Go Ape Crazy: On the Role of King Kong in Malcolm McLaren's Imagination

Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood: 

'Exposé: Punk Rock Sex' T-shirt (Seditionaries 1978)

Image via: metmuseum.org 

 

King Kong, King Kong, I don't think clear  

King Kong king, the king is here 

 His heart's still pumping, his blood's still running  

King Kong king, the king is here [1]

 

 

I.

 

Everybody loves King Kong (1933) - the tragic story of a giant gorilla transported to a world not of his own making, who falls for a beautiful young white woman originally offered to him as a sacrifice.

 

And when I say everyone, I mean everyone - from Adolf Hitler to Malcolm McLaren ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Actually, although it is a widely reported claim that Hitler was spellbound by King Kong, historians debate whether this is more popular myth than verifiable fact. 

      

For while several contemporary accounts from people within his inner circle confirm the Führer was a Hollywood film fan who enjoyed watching movies nearly every night - and while the Nazi newspaper Der Angriff published a very positive review of King Kong (in predictably racialised terms) - Bill Niven points out that there is no official record definitively proving Hitler ever saw it [2].  

 

McLaren, however, was definitely a fan of King Kong and repurposed this powerful piece of cinematic mythology on at least two occasions: firstly, weaving it into his own aesthetic as a provocative fashion designer and, secondly, as a lyricist with Bow Wow Wow, the band he conceived and managed after his Sex Pistols project terminated. 

 

 

III.

 

Returning to the UK in early 1978 after the Sex Pistols' fateful US tour resulted in the dissolution of the band as a regular four-piece, McLaren and his partner Vivienne Westwood set about printing a series of obscene novelty designs that he had come across in America on a range of plain T-shirts and muslin tops sold at Seditionaries.

 

Among these was a cartoon-style image of King Kong atop the Empire State Building masturbating over a female figure (presumably Ann Darrow - the struggling actress and Kong's love interest in the 1933 film as played by Fay Wray). 

 

The cultural significance of the shirt titled 'Exposé' (and subtitled 'Punk Rock Sex') is debatable. It's crudely provocative and mildly amusing, but I wouldn't say it's one of the great pieces designed by McLaren and Westwood. Sid liked wearing it, so that's something, I suppose - but I wouldn't personally describe it as representing the raw, anti-establishment aesthetic that defined early punk fashion [3]. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Three years later, and Malcolm still had the great ape in mind when he wrote lyrics for a Bow Wow Wow track called 'King Kong' which incorporates a slogan from the advertising material used to promote the film in 1933: King Kong is here!     

 

Other lyrics have a certain ambiguity or complexity. Kong is not merely seen as a symbol of primal chaos and untamed animality, he is also viewed by McLaren as a product of American mass media designed to entertain cinemagoers around the world and generate huge profits for the film industry - a monster who eats and shits money and who eventually bores us by repeating his antics over and over on screen. 

 

King Kong, in other words, is part of the Spectacle and McLaren's aim is to subvert, weaponise, and repurpose his image and his story in order not merely to offend polite society, but challenge consumer capitalism - to liberate him, if you like, and give Kong back his outrageousness. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Bow Wow Wow, 'King Kong', a hugely underrated track with lyrics by Malcolm McLaren and music by Matthew Ashman, David Barbarossa, and Leigh Gorman, on the album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (RCA Records, 1981).  

 

[2] See Bill Niven, Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion (Yale University Press, 2018).  

 

[3] In fact, I tend to agree with Paul Gorman that the new shirts produced for Seditionaries in the autumn of '78 had a tone of peevishness "rather than triumphant disruption". If they worked as (slightly juvenile) provocations, "in the absence of a coherent clothing collection providing a framework, they lacked panache and indicated that the McLaren/Westwood design relationship was marking time". 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 403. 

On the Sexual Objectification of the Black Male Body à la McLaren and Westwood

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood: 

'Naked Footballer' T-shirt (SEX, 1975) 

Image via: bonhams.com 

 

By the end of the seventies the feared yet desired black male body 

had become as objectified as it was during slavery, only a seemingly positive 

twist had been added to the racist sexist objectification ... [1]  

 

 

I. 

  

The argument against the objectification of black masculinity is fairly straightforward: to reduce men to racialised sexual stereotypes and physical attributes rather than recognising them as individuals is dehumanising and degrading - stripping them of both agency and dignity (as well as their clothes). 

 

Frantz Fanon made this case over seventy years ago, pointing out how the idea of a black man as hypersexual, aggressive, and animalistic is one that originated during the colonial era and was used to justify slavery and violent oppression.

 

In his seminal 1952 study, Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon writes about the way the white world works its diabolical magic, transforming the black male subject into nothing but a BBC: "no longer do we see the black man; we see a penis: the black man has been occulted. He has been turned into a penis. He is a penis" [2]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Not that this particularly troubles those working in the arts who happily borrow from the world of pornography in order to appear transgressive, often relying on stereotypes while claiming to challenge social taboos. 

 

Famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, for example, loved to fetishise the black male body and produce homoerotic imagery for elite consumption [3].    

 

And punk fashion designers Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were also not above jumping on this particular bandwagon in the early-mid 1970s, producing a T-shirt featuring a naked image of the NFL player Maurice (Mo) Spencer [4] with a semi-erect penis (see above).  

 

Commonly referred to as the 'Naked Footballer' (1974), this shirt was one of the very earliest designs created for SEX, their notorious boutique at 430 King's Road and is now discussed not only in the context of punk fashion, but also racial and sexual politics.   

 

Interviewed in 2008, McLaren was still defending the design and insisting that his intent was to confront the deep-rooted racial fears and sexual stereotypes clung to by the British public in the '70s - and of course garner publicity for the store [5]. 

 

Yet, as with other ideas and images intended to be radical and subversive, McLaren and Westwood's commodification of a racialised and sexualised body just to shock and perhaps terrify white onlookers is questionable to say the least. 

 

It could be argued - and argued quite convincingly - that they were simply reproducing tired historical tropes. That in this case the punk context ultimately changes very little and any positive twist had no lasting liberatory impact. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (Routledge, 2004).

 

[2] Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Richard Philcox (Grove Press, 2008), p. 147. Fanon's original French text - Peau noire, masques blancs - was published in 1952 (Éditions du Seuil). 

 

[3] To be fair, that's a debatable statement - at least in part. On the one hand, Mapplethorpe did take explicit photographs of black men and his prints were mostly intended for wealthy white collectors and museums. But, on the other hand, defenders of his work - including some of his models - argue that his 1986 Black Book - featuring 96 nude images - was a celebration of black male beauty and classical form and didn't merely reduce black men to nameless (and often faceless) sexual objects.  

      As a queer artist working during a time of sexual liberation, Mapplethorpe's work arguably operates under different parameters, leaving the definitive judgment of his intent to the viewer. Readers who wish to make their own mind up on this subject can purchase the most recent edition of The Black Book (Schirmer/Mosel, 2010) on Amazon UK.

 

[4] Spencer played in the NFL during the years 1974-78. In late 1969, when still a teenager, he modelled for an adult physique magazine called Bob Anthony's Beefcake. When McLaren came across the image in a gay bookshop on a visit to New York in 1973, he determined that it had to be appropriated and become part of his own conceptual art project - a project that would eventually produce the Sex Pistols; at least two of whom, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, were photographed wearing the shirt.    

 

[5] "Satisfyingly for McLaren", writes Paul Gorman, "local residents complained when these T-shirts were displayed in the shop window." Later, during a police raid on SEX, the 'Naked Footballer' shirts were removed along with the (still more controversial) 'Two Cowboys' shirts. However, the authorities decided against including them in the charges of indecency that were brought against McLaren and Westwood. 

      See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), pp. 220 and 268. 

 

 

On Valerie Solanas's Place in the Punk Imagination

Valerie Solanas (1936-1988): photo by Fred W. McDarrah (1966) 

'You're Gonna Wake Up ...' (Scum version) 

Sleeveless shirt design by McLaren-Westwood for SEX (1974) 

  

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore 

and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, 

there remains to ... thrill-seeking females only to 

overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, 

institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

 

 

I.

 

A bit like Alexander Trocchi, Valerie Solanas is one of those countercultural figures who left a real impression on Malcolm McLaren's imagination and thus on the aesthetics and politics of punk in the UK.

 

Listed as sleeping on the correct side of the bed on one of the first of the new shirts designed by Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood for SEX in 1974, Solanas had the additional honour of having lines from her SCUM Manifesto (1968) spray-painted on the interior walls of 430 King's Road. 

 

These appeared alongside various Situationist slogans from May '68 and a paragraph taken from Trocchi's erotic novel Helen and Desire (1954) that for some reason haunted McLaren for decades afterwards, beginning: I groaned with pain ... [1] 

 

I was amused to recently discover (thanks to Paul Gorman) that when once asked by an interviewer how she would spend a perfect day if she could go anywhere, do anything, meet anyone, Westwood replied she would visit Solanas in her jail cell after her conviction for shooting Andy Warhol with an automatic pistol [2] [3].  

 

 

II. 

 

Looking at the opening paragraph from the SCUM Manifesto printed above, I suppose it's easy to see why Solanas was attractive to McLaren and Westwood: you can't get much more of an aggressively anti-establishment attitude than that - it's pure punk masquerading as feminist theory; a violent rejection of mainstream society that calls for total revolution (or, failing that, complete destruction). 

 

And Solanas herself, of course, might be seen as the ultimate outsider: angry, uncompromising, free-wheeling, thrill-seeking, etc. A little unhinged, certainly, but also, in her own way, groovy. 

 

For McLaren, heavily influenced by Situationism - an avant-garde political movement that advocated using shock tactics and "anti-art" to wake up passive consumers - Solanas's literal assault on the pop-art elite (Warhol) and her wildly confrontational text perfectly suited his project of weaponised cultural chaos.

 

 

III.

 

Of course, the relationship between Solanas and punk was strictly one-way: she never publicly commented on her co-option by McLaren and Westwood into their imaginary universe and commercial aesthetic. 

 

When SEX and Seditionaries were operating in the golden punk period between 1974 and 1980, Solanas was completely removed from pop culture. Following her 1968 shooting of Andy Warhol, she moved between prison and the madhouse, or was otherwise homeless. 

 

Living in extreme poverty and struggling with paranoid schizophrenia and drug dependency, Solanas became a deeply reclusive figure, still highly paranoid about people stealing her work (as, in fact, they were). If she was aware of McLaren and Westwood printing her words on shirts, she never spoke about it to the few people who interviewed her before her death in 1988. 

 

To McLaren and Westwood, Solanas was a quasi-mythical icon of anti-establishment rebellion - someone whose manifesto could, quite literally, be used to decorate the interior of their Chelsea boutique. I don't suppose they gave two shits about Solanas as a woman desperately trying to make ends meet. 

 

But then, to be fair, they were cultural provocateurs running a business and promoting a band, not social workers and there's surely nothing more bourgeois than the idea of 'intellectual property rights'.   

  

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post 'I Groaned With Pain ... On Malcolm McLaren's Obsession with Alexander Trocchi's Erotic Fiction' (22 Sept 2026).   

 

[2] The interview appeared in a feature titled 'London Belles' from a short-lived, free magazine called West One and took place shortly before the shop at 430 King's Road was renamed SEX (i.e., when it was still operating as Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die). At the time of the interview, Solanas was incarcerated following her 1968 shooting of Andy Warhol (see note 3 below). 

      See the Paul Gorman post of 16 October 2017 which can be found on the historic pop culture site Flashbak: click here. 

 

[3] On 3 June 1968 the radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas fired at Warhol three times with a .32 calibre automatic pistol. The first two shots missed, but the third hit its target and penetrated multiple organs. Warhol survived the incident - after undergoing five hours of surgery - but was never quite the same again, the shooting having a profound effect on his later life and work. 

      For some reason, even though Malcolm loved Andy, Warhol was listed on the wrong side of the 'You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning and Know What Side of the Bed You've Been Lying On!' shirt (1974). Presumably, this was because the artist was viewed having sold out and become part of the establishment culture. David Hockney and Salvador Dalí were also named on the wrong side of the bed.   

  

I Groaned With Pain ... On Malcolm McLaren's Obsession with Alexander Trocchi's Erotic Fiction

 

Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984): Photo by Marvin Lichtner (1967) 

'I Groaned with Pain' shirt design by McLaren-Westwood for SEX (1974)

I groaned with pain as he eased the pressure in removing the thing 

which had split me and then his huge hands grasping me at the hips 

my blonde hair forming a pool on the dark wood between his feet 

he raised me to doting love soothing the bleeding lips and 

causing the tearing commotion at my loins to subside 

in a soft corrosion

 

  

I. 

 

Malcolm McLaren's obsession with the above lines extracted from Helen and Desire (1954) - an erotic novel by the writer Alexander Trocchi - was one that can be traced across at least a twenty-year period: you can find them printed on a shirt sold at SEX in 1975 and you can hear them still echoing on McLaren's concept album Paris in 1994.  

 

 

II. 

 

Born in Glasgow in 1925, Trocchi was the son of a music-hall performer of Italian heritage. 

 

After working as a young merchant seaman aboard ships transporting food, fuel, and vital military supplies from the UK and US to the Soviet port of Murmansk during WWII, Trocchi studied English literature and moral philosophy at university. 

 

In the early 1950s, he moved to the Continent, living in Paris and editing an avant-garde literary magazine - Merlin (1952-55) - which featured work by writers including Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Jean-Paul Sartre. 

 

Later, in collaboration with the satirical author Terry Southern and publisher Richard Seaver, Trocchi co-edited the 366-page countercultural anthology Writers in Revolt (1962) - which featured work by the above trio alongside contemporaries such as Genet and Ginsberg and ghosts from the past such as Sade and Baudelaire (i.e., all the usual suspects). 

 

 

III.   

 

When not occupied with his editorial work - or shooting up with heroin - Trocchi was busy with his own writing and many of his novels were published by the Olympia Press, i.e., the publishing house that specialised in literary fiction likely to be described as pornography by the old guard and pornography hailed as literary fiction by the vanguard.   

 

Under the pseudonym Frances Lengel, Trocchi churned out numerous erotic works, including McLaren's favourite, Helen and Desire (1954).   

 

IV. 

An interesting character - to say the least - Trocchi was not only pally with members of the American Beat scene, but involved with both the Lettrists and the Situationists. 

 

And, after moving to London in 1962 - where he stayed for the rest of his life - he then became a formative influence on the UK underground scene, working for an invisible insurrection that would promote sodomy as crucial to creativity. 

 

Less than impressed with the direction he was taking, in 1966 the Situationists announced their disapproval and expelled him from the movement. Trocchi continued writing, but, sadly, published little new work.        

 

It was in 1969 that a young art student named Malcolm McLaren was introduced to "the heavily addicted Trocchi, who by then was reduced to selling second-hand books and manuscripts and living in a shabby flat on the Kensington and Chelsea borders" [1].  

 

As Paul Gorman explains, the invitation to McLaren was extended "because Trocchi was  eager to meet radical students to help him work on his utopian Project Sigma texts" [2] - but Malcolm was more interested in Trocchi's past work and connections rather than his future plans for a network of intellectuals interested in non-traditional ways of living and expanding their consciousness with drugs.      

 

 

V. 

 

Skip forward a few years to 1974, and McLaren is now installed at his shop on the King's Road, with his partner Vivienne Westwood (and sometimes collaborator Bernie Rhodes). It has been decided to produce a new range of screen-printed T-shirts to sell at the shop that will soon be rebranded as SEX. 

 

And the first of these designs is the 'I Groaned with Pain' square sleeveless top (shown above) with a text taken from Helen and Desire, hand-written by McLaren: 

 

"The Trocchi shirt represented the first formal annexation of text in the sphere of fashion [...] McLaren transformed the T-shirt from humble undergarment into a powerful means of communicating social and political commentary." [3]

 

Later, McLaren would enlist the support of Saturday boy (and future Sex Pistol) Glen Matlock to assist him in decorating the interior walls of SEX with various spray-painted slogans taken from May '68 and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1968). 

 

Trocchi's 'I groaned with pain ...' paragraph was also added and while McLaren often says punk is all about sex, style, and subversion, it could also be characterised as a mix of porn, politics, and provocation. 

 

 

VI. 

 

The story, however, does not end at 430 King's Road. To fully appreciate the depth of McLaren's obsession with Alexander Trocchi, one has to fast-forward to McLaren's 1994 Paris project, in which he composes a love letter to the French capital and traces out a musical map of feeling.

 

On the opening track, titled 'Mon Dié Sénié', McLaren doesn't just vocalise lyrics based on his favourite lines from Helen and Desire  - "Your blonde hair formed a pool on the dark wood between my feet", etc. - he seamlessly weaves them together with excerpts from another of Trocchi's Olympia Press novels, School for Wives (1955): "She felt the seed stir at the pit of her belly in response to my strong tonguing movements."

 

Years after selling shirts at SEX and Seditionaries, McLaren was still obsessing over Trocchi's words and looping back to his own past in an attempt to live yesterday tomorrow and perhaps breathe new life into the literary pornography that had so inspired him and influenced the look of punk [4].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable Books, 2020), p. 103.

 

[2] Ibid.

 

[3] Ibid., p. 219. 

 

[4] Readers might like to note that by 1994 there was the beginning of a resurgence of interest in Trocchi and his role in the avant-garde movements of the mid-20th century. A biography written by Andrew Murray Scott titled Alexander Trocchi: The Making of the Monster was published alongside Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds: A Trocchi Reader, edited by Scott. Both books were published by Polygon (1991).      

   

 

Musical bonus: another track from McLaren's Paris (1994): 'Rue Dauphine'. It's perhaps my favourite track on the album, bringing together as it does Serge Gainsbourg and Sid Vicious, as well as containing the 'I groaned with pain' line from Trocchi's novel (though somewhat amusingly this is used in relation to licking a postage stamp).  

 

For a sister post to this one on Valerie Solanas and her place in the punk imagination, click here. 

 

 

She's Dead I'm Alive I'm Yours: The Story of Who Paid Sid's Bail

She's Dead I'm Alive I'm Yours (feat. Sid Vicious) 

Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood 

Seditionaries (1978)

 

 

I. 

 

Created in the sixteen-week period between Nancy Spungen's murder in October 1978 and Sid's death in February 1979, the 'She's Dead I'm Alive I'm Yours' shirt was one of McLaren and Westwood's final designs for Seditionaries. 

 

Showing Vicious surrounded by dead red roses (that give the impression of blood splatter), the design was often printed on white cotton T-shirts, but featured also on long-sleeved muslin tops [1]. 

 

For some, it reflects the tragic (if seedy) romanticism of punk. For others it shows an appalling lack of taste and human decency - even the website Punk77 feels obliged to note: 'It's not even shocking anymore, just a bit sad.' [2]      

 

At the time, however, the shirt was hurriedly produced for a practical purpose; namely, to raise funds for Sid's bail and future legal fees (Vicious was accused of inflicting the single knife wound from which 20-year-old Miss Spungen died). 

 

 

II. 

 

The oft-repeated claim that Mick Jagger secretly stumped up the cash - spread by Rotten many years after the event in order to portray McLaren as uncaring and unwilling to help - is essentially false [3]. As a matter of fact, Virgin Records paid the bail [4] and Malcolm did what he could in the circumstances (even though, technically, he was no longer managing the former Sex Pistol). 

 

It was Malcolm, for example, who immediately flew to New York upon hearing of Sid's arrest and it was Malcolm who hired a lawyer to represent Vicious at the arraignment. Not Jagger - and not Rotten, who was busy promoting his new band's debut single, released the day after Spungen's murder [5]. 

 

Even when McLaren's assistance to Vicious is acknowledged, "it is often interpreted as being not only exploitative [...] but opportunistic, in that keeping Vicious alive and out of jail would maintain what remained of the Sex Pistols' viability" [6].

 

That interpretation, says Paul Gorman, does Malcolm a great disservice. For "the strenuousness with which McLaren attempted to establish Vicious's innocence and survival belies a human resolve" [7] to do the right thing by Sid and display a virtue rarely associated with punk - compassion [8].  

  

 

Notes

 

[1] An example of such can be found in the MET Collection: click here. 

 

[2] Quoted from the page devoted to Seditionaries on the long-running independent website Punk77 operated by Paul Marko: click here.  

 

[3] In a 2013 interview with the Daily Record, Rotten claimed that Jagger had generously paid the legal fees. However, any offer of financial help that may or may not have been made by Jagger never materialised. Unfortunately, the story has been widely repeated and entered into punk legend. The full interview can be read here. 

[4] Mo Ostin, the boss of Warner Records - the Sex Pistols' American label - refused to help and, in fact, "used the murder case to terminate the recording contract with Vicious, Jones and Cook", whilst maintaining a good working relationship with Rotten. 

      McLaren also asked Billy Meshel, the group's US music publisher at Arista, but he too declined to cough up the cash. Left with no other choice, McLaren turned to Richard Branson and the Virgin boss agreed to pay the $50,000 bail (as a kind of advance on delivery of the soundtrack to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle). 

      See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 407.

 

[5] Rotten's new group, Public Image Ltd., who were signed to Virgin, released their first single, 'Public Image' on 13 October, 1978. Their debut album, Public Image: First Issue followed in December of that year. 

      For all Rotten's professed sadness and guilt over what became of his friend, he actually did nothing to help - essentially writing Vicious off as a lost cause. His claims that he was prevented by McLaren from helping are, one suspects, a lot of baloney.  

 

[6] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 406. 

 

[7] Ibid. 

 

[8] Obviously, I'm aware that, for McLaren, human tragedy and brilliant branding were never mutually exclusive and that while it's legitimate to credit him for showing up in New York when others didn't, we should be careful not to mistake his actions as pure compassion. 

      If, on the one hand, he seemed to genuinely care for Sid and want to keep him out of prison, on the other hand he was not above making the most of events for his own artistic and commercial ends.   

 

An Easter Message: Britain Must Go Pagan!

Image based on a photo from the Vivienne Westwood Archives

Instagram: @thewestwoodarchives (10 Jan 2023)

 

 

I. 

 

Some people are continuing to choke on their chocolate eggs that King Charles - Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith - has not shared an Easter message this year, despite wishing Muslims a blessed Eid at the end of Ramadan.  

 

With a mixture of outrage and insecurity, they protest that this is yet another sign of the Islamification of the UK and the erosion of Britain's Christian culture; its history, heritage, system of values, etc.

 

These are often the same people obsessed with flag waving and playing identity politics who tie their ethno-nationalism to Christianity; assembling beneath the Cross of St. George like modern day crusaders wearing replica football shirts. 

 

Where this will lead, is anybody's guess - although I think we all have a pretty clear idea ...

 

 

II. 

 

The argument seems to be that if you wish to counter the rise and spread of one virulent religious ideology, then you need another equally fanatic faith that preaches One God, One Truth, One Way.  

 

In other words, one must fight fire with fire and respond to a challenge by adopting the same methods, tactics, and weapons as one's opponent. 

 

It's a fundamentally anti-Christian philosophy, but ironically, it's one that far-right militants who call themselves Christian frequently fall back on in the belief that such a strategy is necessary to ensure not only the victory of Good over Evil, but their survival as a people.      

 

 

III.  

 

Personally, as an anti-theist, if the last thing I want to see is the submission of the English to Allah, then the second from last thing I wish to see is a resurgence of Christianity. Indeed, I would echo Vivienne Westwood during her late-1980s early-90s phase and declare: Britain must go pagan ... [1]

 

Whether that best takes the form of Ancient Greek aesthetics combined with classic British tailoring - as Westwood envisioned - or of a retro Anglo-Saxon heathenism, in which the English finally wake up to the fact that Christianity is itself a foreign import and the imposition of a Middle Eastern deity upon a people who have forgotten their own gods [2], is debatable.

  

Notes

 

[1] Click here to watch a short video on YouTube in which Westwood discusses her idea of neo-paganism in relation to her design aesthetic. 

 

[2] Without wanting to delve too deeply into English religious history, it's worth remembering that Christianity only became the dominant faith in England in the 7th century. Before that time, polytheistic religions were practised, including Anglo-Saxon heathenism, which encompassed a heterogeneous variety of beliefs and practices, with a good deal of regional variation. In was in many ways very similar to the Norse paganism practised by the Scandinavian peoples that would later be introduced to England by the Danes.

      If I were an ethnonationalist, it's this Early Medieval period that would excite my interest and inform my politics; it would be Woden and Thunor I'd worship, not Jehovah and Jesus.    

 

   

Dark Thoughts on the Light House

48 Berwick St., London, W1 

lighthousesoho.com

 

 

I. 

 

To the Light House!

 

For Virginia Woolf, this phrase didn't merely reference a destination, but something intangible that keeps us believing in a brighter future [1]. For me, however, it means a trip into Soho and a first-time visit to Joe Corré's new venture on Berwick Street, six months after opening in September of last year. 

 

 

II.   

 

For readers who may not know, Corré is the 58-year-old son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. He is usually described in the press as an activist and businessman, though we might wish to reverse these terms for the sake of greater accuracy. 

 

In 1994, he established the lingerie store Agent Provocateur with his then wife Serena Rees, which they eventually sold to a private equity firm in 2007, for a sum of £60 million (later revealed to be a more than generous price). The following year Corré opened Child of the Jago, an independent boutique very much inspired by the retail outlets operated by his parents in the 1970s and '80s.  

 

In 2016, Corré controversially staged a protest which involved burning an estimated five million quids worth of Sex Pistols memorabilia on a barge on the River Thames [2]. 

 

And now, Corré is the proud owner of a lovingly restored Georgian townhouse that previously operated as a chandelier workshop [3]; thus the name of his new project (as far as I know, there's no Woolf-Westwood connection, even if the former inspired many fashion designers and once famously declared that, contrary to popular misconception, clothes wear us). 

 

 

III. 

 

It would not be fair - or indeed accurate - to describe the Light House as simply a retail outlet. 

 

For it functions as a multi-purpose fashion house, atelier, and members' bar and aims to provide a platform for independent designers known for "their creative aesthetic and high quality manufacture" [4], but who often struggle to find affordable retail space to rent in what remains of and passes for the real world. 

 

The Light House also intends to host exhibitions, talks, and other events; indeed, when I visited, an exhibition titled  'Vivienne Westwood: An Active Life' was just coming to a close [5]. 

 

All of which sounds great - and is great - and Joe is to be congratulated. The venue looks fantastic and, as a concept, the Light House is a brilliant idea. 

 

And let me add that the staff are amazing, too (give 'em a pay rise, Joe!).  

 

 

IV. 

 

However, a concern remains that the Light House is ultimately a space for an economic rather than a cultural elite to gather. To become a member, for example, requires one to cough up £950 per annum - which is quite a lot of money just to be able to access a tiny bar and mingle with a few other like-minded individuals. 

 

And of course, they will be like-minded; the terms and conditions governing membership (as well as the annual subscription fee) guarantee that. If one, out of curiosity, looks on the Light House website, one discovers that membership will be restricted to those artisans, craftspeople, designers, and individuals drawn from the creative industries who agree to conform to a set of house rules that govern not only how they behave, but what ideas to think and values to hold.

 

Members, for example, are not only made aware that loud and boorish behaviour will not be tolerated, but that they musn't discuss or promote any religious or politically extremist ideology. Members must also conform to an approved dress code; no jeans, no trainers, no tracksuits, no mass market fashion, or other unattractive attire. 

 

The management of the Light House also take a very dim view of drunkenness, lewdness, and aggressiveness. Members and/or their guests will be dealt with severely if they use abusive or inappropriate language, piss on the floor, or smoke in a non-designated area. The use of all mobile devices is also strictly prohibited.

 

And, finally, to ensure everyone follows the rules, members must also consent to use of CCTV and the storage of their personal data. A membership card - i.e., photographic ID - must also be carried and shown upon request by staff. I think that just about covers everything; the Hellfire Club it ain't and whilst Joe Corré may fancy himself as a bit of an 18th century dandy and sophisticated man about town, he's no Francis Dashwood ... 

 

 

V. 

  

Whilst Corré likes to be seen offering support to "those who challenge the norms today: punks, artists, activists, thinkers ..." [6] a high membership fee naturally filters the community by disposable income rather than purely by creative merit. This can risk turning a counter-cultural hub into a private lounge for the wealthy to larp as outsiders and rebels. 

 

And whilst Corré is right to say that Soho has been transformed since the 1980s from a gritty, artistic enclave to an area dominated by private members' clubs, one might suggest that as someone who commodifies the aesthetic of rebellion while operating within the same elite structures, he is himself contributing to the very gentrification of the area that he condemns [7]. 

 

When membership of a club is restricted to those who can afford it, the curiosity and conversation that Corré hopes to foster may lack the friction and diversity of thought found in truly public or more inclusive spaces. 

 

Ultimately, I'll leave it to readers to decide: is Joe a genuine 'punk' saviour and cultural 'terrorist', or is he merely a wealthy beneficiary of the system he criticises? Whilst fans of Westwood and defenders of the faith will love what he's doing, I'm sceptical to say the least ...

 

The Light House may be shining bright on Berwick Street, but for the freaks Corré claims to champion, the door remains firmly closed.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] To the Lighthouse is novel by Virginia Woolf (Hogarth Press, 1927). It is arguably her best novel alongside Mrs Dalloway (1925), and widely considered a seminal work of modernist literature. 

 

[2] See 'Carri On Sex Pistols: Comments on the Case of Joe Corré and His Bonfire of Punk' (19 Dec 2016): click here.

      In this post, I argue that Corré's rather feeble (and belated) gesture was unnecessary; that his father working in collaboration with Jamie Reid had already alerted us in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle to the fact that the Sex Pistols were fast becoming merely another brand name and that Bambi had already been butchered.

 

[3] Corré explains on the Light House website how he had been on the hunt for candlesticks for use in an art project, but ended up purchasing the entire building at 48 Berwick Street: click here. It seems that whilst you may or may not be able to buy happiness, you can certainly materialise your dreams when you have a significant sum in the bank: Lux ducit, sedpecuia eam realem facit ... 

      (I'm punning here on the Latin slogan used by the Light House: Lux me ducet - the light shall lead me forward. The phrase is often associated with the 19th century Italian writer Carlo Collodi, author of Pinocchio (1883), who adopted it as the motto for his magazine, Il Lampione. Along with other similar classical Latin phrases, it is commonly used to express inspiration, intellect, or spiritual guidance.)

 

[4] I'm quoting from the Showcase page on the Light House website: click here. 

 

[5] The month-long exhibition celebrated the life of the iconic visionary and activist Dame Vivienne Westwood. It was an interesting collaboration between the Vivienne Foundation, celebrity portrait photographer Ki Price, and life-long Westwood devotee, Steven Philip. Not only were limited edition prints of Price's pictures available, but Philip curated a sale of over a hundred vintage Westwood items drawn from his own collection. 

      For full details, see the Spotlight page on the Light House website: click here. 

 

[6] I'm quoting from the Showcase page on Child of the Jago on the Light House website: click here. 

 

[7] See, for example, his piece in The Standard titled 'My mother showed how fashion can bring light to dark days - it's a legacy I won't let die' (21 Feb 2026): click here. 

      Corré claims that once vibrant areas like Soho "have become sanitised and homogenised to the point where they resemble a shopping mall of zoned, soulless cubes of shite" and that his mission is to reverse the tide and "bring back the freaks". The Light House, he says, is a hub for people who love to dress up and discuss "artistic, intellectual and cultural ideas" - providing of course they pay their membership fees and respect the rules.  

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.