On Loverboy and the Politics of Queerness

LOVERBOY

 

 

I. 

 

Just a brief note of congratulations to Charles Jeffrey and his Loverboy label for notching up ten years in the world of fashion; a decade of "tartan, trash, animalism, anarchy, paganism and punk" as one appreciative critic wrote in a Guardian piece celebrating Jeffrey's achievement [1]. 

 

If almost inevitably one comes away from 'The Lore of LOVERBOY' exhibition at Somerset House [2] feeling that one's seen much of it before having grown up in the world of Westwood, Galliano, and McQueen, nevertheless one also comes away wishing that one was forty years younger and able to enter into Jeffrey's world unburdened by memory of the above.

 

And, to be fair, his aesthetic sensibility isn't simply a pale imitation of anyone else's; Jeffrey's designs do have something unique about them, even if they unfold within a certain tradition and fashion history. And I'm always going to love clothes that make smile like the outfits shown above ...  

 

 

II. 

 

However, if I were to be critical, then perhaps Jeffrey's work is just a little too much at times; too theatrical, too playful, too romantic, too rooted in a hedonistic club scene ...

 

For better or for worse, I belong to a generation that would rather see the word HATE than HOPE sloganised on a jumper and my politics do not exclusively revolve around questions of gender and sexuality.  

 

And as for the increasingly tired and tiresome concept of queerness - one which Jeffrey repeatedly refers us to - I'm almost tempted to echo what one (queer) writer says here: "Queerness does not ensure that we are more compassionate, more loving, or more fair, or that we are kinder, stronger, realer people." [3] 

 

That is to say, queerness doesn't make virtuous or morally superior - nor even more interesting, alas, when it has merely become another identity and commercial selling point. 

                 

 

Notes

 

[1] Ellie Violet Bramley, 'An absolute joy: 10 years of Charles Jeffrey's playful Loverboy', The Guardian (9 June 2024): click here.  

[2] For details of The Lore of LOVERBOY exhibition at Somerset House, click here. Thanks to Ian Trowell for bringing this retrospective to my attention. 

[3] See Queer is Boring, 'Why Queer is Boring: An Introduction' (21 Feb 2014), on medium.com: click here. 

Reflections on a Pagan T-Shirt

 

 Left: Novgorod Devil Mask Shirt  (Pagan Products 1983) 

Right: three medieval leather masks found in Novgorod

 

I. 

 

If, as Deleuze and Guattari argue, the white face is crucial to Christianity [a], then equally true is the fact that pagans have a thing for masks; be they anthropomorphic or zoomorphic in design, and worn for ritual or ceremonial reasons. 

 

By disguising and losing the face, they are able to (momentarily and magically) recover the head as it originally belonged to the body; i.e., the head that isn't facially codified, but subject rather to a "multidimensional polyvocal corporeal code" [170].

 

A mask not only "ensures  the head's belonging to the body" [176], it also enables the wearer to become-imperceptible; to set out on the road to the "asignifying and asubjective" [171] by inviting an animal-spirit or demon to take possession of "the body's interior" [176].

 

In sum: pagan mask-wearers have "the most beautiful and most spiritual" [176] of heads and the importance of masks cannot be overstated.  

 

II.

 

Clearly, back in the summer of 1983 when I hand-painted the first of the Pagan T-shirts, featuring a design based on leather masks from Novgorod (Russia) believed to date to the 12th or 13th century, I hadn't read Deleuze and Guattari and very much doubt I would have understood wtf they were talking about when they discussed faciality and the liberating of probe-heads, etc.

 

Nevertheless, I like to think that I had already intuited something of the fact that primitive peoples and pagan cultures operate on a prefacial level which has "all the polyvocality of a semiotic in which the head is a part of the body, a body that is already deterritorialized [...] and plugged into becomings-spiritual/animal" [190].       

 

Mostly, however, my decision to paint several shirts with mask images was based on my reading of the (metamorphic) role that masks played in ancient and medieval times and the fact that they continue to strike terror into the hearts of many people (which is why Leatherface has become such a powerful figure within the cultural imagination [b] and why McLaren and Westwood chose to use a mask similar to one worn by the Cambridge Rapist on an early line of shirts sold at Sex) [c].       

 

Finally, here's a picture of a young punk-pagan wearing the Novgorod Devil Mask Shirt back in the day ...

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[a] See Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (The Athlone Press, 1988), pp. 167-191. All page references given in this post are to this text. 

 

[b] As far as I remember, just as I hadn't read Deleuze and Guattari in 1983, nor had I seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1974), which was banned from general cinematic release in the UK until 1999 (although available on uncertified video in 1981). It's unlikely, therefore, that the figure of Leatherface played any part in my thinking at this time.

 

[c] The masked figure of the British serial rapist Peter Cook, known as the Cambridge Rapist, long fascinated McLaren. He and Westwood not only exploited Cook's notoriety on shirt designs sold at 430 Kings Road, but his image also appears on one of the posters in the 'God Save ...' series designed by Jamie Reid for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Julien Temple, 1980). However, whilst certainly aware of this when working on my own mask T-shirt, I wasn't consciously trying to imitate their design. 

         

 

Readers interested in an earlier post on the truth of masks (3 Feb 2018) can click here ...

 

Readers interested in an even earlier post on the politics of the face (13 Sept 2013) can click here ...

And for those interested in a more recent post on the Cambridge Rapist motif (13 July 2022), click here.

  

In a Time Never-Never (Notes on McLaren & Westwood's Worlds End)

Worlds End: the fifth and final incarnation of McLaren and Westwood's 

store at 430 King's Road, Chelsea.

 

'It was a bright cold day in 1980, and the clocks were striking thirteen ...'

 

 

Whilst David Connor proudly promotes his role in the transformation of Seditionaries into Worlds End in late 1980 - describing the total refurbishment of 430 King's Road as a "collaboration with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren" [1] - I think those of us who care about this matter are aware that it was the latter who essentially should be credited with the work.

 

I'm not suggesting McLaren didn't have help [2]: but the creative vision was his and the key ideas - such as the steeply sloping shop floor and the giant 13-hour clock with hands that rotate anti-clockwise at high speed promising to magically transport those who stepped inside not merely to the past, but to a time never-never or an immanent utopia [3] - were his. 

 

As was the name of the shop: and the Worlds End logo, adapted from the flag design by the eighteenth-century pirate Robert Tew, featuring a muscular arm holding a Saracen sword on a black background (McLaren having decided that the skull and crossbones was simply too clichéd) [4].

 

The interior and exterior designs McLaren came up with for the store were intended to suggest a mixture of The Old Curiosity Shop located in London's Holborn area - and made famous by Dickens in his 1841 novel of that title - and an eighteenth-century galleon.

 

Ultimately, McLaren's idea was to sail away from everything; from punk, from England, from the twentieth-century. And for McLaren, Peter Pan style pirates and Red Indian braves [5] were now sexier, more stylish, and more subversive of the cultural mainstream than rockers in their black leather jackets and ripped jeans.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See David Connor's website page dedicated to Worlds End: click here. 

      Whilst Connor produced a number of drawings for the project that developed what Paul Gorman describes as the "twisted fairy-tale elements of McLaren's concepts" - three of which are included on the page linked to - Malcolm desired a much stronger-looking facade for his store; one that was rooted in history as well fantasy. See Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 457.

 

[2] Gorman informs us that whilst McLaren "oversaw the overhaul", it was carried out by Roger Burton and the electrician Andy Newman. But the latter were simply following instructions and the concept being realised was McLaren's own. See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 457.

 

[3] This phrase, which I associate with Deleuze and Guattari, refers to a place and time that exists very much now/here rather than nowhere. I discuss the idea in relation to the land of Cockaigne and the Big Rock Candy Mountain in a post of 10 August 2018: click here. 

      As for the idea of a clock that might strike for a 13th time, this is one that resonates within English literature. The line at the top of this post, for example, is a paraphrase of the very famous opening line of George Orwell's novel 1984. Essentially, it's an idea that casts doubt on reality.

 

[4] See Paul Gorman's post of 28 August 2014 published on his (always amazingly well-researched) website paulgormanis.com - click here. 

      Readers might also be interested in Ben Westwood's post of 11 August 2017 on the Worlds End blog published on viviennewestwood.com: click here. 

 

[5] Interestingly, McLaren's relation to the Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie - creator of Peter Pan - is little dicussed, even though he was clearly much influenced by the latter's adventures in Neverland as leader of the Lost Boys; adventures which involved dealing with pirates and redskins, as well as fairies and mermaids. 

      In a list for The Guardian of his top 10 books, compiled in February 2000, McLaren places Peter Pan at number one, describing it as the "best sex story" he has ever read: click here. As a possible explanation of what he meant by this, see Philip Hensher's article in The Spectator entitled 'The creepiness of Peter Pan' (11 June 2005): click here.

      

 

For a recent post related to this one entitled 'Out of the Punk Ruins and Into the Age of Piracy' (26 May 2024), please click here. 

Out of the Punk Ruins and Into the Age of Piracy

Jordan as SEX punk (1976) 

and Worlds End pirate (1981)

 

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

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

 

 

I. 

 

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

 

 

II.

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

  

 

III.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

  

Post-punk pirates Bow Wow Wow 

looking the part in 1981

 

Notes

 

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

 

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

[3] Ibid., p. 450.

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

Malcolm McLaren: screenshot taken from the video for 

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

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

 

 

I. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

II.

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

Notes

 

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

 

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

 

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

But Malcolm, They'll Not Be Able to Find It ...

Fig. 1: Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the U.K. (EMI, 1976)  

Fig. 2: Kazimir Malevich: Black Square (1915) 

 

 

I.

 

It's hard to resist loving a paper that explores the links between punk, nihilism, politics and the arts, such as the one delivered by Ian Trowell at the Torn Edges symposium at the London College of Communication a few days ago [1].

 

Kazimir Malevich and Malcolm McLaren; Suprematism, Situationism, and the Sex Pistols - what's not to love? 

 

I don't want to say it was the best presentation on the day, but it was probably the one I enjoyed the most - and if Trowell had only thought to entitle his work 'Don't Be (Black) Square Be There', I would've loved it (and him) even more [2].

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly to torpedophiles, the aspect of the talk that most excited concerned the plain black sleeve that 'Anarchy in the U.K.' - the Sex Pistols' debut single - was originally issued in on 26 November, 1976. 

I figure that McLaren would be more than familiar with Malevich's suprematist masterpiece painted sixty years earlier, though don't know if this directly inspired the 'Anarchy' packaging, or if, as Paul Gorman says, the insistence on such a sleeve was simply in line with McLaren's own aesthetic, as seen in his portraits of the 1960s and the clothes designs produced with Vivienne Westwood for Sex [3]. 

 

Either way, it was a great idea for a sleeve; one that not only captures the anarcho-nihilism of the band, but affirms the colour with the greatest symbolic resonance and meaning. 

 

And when EMI executives complained that an all black sleeve with no identifying information would make it extremely difficult for fans to find it in the record stores, Malcolm smiled and said: I don't want them to find it ... [4]

 

Notes

 

[1] Ian Trowell is an independent researcher and author exploring themes of popular culture and ideas around myth and memory. His presentation at Torn Edges was entiled '"Anarchy in the UK', 'Black Square', and Pop Nihilism: Exploring the Links between Punk, Nihilism, Suprematism and Situationism". 'Further details of this event and of the other speakers can be found here. Trowell's recently published book - Throbbing Gristle: An Endless Discontent (Intellect Books, 2023) - can be purchased here.

 

[2] The fact that he was wearing an Adam and the Ants T-shirt on the day makes it even more surprising to me that Trowell didn't think of this title. Still, never mind - the presentation was all good clean fun (whatever that means).*  

[3] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 331. Gorman goes on to say that McLaren was also thinking of the infamous 'black page' in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67).

 

[4] There were only a couple of thousand copies of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' issued in the black sleeve; after that, it was sold in the standard EMI sleeve with a hole in the middle so the label information could easily be read. 

      The record reached number 38 in the official UK Singles Chart, before being withdrawn by EMI following the Bill Grundy Incident (1 Dec 1976). The Sex Pistols were eventually fired from EMI on 6 January 1977, but they kept their £40,000 advance and had the last laugh when they included the track E.M.I. on Never Mind the Bollocks (Virgin Records, 1977). 

      To watch the band perform the single 'Anarchy in the U.K.' on the BBC's early evening current affairs show Nationwide (recorded 11 Nov 1976 and broadcast the following day), click here.

 

  

* I'm referring here - for those who don't know - to a track by Adam and the Ants entitled 'Don't Be Square (Be There)', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here. You may not like it now, but you will ... 

André Masson and the Sex Pistols

The Surrealist and the Sex Pistol:

 André Masson and Malcolm McLaren

Photos by Man Ray (c. 1930) and Joe Stevens (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

When asked shortly before his death: Which living artist do you most admire? 

 

Malcolm McLaren answered: 

 

"When I was 18, I studied for three months under the automatist painter André Masson in France. Every day I would buy him tomatoes, a baguette and a bottle of côtes du rhône, but he never spoke. On my last day he bought me a drink and wished me well. He's dead now, but I remain haunted by him." [1]

 

I don't know how true that is, but it's an amusing story [2] and forms an interesting connection with an artist whose relation to surrealism is much discussed, but whose influence on punk is - as far as I know - rarely mentioned. 

 

 

II.

 

My knowledge of Masson is mostly limited to the period when he worked on the journal founded by Georges Bataille - Acéphale (1936-39). 

 

His cover design for the first issue featuring an iconic headless figure with stars for nipples and a skull where his sexual organ should be, has resonated with me ever since I first saw it in the mid-1990s and I'm disappointed that Malcolm didn't ask Jamie or Vivienne to adapt this pagan image on a design for the Sex Pistols.

 

To identify as an anti-Christ is an important start. But equally important is to declare oneself in opposition to the ideal figure of the Vitruvian Man embodying all that is Good, True, and Beautiful - and to repeat after Bataille: "Secrètement ou non, il est nécessaire de devenir tout autres ou de cesser d'être." [3]

 

Wouldn't that have made a great punk slogan? 

 

I think so.

And I think also that the sacred conspiracy involving Bataille, Masson, Klossowski and others, anticipates McLaren's idea for SEX as a place which might bring together those sovereign individuals who didn't belong to mainstream society or wish to conform to the dictates of fashion, but wanted to violently affirm their singular being above all else.

 

And so, again, I think it a pity that the dark surrealism of Bataille and Masson - which not only set itself in opposition to all forms of fascism but also all forms of humanism, including André Breton's surrealism - wasn't explored (and exploited) by McLaren; especially as, in Sid Vicious, punk rock had discovered its very own Dionysian superstar [4]; someone who, as Malcolm liked to say, never saw a red light and enacted the primordial powers of instinct and irrationality.  

And, like Masson's acéphalic figure, Vicious even had a penchant for carrying a (sacrificial) knife ... [5]

 

Notes

 

[1] Amy Fleming, 'Portrait of the artist: Malcolm McLaren, musician', in The Guardian (10 Aug 2009): click here. 

      This is an interesting short question and answer piece, which also reveals McLaren's favourite film to be David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). However, I don't think the description of McLaren in the title as a musician is one he would recognise. Sadly, McLaren died eight months after the piece was published (on 8 April 2010). 

 

[2] McLaren's biographer, Paul Gorman, tells us that prior to beginning life as a student at Harrow Technical College & School of Art, Malcolm was "sent by his mother to a summer school in the south of France" and that this (apparently) involved an internship with André Masson and not just enjoying life on the beach at Cannes. 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 45.

 

[3] I would translate this into English as: "Secretly or not, it is necessary to become wholly other, or cease to be." Often the original French phrase tout autres is translated as 'completely different'.

      The line is from Bataille's essay 'The Sacred Conspiracy', which can be found in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl with Carl R. Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., (University of Minnesota Press, 1985), p. 179. Masson's Acéphale can also be found in this book, illustrating the essay on p. 180.       

 

[4] See ' Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) where I develop this idea: click here.

 

[5] See 'I'll Put a Knife Right in You: Notes on the Case of Sid and Nancy' (30 Dec 2020): click here. 

 

 

This post is dedicated to the Danish art historian and curator Marie Arleth Skov, author of Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation (Intellect Books, 2023). Her paper at the Torn Edges symposium held at the London College of Communication (20 March 2024) - 'Berlin Calling: The Dark, Dramatic, and Dazzling Punk Art Praxes of a Divided City' - was inspirational.

Passion Ends in Fashion: Notes on SEX

 

Malcolm outside his notorious boutique 

at 430 King's Road (1976)

 

 

I. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

II.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

III.   

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Paul Gorman provides an excellent summary:

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

 

Notes

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

On Punks, Hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit

 Joe, Johnny, and Jello in their pre-punk days

 

One of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day, was that they hated the complacency, passivity, and untrustworthiness of middle-class hippies and they differentiated themselves from peace-loving flower children by their hairstyles and clothes: no long hair or beards and no flared jeans or tie-dyed T-shirts with groovy psychedelic prints. 

Having a close-cropped barnet was just as much a sign of radical militancy for the punks as it had been for the rank-and-file Roundheads and very few of them had flowing long locks covering their ears. So it's always a little disconcerting to come across old photos of figures central to the punk revolution - including Rotten, Strummer, and Biafra - and see them looking like ... well, hippies!

 

No wonder Jamie Reid later advised us to never trust a punk either (that punks were, in fact, often just hippies in disguise).

 

 

II. 

 

One is also reminded, upon seeing these pictures, that, essentially, we have Malcolm to thank for concocting an anti-hippie aesthetic and philosophy - not Johnny, Joe, or Jello. It was McLaren's provocative and fetishistic take on fashion, his anarchic politics inspired by Situationism, and a penchant for 1950s rock 'n' roll - all brilliantly expressed in the slogan Sex, Style and Subversion - out of which the look of what became known as punk developed. 

 

Vivienne Westwood would later recall just how odd looking 20-year-old Malcolm was when she met him in the mid-1960s; with his very, very pale skin and his very, very short hair he looked so unlike his contemporaries. If he was, in many regards, a typical product of his era and cultural environment, McLaren was never a hippie and only ever had scorn for them. 

 

Thus it was that, in 1971, Malcolm bought a pair of blue-suede creepers, which, as Paul Gorman notes, had by this date long gone out of fashion; street style was now defined by "feather-cut hair, the ubiquitous flared loon pants, stack-heeled boots, platform shoes and velvet suits" [1]. 

 

For McLaren, the shoes: 

 

"'Made a statement about what everyone else was wearing and thinking. It was a symbolic act to put them on. Those blue shoes had a history that I cared about, a magical association that seemed authentic. They represented an age of revolt - of desperate romantic revolt [...]" [2]             

Later, he combined the shoes with a 1950s style blue lamé suit (made by Vivienne) and a matching ice-blue satin shirt: "'I decided it would be really cool to be like Elvis, to be a Teddy Boy in a kind of defiant anti-world and anti-fashion gesture [...]'" [3]

  

And that - boys and girls - is the spirit of punk; more heroic than hippie (and it comes quiffed or spiky-topped, rather than lanky long-haired or feather-cut). 

 

Malcolm the proto-punk (1972)

 

 

Notes

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 119. 

[2] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid.

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, ibid., p. 131.

 

 

For a sister post to this one entitled 'Never Mind the Spiky Tops' (28 Nov 2023), click here.  

Never Mind the Spiky Tops

All the curly young punks:

Michael Collins and Adam Ant (top row) 

Mick Jones and Me (bottom row)*

 

 

I. 

 

Short spiky hair - often dyed an unnatural shade à la Johnny Rotten - was one of the defining characteristics of punks back in the day. 

 

However, there were plenty of individuals central to the scene who, even in 1977, were proud of their curls and ringlets, including Michael Collins, for example, who was recruited by Vivienne Westwood to manage the shop at 430 King's Road.

 

One thinks also of Stuart Goddard, who abandoned his pub rock outfit Bazooka Joe after seeing the Sex Pistols, transformed his look and changed his name (to Adam Ant), but still maintained his dark curls even at his punkiest.

 

And talking of dark curly-haired punks ... let's not forget Mick Jones; he may have chopped his curls off in 1976 when he formed The Clash, but it wasn't long before his pre-punk (less militant more glam) self reasserted itself.  

 

 

II.

I'm sure there will be some readers by now asking: So what?

 

Well, for one thing, it's always good to be reminded that before it quickly became just another mass-produced fashion and media-endorsed stereotype - as well as a fixed set of values and prejudices - punk was a highly creative form self-stylisation. It was not about following trends, conforming to norms of behaviour, or caring what others thought about the way you looked. 

 

As The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle attempted to remind us: Anyone can be a Sex Pistol - even with curly hair, like me, and, of course, like Malcolm:

 

           

Photo credits: Michael Collins by Homer Sykes; Adam Ant by Ray Stevenson; Mick Jones by Sheila Rock; Malcolm McLaren by Joe Stevens. I don't remember who took the picture of me, but it's dated October 1977. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on punks, hippies, and the Boy in the Blue Lamé Suit, click here.

 

The Malcolm McLaren Estate Vs The Vivienne Foundation

 

 

I. 

 

Once upon a time, as everybody knows, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were lovers, creative collaborators, and business partners. But then they fell out, went their separate ways, built solo careers, began to bore everyone, got old and died.   

 

 

II. 

 

The Malcolm McLaren Estate was established by his sole heir and executor - as well as his girlfriend and business partner for the last twelve years of his life - Young Kim. 

 

Its primary purpose seems to be to advance the idea that Malcolm was a visionary genius and pop cultural icon: "An artist in the most post-modern sense of the word, working in every conceivable artistic and intellectual medium ..."

 

 

III.

 

The Vivienne Foundation was launched as a not-for-profit organisation following her death in 2022 [1]. 

 

It exists not merely to honour, protect and continue the legacy of Westwood's creativity and activism, but in order to implement "Vivienne's plan to save the world" by halting climate change, stopping war, defending human rights, and protesting capitalism. 

 

IV.

 

Unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, relations between the Malcolm McLaren Estate and The Vivienne Foundation are not exactly cordial. 

 

And this week, they have taken a significant turn for the worse following an article by Young Kim in which she reveals the truth about Vivienne's creative relationship with Malcolm and Westwood's unrelenting animosity towards the man who enabled her to become a celebrated fashion designer [2].

 

Kim's main complaint - and it's a serious charge, for which she has a good deal of evidence and justification - is that The Vivienne Foundation is continuing the process (started by Westwood) of revising cultural history and trying to erase McLaren's fashion legacy. 

 

Whether that justifies Kim's description of Westwood as uneducated and provincial, is debatable. 

 

And, to be fair, Westwood was a lot more than McLaren's assistant during their time together at 430, King's Road, although I absolutely believe it to be the case that the majority of ideas - certainly all the best ideas - were Malcolm's; not Vivienne's, not Bernie's, not Rotten's, but Malcolm's.   

 

Finally, Kim is also angry about the fact that many of the McLaren-Westwood designs sold as authenticated originals - with the Vivienne Foundation's blessing and support - are, she says, inferior copies, or fakes.

V.

 

Not surprisingly, Joe Corré - co-creator and director of The Vivienne Foundation - has defended his mother and responded to Young Kim's accusations. 

 

In a letter to Gill Linton [3], he claims, for example, that there "never was a 'McLaren Westwood' brand or label", which, if technically true, is more than a little disingenuous: the actual label designed (by McLaren) for the Seditionaries personal collection contains both their names (his first; then hers).

 

More astonishing, to me at least, is the fact that Corré would argue that his mother was in professional partnership with his father, McLaren, only for a "relatively short period" and that this (twelve-year) period is of minor significance compared to "the later parts of her creative career", when she produced items "of much greater interest and value".

 

Corré concludes his letter by saying that it is laughable that items sold from the McLaren-Westwood period - 1971-1983 - should first be authenticated by the Malcolm McLaren Estate: "Appraisal and authentication relies on the knowledge and credibility of experts. The McLaren Estate does not have anyone in this area and we certainly do not require their help." [4]

 

It is, as I say, all rather unfortunate ... And strangely depressing.   

 

It's also, essentially, a family feud; as evidenced by the fact that even Joe's daughter - the model and activist Cora Corré - is enlisted to defend the four pillars and help claim the moral high ground for her dear departed grandmother, whilst hardly stopping to give a tinker's toss for her equally dear, equally departed, but infinitely more interesting and amusing grandfather [5].

 

  

Notes

 

[1] I am reminded that The Vivienne Foundation was initially launched - by Westwood herself - as The Vivienne Westwood Foundation in 2018, but it's the Foundation's current existence, following Westwood's death in December 2022, that mostly interests me. Although a not-for-profit organisation, it should be noted that it is not a charity. 

 

[2] This article can be found in the Evening Standard (25 Aug 2023): click here to read online. Young Kim had originally written to Gill Linton (see note 2 below) claiming there were serious problems with the Westwood concession on Linton's Byronesque website.

 

[3] Gill Linton is the founder and Chief Executive of Byronesque, an online boutique selling contemporary vintage fashion, with whom The Vivienne Westwood Foundation work closely: click here. The letter Joe Corré sent to Linton in response to Young Kim's email to Linton - which the latter forwarded to Corré - can be read here on the Byronesque Instagram account. 

 

[4] In his letter to Linton, Joe Corré also takes an unnecessary (possibly libelous) pop at McLaren's esteemed biographer and the man who arguably knows more about the sound of fashion and the look of music than anyone else, Paul Gorman, much to the latter's understandable - slightly weary - outrage: click here.    

 

[5] In an interview on the Byronesque website entitled 'From Seditionaries to Saving the World', Cora Corré says of Westwood: "I feel incredibly privileged and lucky to have had her as a grandmother and a teacher. [...] In a way I feel her fight will always continue through me shedding light on issues and speaking up for people that don't have a voice." 

      Click here to read the interview in full (if you can stomach the virtue signalling, the self-righteous hypocrisy, and political naivety that the Westwood family and foundation seem to specialise in).  

In Memory of Two Dead Artists: Malcolm McLaren and Pablo Picasso

Malcolm admiring Picasso's Woman with Yellow Hair (1931)

at the Guggenheim (c. 1984) [1]

 

 

Doubtless many well-known people have died on April 8th, but the only two who really interest me are Malcolm McLaren and Pablo Picasso; the former departing this life in 2010, aged 64, and the latter in 1973, aged 91.

 

McLaren had a tremendous knowledge of modern art and admired many painters, but I seem to remember him having a genuine penchant for Picasso; he and Vivienne Westwood famously using Picasso's Weeping Woman (1937) on a toga dress in their Nostalgia of Mud / Buffalo collection (A/W 1982-83).

 

I was surprised, therefore, when I discovered that his response upon first hearing of the Spanish artist's death was simply to say 'Oh good' [2].   

Nevertheless, when asked to pose for an official publicity shot at the Guggenheim ten years later, it was besides a Picasso that Malcolm chose to stand - not a work by Rothko, Warhol, or Francis Bacon ... 

 

Whether he had a particular liking for this 1931 portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter, I don't know. But I find it hard to believe that the picture was chosen purely at random.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the photographer who took this picture, which was used as a publicity shot by Charisma Records, to whom McLaren was signed in the early-mid '80s.*   

 

[2] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 185. 

      Roberta Bayley recalls that it was the American fashion entrepreneur, designer, and journalist Gene Krell who broke the news of Picasso's death to McLaren. 

 

 

* Update: Paul Gorman kindly informs me the image is from S8/E9 of ITV's The South Bank Show on McLaren, which aired on 2 December 1984. For a post in which I reflect on this show, click here.   

 

   

Reflections on the Death of a Footballer

Dominic Snow: Saint Pelé (2007)

Oil on canvas (51 x 77 cm)

saatchiart.com

 

 

Have you heard the news? 

 

The great Brazilian footballer Pelé is dead ...!

 

Actually, it's hard not to be aware of his passing, as his face and name is everywhere at the moment, even though he hasn't kicked a ball for forty-five years and even though kicking a ball is essentially what he's known for - that, and for being the public face of erectile dysfunction [1].

 

Judging from the press and media coverage, however, you would think he was a veritable saint among men; a bit like Nelson Mandela, only with the number 10 on his back, rather than 46664.

 

White liberals in particular can hardly contain themselves when talking about him and one can't help thinking that it's not because they care about football or remember him playing, but because he's a sporting version one of those figures that film director Spike Lee called magical negroes ...

That is to say, a black man who is pure and noble of soul and in possession of great wisdom or insight; a reassuring figure who upholds the ideal of a universal humanity and teaches us how to be better people.  

 

It's basically an inverted (and romantic) racism and if, like Lee, I was black, it would make me mad as hell (indeed, even without being black it irritates me).  

 

So, I'm sorry that Pelé is dead; maybe he was a great man as well as a great footballer. I don't know and I don't care. What I do know is that I'll be glad when the world's media turns its attention elsewhere. 

 

And, just one final point ... 

 

I think it revealing that the media here in the UK are giving more attention to the death of an ex-footballer from a far away land than to the passing of a truly iconic national figure - Vivienne Westwood  - who also died yesterday.  

 

It shows that the world of fashion - and, indeed, the world of contemporary art - remains something the Great British Public are not only indifferent to, but suspicious, scornful, and fearful of [2], whilst football, on the other hand, is now supposed to be played, watched, and enjoyed by everyone, from rough girls to delicate boys the whole world over.

 

The so-called Beautiful Game has become an opiate of the masses [3].   

 

 

Notes 

[1] Hired by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in 2002, Pelé was the first celebrity ambassador for Viagra, although he insisted in 2011 that he had never needed to take the little blue pills himself. His main role was to raise awareness around erectile dysfunction and encourage men to openly discuss their problems. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this had some humorous consequences (see spoof image below).

 

[2] One recalls, for example, the shameful reaction of the Wogan audience - egged on by the ghastly Sue Lawley and fellow guest, the equally ghastly Russell Harty - to Westwood's Time Machine collection back in 1988: click here. Well done Janet Street-Porter for sticking up for Westwood, but what a pity Grace Jones wasn't on hand to give Harty and Lawley both a few hard slaps. 

 

[3] Marx, of course, originally used this dictum with reference to religion: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." See the Introduction to his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. Annette Jolin and Joseph O’Malley, (Cambridge University Press, 1970). 

      The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar had an estimated 4 billion viewers for its 64 matches played over 29 days.