God Save Joe Orton

Joe Orton anachronistically wearing a 

Seditionaries Prick Up Your Ears T-shirt

in a photo by George Elam (1967) 

 

'The kind of people who always go on about whether a thing is in good taste 

invariably have very bad taste.'

 

 

I. 

 

Remembered primarily as a playwright who came to a sticky end at the hands of his lover, Joe Orton was a gay, working class English writer who, in a brief but brilliant public career lasting from 1964 until his murder in 1967, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies, characterised by a mix of cynicism and sauciness [1].  

 

 

II. 

 

After leaving school, Orton got a job as an office junior whilst also developing an interest in the performing arts, joing a number of am-dram societies in his home town of Leicester. He obviously showed promise, as, in November 1950, he was offered a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which he took up the following spring.   

 

It was at RADA that Orton met Kenneth Halliwell, seven years his senior, and they formed a strong romantic relationship, moving into a West Hampstead flat together (shared with two other students). 

 

After graduating, they collaborated on a number of novels. However, as these failed to set the literary world alight (or even find a publisher), Orton and Halliwell decided it might be best to write separately, scraping by as best they could on benefits and monies earned from part-time jobs, whilst amusing themselves with various pranks; such as removing books from their local library in order to modify them (i.e., deface the covers with comically surreal images and additional text), before returning them to the shelves [2].   

 

They were eventually nicked by the police and charged with larceny and damage to property deemed to be wilfully malicious in nature. After pleading guilty at Old Street magistrates (in May 1962), each received a six-month custodial sentence (and a £2 fine). Interestingly, whilst Halliwell hated being in jail and attempted suicide, Orton seemed to enjoy himself and find inspiration. His career as a powerful and subversive writer arguably has its origins in his time behind bars and shortly after his release he wrote Entertaining Mr Sloane [3]. 

 

 

III.

 

The unduly harsh nature of the prison sentence, which Orton suspected was due to the fact that he and Halliwell were queers, brought home to him the fact that corrupt priggishness and hypocrisy still exercised its power and authority in the UK, even after the Chatterley Trial: 

 

"It affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul." [4]

 

Orton's next performed work was Loot (1965); a dark two-act work that satirises social and religious attitudes to death, as well as the integrity of the police. It opened to severe criticism, but, after numerous edits and rewrites, a London production in the autumn of 1966 received rave reviews, several awards, and established Orton's reputation. He was even able to sell the film rights for £25,000 (that's over half-a-million nicker in today's money and was a record figure at the time).     

 

 

IV. 

 

Orton's final play, What the Butler Saw, was a clever modern farce that he completed writing in July 1967, one month before his death [5]. It opened at the Queen's Theatre, London, on 5 March 1969 and was met with a hostile audience reaction; boos and cries of rubbish were heard coming from the balcony and some people walked out, protesting the play's raunchy character and obvious contempt for authority.

 

There is, finally, one more work I would like to mention; Up Against It - an unproduced film script written in 1967 for the Beatles, who were then at the height of their fame. 

 

After submitting the script to their manager, Brian Epstein, it was returned to Orton following a long period of silence and without comment. It's anarchic, sexually explicit, and subversive tone was deemed too potentially damaging to the Beatles' carefully managed public image and inappropriate for a mainstream movie audience [6]. 

 

In fact, the dark and chaotic script might have better suited Malcolm McLaren's Sex Pistols ...

 

 

V.   

 

It's not wrong to consider Orton a defining figure (and diarist) of London in the 1960s; his work and lifestyle embodied the rebellious and sexually liberated spirit of the counterculture during that era. 

 

But, having said that, I can't help thinking of him as more of a trickster-punk than a peace-loving hippie - even if he did have a Beatles song played at his funeral. And Malcolm McLaren was a great admirer, considering Orton an inspiration for the punk aesthetic that he and Vivienne Westwood had created in their shop at 430 King's Road.   

 

Thus it is that Orton's name appears on the right side (literally and figuratively) of the 'You're Gonna Wake Up' manifesto (1974). And thus it is that, in 1979, McLaren and Westwood produced the 'Prick Up Your Ears' shirt for Seditionaries, which comes with a quotation taken from Orton's diary (I write in more detail about this shirt in a post that can be accessed by clicking here). 

 

As Paul Gorman notes, for McLaren, Orton was a "remorseless cultural provocateur" [7] and a kindred spirit; someone who drew inspiration (as he did) from the gutter and delighted in the prospect of fucking the rich up the arse.    

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The comparison with Oscar Wilde is often made and it's not an unreasonable comparison to make; both used wit to expose the moral hypocrisies of their respective societies, often focusing on the absurdity of authority. Writing in the more permissive 1960s, rather than the Victorian 1890s, allowed Orton to be more explicitly transgressive than Wilde, though I'm not sure he was more anarchic or provocative.

      For a critical essay on this pair of queer iconoclasts, see John Bull, 'What the butler did see: Joe Orton and Oscar Wilde', in Francesca Coppa (ed.), Joe Orton: A Casebook (Routledge, 2002), pp. 45-60. 

 

[2] In their defence, Orton and Halliwell were protesting what they regarded as an appalling selection of books; endless shelves of rubbish, as they put it. See Ilsa Colsell's Malicious Damage: the Defaced Library Books of Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton (Donlon Books, 2013). 

      And see also the excellent article by Jonathan Jones titled 'Joe Orton's defaced library books and the death of rebellious art', in The Guardian (14 Oct 2011): click here. Jones argues that their amusing (if somewhat juvenile) defacement of library books was "a glorious rejection of the austerity and ordinariness that still set the British tone in 1962" and anticipated the manner in which the Sex Pistols scandalised a moribund nation in the following decade.  

      Amusingly, the book covers Orton and Halliwell vandalised have since become a valued part of the Islington Local History Centre collection and some are exhibited in the Islington Museum (i.e., they have been recuperated by the Spectacle). A collection of the book covers is also available online at the Joe Orton Gallery: click here.  

 

[3] Joe Orton (1964) as quoted on joeorton.org: click here. 

 

[4] The three-act play Entertaining Mr Sloane premiered at the New Arts Theatre (London) on 6 May 1964, produced by Michael Codron. Reviews ranged from praise to outrage, with one critic for The Times declaring that it made his blood boil more than any other British play in the last decade. The play was transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in the West End at the end of June and then to the Queen's Theatre in October, and Orton was hailed as a promising new talent. 

 

[5] On 9 August 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned 34-year-old Orton to death at their home in Islington with multiple hammer blows to the head. Halliwell then killed himself with an overdose of Nembutal. It seems likely that Orton had wanted to terminate their relationship (albeit not in such a literal fashion). 

 

[6] The screenplay was filled with what was termed outlaw sexuality and it should be recalled that homosexuality had only (partially) been decriminalised in July of 1967. Paul McCartney would later admit that the Beatles didn't wish to do the film because it was gay and they were not.  

      Interestingly, in 1979, John Lydon initiated a High Court case against Malcolm McLaren and his management company, Glitterbest. While the primary goal was to reclaim misappropriated royalties and the rights to the Sex Pistols name, Rotten also wanted to make clear his objection to the salacious and immoral elements contained in the script upon which the film that eventually became The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) had been based. Arguing that the script portrayed him and other members of the band in a defamatory and harmful light, Rotten also made it clear that he had no wish to be associated with infamous figures including Jack the Ripper, Myra Hindley and Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Nor, indeed, did he approve of any scenes involving extreme sexual and violent content. 

 

[7] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 426.  

  

 

To read a sister post to this one - God Save Jean Genet (2 Feb 2026) - please click here. 

 

Bonus video: a short clip of Joe Orton being interviewed on The Eamon Andrews Show (ABC Weekend TV, 23 April, 1967): click here. A decade later, Andrews' co-presenter on the Thames TV show Today, Bill Grundy, would interview the Sex Pistols, who weren't prepared to play along in such a charming manner as Orton.  

 

 

Notes From the Gutter on Joe Orton's Fur Coat and the Seditionaries Prick Up Your Ears Shirt

Joe Orton's fur coat and the 

Seditionaries Prick Up Your Ears shirt [1]

   

I. 

 

In January 1967, Joe Orton's theatrical agent, Peggy Ramsay [2], bought him a dark grey faux fur coat designed by Hardy Amies for Hepworths [3]. 

 

Whether intended as a belated Christmas gift, or simply an act of mid-winter kindness, it's a fabulous-looking thing that I would be more than happy to wear, knowing as I do that twenty years later the coat was worn by Gary Oldman playing the part of Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987) [4]. 

 

And knowing as I do too that previously the coat was mentioned on a Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood designed shirt for Seditionaries (one which also borrowed its name from John Lahr's definitive biography of Orton).

 

 

II. 

 

I have to confess, the gay orgy scene depicted - which McLaren adapted from an image found on a T-shirt he purchased from a sex shop in LA [5] - is not really my cup of tea, but, as Miss Brodie would say in her best Edinburgh voice, for those who like that sort of thing - and regard the word 'ears' as an anagram - then that is the sort of thing they like.

 

More exciting to me than the image - to which McLaren added a splash of colour and a few other minor details in order to punk it up - is the fact that underneath the scene is a short text in the form of a dialogue reproduced from Orton's diary which reads:   

 

"'You look very pretty in that fur coat you're wearing', Oscar said as we stood on the corner before going our separate ways. I said, 'Peggy bought it me. It was thirteen pounds fifteen.' 'Very cheap,' Michael White said. 'Yes, I've discovered I look better in cheap clothes.' 'I wonder what the significance of that is?' Oscar said. 'I'm from the gutter,' I said. 'And don't you ever forget it because I won't.'" [6] 

 

As Paul Gorman notes in his reading of this text: "Orton's response to White, thought McLaren, expressed punk attitude to a T." [7] 

 

Wilde was probably right to say that some look at the stars (i.e. aspire to the highest ideals and have the capacity for hope), but others, like Orton, and McLaren, and so many other artists, draw inspiration from the gutter itself and the base materials found therein that are "external and foreign to ideal human aspirations" [8]. 

 

Notes

 

[1] I think I'm right in saying that Joe Orton's fur coat was last given an outing as part of retrospective exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of his death and featuring a collection of his personal belongings. Entitled 'Ortonesque', the exhibition was held at Leicester's New Walk Museum and Art Gallery (March 3 - May 7 2007). The coat was eventually sold at auction, on behalf of the Orton Estate, in June 2022, for £2,295. The image used here is taken from the Bonhams website: click here, but an alternative image can be found on joeorton.org: click here. 

      The long-sleeved white muslin shirt, designed by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westood for sale at their King's Road store Seditionaries in 1979, known by the title borrowed from John Lahr's 1978 biography of Orton features a graphic print of a homosexual punk orgy and includes a text taken from Orton's diary (9 January, 1967). The shirt shown here was sold by Julien's Auctions, in June 2021, for $576: click here.

 

[2] Peggy Ramsay represented many of the leading dramatists to emerge from the 1950s onwards, including Alan Ayckbourn, Eugène Ionesco, J. B. Priestley, Stephen Poliakoff, and David Hare. 

      After discovering Joe Orton, then living on National Assistance, she persuaded producer Michael Codron to stage his play Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964). Ramsay represented Orton, and then his estate, for the rest of her life. 

 

[3] Hardy Amies was a British fashion designer and one of the first to venture into the ready-to-wear market when he teamed up in 1959 with another iconic British brand, Hepworths, to produce a range of stylish but essentially conservative men's clothing.  

 

[4] Prick Up Your Ears (1987), dir. Stephen Frears, with a screenplay by Alan Bennett (based on the 1978 biography of that title by John Lahr), starred Gary Oldman as Orton, Alfred Molina as Halliwell and Vanessa Redgrave as Peggy Ramsay. 

      The fur coat makes its first appearance in an early scene when Oldman visits Ramsay's office to show it off to her (6:00) and is seen twice more later in the film; once after an awards ceremony (1:18:28) and once in an episode set in a public convenience (1:18:50). Click here to find the scenes and watch the entire film on YouTube. Oldman's excellent performance in this almost makes me forgive his portrayal of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (dir. Alex Cox, 1986). 

 

[5] The store was (and still is) called The Pleasure Chest and is located at 7733 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. It wasn't the first time that McLaren found inspiration here and borrowed - Paul Gorman's word is hijacked - a design for use on one of his pieces produced in collaboration with Westwood; he visited the original New York store, based in the West Village, in the period when his shop at 430 King's Road was called SEX.  

 

[6] There seems to be some discrepencies between the text on the shirt and the actual diary entry; for example, the first speaker is referred to on the shirt only by his first name, Oscar, and not his full name Oscar Lewenstein (a British theatre and film producer); and whilst the price of the coat is given on the shirt as £13 19s, in the diary it is priced at £13 15s (i.e., four bob less). 

      Readers who are interested can check things for themselves by consulting The Orton Diaries, ed. John Lahr (Methuen, 1986), p. 54. Just to add a little further confusion into the mix, Paul Gorman identifies the Oscar figure as Oscar Beuselinck, the showbiz lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that's incorrect; see The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 426.      

      As for the third speaker - Michael White - he was a prominent theatre and film impresario and a champion of Orton's work.   

 

[7] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 426. 

 

[8] Georges Bataille, 'Base Materialism and Gnosticism', in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939 (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 51.

 

 

For a related post to this one on Joe Orton, click here. 

 

In Praise of the 1% Who Don't Fit in and Don't Care

Anarchist Punk Gang muslin shirt 

McLaren & Westwood (Seditionaries, 1979)

Image via bonhams.com 

 

 

I. 

These days, the 1% typically refers to an economic, social and political elite; i.e., the wealthiest and most powerful segment of the population who own, control, and consume an ever-growing share of the world's resources.

 

The phrase is often used by those who wish to critique such inequality on the grounds that it is both grotesque and immoral. Members of the Occupy movement, for example, would often chant: We are the 99% as a unifying slogan that expressed their commonality. 

 

All this rather amuses me as an old punk; for I remember a time when the 1% referred metaphorically to a subcultural minority who prided themselves on not fitting in; members of an anarchist gang who created hell and got away with it; queer extremists aware of their own mortality, but death-defiant ...    

 

II. 

 

One of the final designs by McLaren and Westwood for Seditionaries, the Anarchist Punk Gang shirt - aka the One Per Centers shirt - is not one of their better known pieces, but it is perhaps one of their most memorable once seen (and will still cost you a considerable sum should you wish to buy an original) [1].

 

By the spring of 1979, the shit, as they say, had truly hit the fan; Sid Vicious was dead, the Sex Pistols as a four-piece band were long over, and even the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle was losing steam [2]. 

Following an acrimonious court case brought against him by Johnny Rotten (with the backing of Richard Branson), McLaren sought refuge in Paris, and so it was left to Westwood to keep things ticking over on the home front as best she could and it was Vivienne who was mostly responsible for the above shirt (even if Malcolm approved the design).  

  

The central image of a skull is surrounded by the well-known phrase: As you were, I was; as I am, you will be. As Westwood was romantically involved with a biker at this time, it seems likely that she might have read (or re-read) Hunter S. Thompson's classic study of the Hell's Angels, where this memento mori is used as a chapter title [3]. 

One of the flagpoles on the design has the figure of 1% written above the description anarchist punk gang; the other flagpole, in contrast, carries the line made famous by Sid: 99% is shit [4].  

It's another detail on the shirt, however, that has been intriguing me for the past few days: written underneath the skull design are the following lines: 

The barrier between friend and foe is thin. At certain times of day there are only us.

I was pretty sure it had to be a quote: McLaren and Westwood often incorporated lines of text from admired authors into their designs, but I couldn't locate the source of this until it was suggested to me that it might also have a biker connection - and, yes, sure enough, it turns out the lines are from a book published in '79 by a former organised crime investigator, Raymond C. Morgan, called The Angels Do Not Forget.

 

Below, I reproduce the cover of the book's second edition (2014), alongside a photo of Soo Catwoman [5] wearing the T-shirt version of McLaren & Westwood's late Seditionaries design (which, because of its biker connection, rather nicely returns us to the pre-punk days of Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die [6]).    

  

Notes

 

 [1] The famous London auction house Bonhams sold an 'Anarchist Punk Gang' shirt in November 2023 for £1,280. Click here for details. 

[2] The album of this title had been released on 23 February 1979 (Virgin Records); the film of this title, dir. Julien Temple, was finally released in May 1980. 

      Jamie Reid's final artwork for the Sex Pistols project was for the sardonically named compilation album Flogging a Dead Horse (Virgin Records, 1980); a follow up to Some Product: Carri On Sex Pistols, released by Virgin in July the previous year. 

[3] Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, by Hunter S. Thompson, was published in 1967 by Random House.    

[4] See the post titled '99% is Shit' (2 Dec 2019): click here. 

 

[5] Image of Sue Lucas (aka Soo Catwoman) is taken from a restored photo on the Instagram account seditionaries1977 (posted on 26 Jan 2026): click here.  

 

[6] Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die was the second incarnation of Mclaren & Westwood's store at 430 King's Road (after Let It Rock, but before SEX). It specialised in biker gear for rockers and was intended to be all about speed, danger, and death. 

 

 

Thanks to Jennifer Davis Taylor for help with this post.    

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. 

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.  

 

Queer as Punk

A punk bromance: Sid 💘 Johnny

 

'Punk is a challenge to reconsider everything you do, think or feel; 

including the ways that you love.' [1]

 

 

I. 

 

In the second volume of his memoirs - Anger is an Energy  (2014) - Johnny Rotten flatly denies the persistent rumour that he and Vicious, unlike Cook and Jones, were more than just good friends ... 

 

Perhaps one reason why this romantic myth continues to resonate is because before becoming a term used by the media to identify a form of rock music that emerged in the 1970s, the word punk had a long subcultural history rooted in illicit and deviant sexual activity.   

 

In the 16th century, for example, it was used by writers including Shakespeare as a synonym for a female prostitute and spelt rather charmingly as puncke [2]. By the late 17th century, however, it had taken on a different meaning and described a youth who is provided for by an older man in exchange for certain favours. 

 

This queer [3] etymology takes on renewed significance when one recalls the story of the Sex Pistols; an anarchic collective held together with safety pins and bondage straps which included a far wider and more diverse group of people than the actual members of the band [4]. 

 

The teens who spent their time hanging around 430 King's Road challenged heteronormative values with their behaviour, attitude, and appearance; cheerfully wearing T-shirts designed by McLaren and Westwood which included images drawn from gay porn, including homosexual cowboys, nude adolescents, and well-endowed American footballers [5].     

And so, whilst both Rotten and Vicious were for the most part straight in terms of their sexual orientation, their emphasis on non-conformity, free expression, and open acceptance of gay culture - the band and their followers would often socialise in the early days at a lesbian member's club in Soho called Louise's - was positively received within the queer community at that time.    

 

 

II. 

 

Notwithstanding what I say above, I think we should be wary of retrospectively romanticising the story of the Sex Pistols, or imposing contemporary theoretical interpretations concerning queer sexual politics and identities on to the reality of the UK punk scene in the 1970s. I don't want to be the person who says let's stick to the facts at every opportunity, but I would agree that any analysis showing a flagrant disregard for historical accuracy seems of little real value or interest.   

 

Further, as David Wilkinson points out, "once punk is separated from rooted judgement through failure to locate it within a particular conjuncture, its politics can be celebrated as uniformly positive" [6] and that's a problem: the Sex Pistols did not promise to make things better and punk wasn't entirely gay friendly; there remained elements of homophobia within it (just as there did of racism, sexism, and reactionary stupidity).   

Ultimately, for McLaren and Westwood, same-sex passion was seen as something with which to confront and discomfort the English; they wished to weaponise it, not promote gay liberation or simply camp things up for the fun of it: 

"Given [their] positioning of same-sex passion as alienated, perverse and violent, it is unsurprising that McLaren and Westwood not only seemed to have little interest in the radically transformative aims of gay liberation, but were also prone to homophobic gestures that were calculated to shock in their contempt of even reformist demands for respect, understanding and openness." [7]

 

Ultimately, as Wilkinson says, McLaren and Westwood's "was an idiosyncratic, peculiarly hybrid kind of politics, especially in relation to sexuality" [8]; one based on the radical understanding of desire as "an instinctive, irrational force capable of disrupting social norms once unanchored from the private sphere" [9], but they weren't interested in how to further loving relationships, same-sex or otherwise.   

 

And as for Johnny and Sid, for better or worse, they were more romantically fixated on Nora and Nancy than one another.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm paraphrasing Pete Shelley writing in the second issue of his self-produced punk fanzine Plaything (1978): click here. 

 

[2] Shakespeare used the word, for example, in Measure for Measure (1603-04), where Lucio suggests that since Mariana is 'neither maid, widow, nor wife', she may 'be a Puncke’ (Act 5, scene 1).

[3] I am using this term here as one that includes same-sex desire, but which is not synonymous with such. If it were up to me, as someone who finds the empty secret of non-identity philosophically more interesting than the open secret of same-sex desire, I would restrict use of the word queer to refer to forms of practice and behaviour that have nothing to do with sexuality or gender. 

      See the post of 16 March 2025, in which I discuss the term: click here. 

[4] When I think of the Sex Pistols, I certainly don't just think of Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock, and Johnny Rotten, but also of Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Jamie Reid, Jordan, Soo Catwoman, Helen of Troy, and various members of the so-called Bromley Contingent. 

 

[5] David Wilkinson makes the important point that these designs "deliberately inhabited dominant understandings of unsanctioned sexuality as perverse, sordid and violent in order to provoke a reaction" and that McLaren and Westwood were not consciously offering a set of alternative values. 

      See Wilkinson's excellent essay 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?): Punk, Politics and Same-Sex Passion', in Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, No. 13 (2015), pp. 57-76. The line quoted from is on p. 64. 

 

[6] David Wilkinson, ibid., p. 59.

[7] Ibid., p. 65. 

 

[8] Ibid., p. 62.

 

[9] Ibid., p. 63.  

Musical bonus: Tom Robinson Band, 'Glad to be Gay', from the EP Rising Free (EMI Records, 1978): click here.