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.