on Torpedo the Ark dated 2 July 2025: click here. 

 

[3] The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit - styled as the Ccru - was an unorthodox, unsanctioned, experimental (and in-part imaginary) collective growing like some malignant tumor in the philosophy department at the University of Warwick in the mid-1990s, whose posthumous reputation far exceeds its actual accomplishments. Key members included Nick Land, Sadie Plant, and Mark Fisher. 

      The Ccru published a zine entitled ***collapse for which I once provided some artwork, even though I didn't particularly care for (or fully understand) much of the content. My idea was that we were already among the ruins - that pretty much everything that might collapse had collapsed - so it was time to build new little habitats and encourage people to stand up and find a way beyond the ruins: We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen, as Lawrence once put it. 

      I suspect I was seen as a bourgeois reactionary - in an Armani suit - hoping to reterritorialise on old ideas at a time when the Ccru wished to radically accelerate the process of deterritorialisation; although, to again give Land his due, he was always friendly with me and his suggestion about the direction my Ph.D should take (less philosophical and more literary in character) was extremely helpful.

 

 

For a follow up post to this one - on enclothed cognition, etc. - please click here.  

 

In Praise of the Scarlet Women 1: Leila Waddell

Leila Waddell prepares to perform  

The Rites of Eleusis in 1910

 

 O ma Lady Babalon / O ma beauté, ma divine ... 

 

 

I. Opening Remarks

 

Writing in a late essay on pornography and obscenity, D. H. Lawrence famously asserts: 

 

"If a woman hasn't got a tiny streak of a harlot in her, she's a dry stick as a rule." [1] 

 

And so no surprise that we should find him singing the praises of the Scarlet Woman in his reading of Revelation, that final mad book of the Bible [2]:

 

"Only the great whore of Babylon rises rather splendid, sitting in her purple and scarlet upon her scarlet beast. She is the Magna Mater in malefic aspect, clothed in the colours of the angry sun, and throned upon the great red dragon of the angry cosmic power. Splendid she sits, and splendid is her Babylon." [3] 

 

Warming to his subject, Lawrence praises those precious metals, stones, and spices that belong to this harlot-goddess who offers those men with the courage to do so the chance to drink  from "her golden cup of wine of sensual pleasure" [4] held triumphantly aloft in her right hand.  

 

It's a passage that might bring a smile to the face of the Great Beast himself ...

 

 

II. To Mega Therion 

 

English occultist Aleister Crowley - author of The Book of the Law (1904) and founder of Thelema [5] - gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime as the wickedest man in the world and he has remained a highly influential figure within western esotericism and the counterculture.

 

Although Crowley enjoyed sexual relationships with men in his youth - and advocated complete sexual freedom for both men and women in defiance of both public opinion and religious prejudice [6] - he mostly had an eye for the ladies. 

 

This was particularly the case if they were exotic looking and willing to become a Scarlet Woman; an honorific title he gave to several young women who played a significant role not just in his love life, but in his esoteric and creative work also [7].    

 

Of all these women, there are two who particularly interest: Leila Waddell and Leah Hirsig. Here, I shall speak of the former; in part two of this post, I'll discuss the case of the latter: click here. 

  

 

III. Laylah

 

Leila Waddell (1880-1932) was a girl from Down Under who, as one commentator says, "entered the world stage as an acclaimed violinist - and left it having influenced magical practice into the 21st century" [8]. 

 

In 1908, fate took her to London as part of a touring orchestra and here - for better or for worse - she met Crowley [9] and this opened the door into another world; one of drink, drugs, and sex magick. Charmed by his intelligence and supernatural charisma - just as he was deeply impressed by her musical ability - they soon became lovers. 

 

Of course, Waddell was also obliged to join Crowley's new magical order - the Astrum Argenteum (est. 1905) - in which she would be known by other members as Sister Agatha, although Crowley called her Laylah and designated her as his Scarlet Woman; "a sort of anti-Virgin Mary who transgressed the boundaries of feminine virtue by wallowing in excess" [10].    

Waddell and Crowley made a fascinating couple and were soon thinking of ways in which they could incorporate music, poetry, and dance into magical rituals. This resulted in the Rites of Eleusis; a series of seven public rites written by Crowley, with original music composed by Waddell, and performed in semi-darkness at Caxton Hall, London, in the autumn of 1910. 

 

Not quite theatre, not quite an occult ceremony, the Rites of Eleusis nicely blurred such distinctions -though whether it roused the audience into a state of spiritual ecstasy is debatable; music lovers were delighted with Waddell's virtuosity, though critics not quite so moved by Crowley's "turgid paeans to the god Pan" [11]. 

 

Others were outraged by what they considered an immoral display that was both blasphemous in nature and obscene in suggestion. Reflecting afterwards, Crowley concluded that the mixed reception given to the Rites of Eleusis - particularly his contribution - was due to the audience's inability to effectively channel the magical forces unleashed on the night. 

 

Whilst continuing her occult studies and musical engagements in both Europe and the United States, Waddell also became involved with Irish nationalism (born of Irish famine refugees she was naturally sympathetic to the republican cause). This culminated in the staging of what some might see as an absurd stunt and others as a kind of proto-Situationist event that even Malcolm Mclaren would have admired [12]. 

 

On 3 July 1915, Waddell, Crowley, and a group of Irish revolutionaries "sailed down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty, with the intention of declaring Irish independence and war on England" [13]. Unfortunately, the guards wouldn't let them land on Liberty Island, but, like the Sex Pistols' river boat adventure on the Thames 62 years later, it was an amusing idea.   

 

Whilst Crowley headed off after this to California on his own, Waddell continued to perform and to make new literary friends, including Rebecca West and Frank Harris. She also greatly enjoyed playing lunch time concerts in factories for the (mostly male migrant) workers who would sometimes sing along and present her with wildflower posies after the show; indeed, she considered these shows the highlight of her career (and not the performance at Caxton Hall). 

 

In 1924, and now in her mid-40s, Waddell decided it was time to return Down Under: for one thing, her father was seriously ill and needed care; and for another, Crowley had set up a magical abbey in Sicily accompanied by a new Scarlet Woman, Leah Hirsig.

 

Alice Gorman provides an excellent note on which to conclude, that I agree with entirely: 

 

"Waddell is often relegated to a character in Crowley’s life. But if we assess her life on its own terms, we see a brilliant musician, a philosopher of magic, and a rebel who was unafraid to take risks and be true to herself." [14] 

 

This is in stark contrast to Crowley's characteristically dismissive remark made of his former muse, lover, and creative collaborator, referring to Waddell as no more than a fifth-rate fiddler. 

 

Waddell died, from uterine cancer, aged 52, in 1932 and was buried next to her parents in Sydney. 

 

 

Laylah as seen in Aleister Crowley's 

The Book of Lies (1913) [15]

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'Pornography and Obscenity', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 236. 

 

[2] The Book of Revelation - or the Apocalypse as it is also known - is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the identity of the author remains disputed. See chapter 17 in which judgement is passed on Babylon the Great; Mother of Harlots and Abominations. Readers can click here to access the King James Version (KJV) online. 

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 121.  

 

[4] Ibid. I have discussed Lawrence's reading of Revelation 17 before on Torpedo the Ark; see the post entitled 'The Goddess, the Whore, and the Policewoman' (31 July 2020): click here.  

 

[5] Liber AL vel Legis - commonly known as The Book of the Law - is the central sacred text of Thelema (see below). Crowley wrote it in 1904, claiming that the book was dictated to him by a spirit, Aiwass, whom he later referred to as his own Holy Guardian Angel. 

      For Crowley, publication of the work marked the dawning of a new stage in the spiritual evolution of humanity, to be known as the Æon of Horus. The primary teaching of this new age (as found in The Book of the Law) is: Do what thou wilt and thus the discovery and following of what constituted one's True Will - i.e. a divine individual purpose that transcends ordinary desires - was at the heart of his new religion and occult philosophy, Thelema. 

      Crowley termed this setting out on a path towards self-becoming the Great Work and whilst he certainly subscribed to an order of rank (i.e., a natural hierarchy) when it came to assessing the value of individuals, he also maintained Every man and every woman is a star (see The Book of the Law I. 3). Magick - which Crowley liked to spell with the letter k added, just as he liked to spell Babylon with an a in place of the y - is a central practice in Thelema, along with certain other physical, mental, and spiritual exercises. 

      Various figures and followers of Crowley have sought to develop Thelema by introducing new ideas, practices, and interpretations. This includes, for example, Jack Parsons, who, in 1946, conducted the Babalon Working in order to invoke the goddess Babalon (later believing his wife-to-be Marjorie Cameron to be the human incarnation of such, and thus a Scarlet Woman). Parsons - working in collaboration with his pal at the time L. Ron Hubbard - based the Babalon Working on Crowley's description of a similar undertaking in his novel Moonchild (1917). Afterwards, Parsons wrote a brief text - Liber 49 - which was intended as an additional fourth chapter for The Book of the Law. 

      Readers who are interested in knowing a bit more about Parsons - and his wife - might like to see the recent post entitled 'Cameron: the Woman Who Did' (15 June 2025): click here. And for my post written in memory of Crowley - 'The Great Beast is Dead' (1 December 2021) - click here.    

 

[6] Like many radicals, Crowley was of the view that spiritual enlightenment and individual freedom arises through transgressing socio-sexual norms. We now know this is naive, simplistic, and mistaken.  

 

[7] Whilst Crowley thought that he and he alone was human manifestation of the Great Beast 666, he believed that the Scarlet Woman - i.e., the true mistress of the Beast - could physically manifest as any number of women that he happened to take a shine to - which is convenient, to say the least; for Crowley was a man who fell in love passionately, but also frequently, and soon got bored within a monogamous relationship. Thus, as he notes in his commentary on The Book of the Law, the Scarlet Woman is replaceable as need arises. 

      Some of the women that Crowley at one time or other considered to be Scarlet Women include Rose Edith Kelly; Mary d'Este Sturges; Jeanne Robert Foster; Roddie Minor; Marie Rohling; Bertha Almira Prykrl; Leah Hirsig and Leila Waddell.  

 

[8] Alice Gorman, 'Hidden women of history: Leila Waddell, Australian violinist, philosopher of magic and fearless rebel', The Conversation (23 September, 2019): click here. 

      Waddell was an extremely talented musician; not only did she teach violin at some of Sydney's most prestigious schools, but her concert performances earned her a devoted following and she quickly established a reputation as one of Australia's leading violinists.   

 

[9] Most likely they would have met at the Café Royal, which was then the favourite haunt of writers, artists, musicians, and occultists - even D. H. Lawrence once held a dinner party there for a group of old friends, though it didn't end well when the port he'd been drinking made him vomit over the table before passing out.  

 

[10] Alice Gorman ... op. cit.  

 

[11] Ibid. 

 

[12] In Situationist theory a situation is a deliberately constructed event aimed at disrupting the boredom and alienation of every day existence and a model of reality mediated via images and commodities. Such an event blurs the lines between performance art and political protest and aims to create the possibility of authentic experience. 

      Malcolm McLaren - in collaboration with Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid, and a group of disaffected teenagers - applied this theory to a project known as the Sex Pistols in the mid-late 1970s.

     

[13] Alice Gorman ... op. cit.   

[14] Ibid. 

 

[15] Apart from this iconic photograph there are several references to Leila Waddell (Laylah) throughout The Book of Lies. 

   

 

Readers who want to know more about Miss Waddell might like to order a copy of a new biography by Darren Francis - Laylah: The Life of Leila Waddell (Hadean Press, 2025) - which is being published on the 26th of this month.