SEX was a
boutiqueA boutique is a small shopping outlet, especially one that specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing and jewelry. The word is French for "shop", via Latin from Greek ἀποθήκη , "storehouse"....
run by
Malcolm McLarenMalcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls...
and
Vivienne WestwoodDame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...
at 430 King's Road, London between 1974 and 1976. It specialized in clothing that defined the look of the
punk movementPunk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and body modifications of the punk subculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including...
.
History
In October 1971
Malcolm McLarenMalcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls...
and a friend from art school, Patrick Casey, opened a stall in the back of the
Paradise Garage boutique at 430
King's RoadKing's Road is a street in Chelsea, London, England.King's Road or Kings Road may also refer to:* King's Road * King's Road * King's Road * King's Road...
in London's
ChelseaChelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
district. On sale were items collected by McLaren over the previous year, including rock & roll vinyl records, magazines, clothing and memorabilia from the
1950sThe 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...
.
Trevor Myles (who ran Paradise Garage), relinquished the entire premises to McLaren and Casey in November 1971. They renamed the shop
Let It Rock with stock including
second-handSecond-Hand was a 2005 Romanian film directed by Dan Piţa.-Plot summary:The film's plot surrounds the romantic involvement of two contrasting characters: Petre , a Mafioso, and Andreea , a young violin player. The pair meet and fall in love...
and new
Teddy BoyThe British Teddy Boy subculture is typified by young men wearing clothes that were partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, styles which Savile Row tailors had attempted to re-introduce in Britain after World War II...
clothes designed by McLaren's school teacher girlfriend
Vivienne WestwoodDame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...
. The shop-front corrugated iron frontage was painted black with the name pasted in pink lettering. The interior was given period detail, such as "Odeon" wallpaper and
Festival Of BritainThe Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
trinkets. Bespoke tailored drape jackets, skin-tight trousers, and thick-soled "brothel creepers" shoes were the mainstays.
Let It Rock was soon covered in the
London Evening Standard.
In 1973 the outlet interior was changed and the shop was given a new name,
Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, to reflect a new range of clothing from Britain's early 60s "rocker" fashions.
In the spring of 1974 the shop underwent another refurbishment and was
rebrandedRebranding is the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of them for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated position in the mind of stakeholders and competitors....
with the name
Sex.
History
The façade included a 4 ft sign of 4 ft pink foam rubber letters read “SEX”. The interior was covered with
graffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
from the
SCUM ManifestoThe SCUM Manifesto is a radical feminist manifesto written in 1967 by Valerie Solanas and calling for the elimination of the male sex.-Description:...
and chickenwire. Rubber curtains covered the walls and red carpeting was installed.
SEX sold fetish and bondage wear supplied by existing specialist labels such as Atomage, She-And-Me and London Leatherman as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood. Among customers at
SEX were the four original members of The Sex Pistols (the bass-player
Glen MatlockGlen Matlock is an English bass guitarist most famous for being in the original line-up of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. Drummer Paul Cook has said that Matlock came up with much of the music for the band's songs and most of the lyrics, while lead singer Johnny Rotten made some adjustments...
was an employee as a sales assistant on Saturdays. The group's name was provided by McLaren in partial promotion of the boutique. In late 1975 when nineteen-year-old
John LydonJohn Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
was persuaded to audition for the group by singing along to
Alice CooperAlice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
's "
I'm Eighteen"I'm Eighteen" is a 1970 song by rock band Alice Cooper, featured on their first major label release album Love It to Death. It was released in November 1970, 3 months prior to the album, and became the band's breakthrough hit.-Achievements:...
" on the jukebox. Other notable patrons included occasional assistant
Chrissie HyndeChristine Ellen "Chrissie" Hynde is an US musician best known as the leader of the rock/new wave band the Pretenders. She is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and has been the only constant member of the band throughout its history.-Early life and career:Hynde is the daughter of a part-time...
,
Adam AntAdam Ant is an English musician who gained popularity as the lead singer of New Wave/post-punk group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring ten UK top ten hits between 1980 and 1983, including three No.1s...
,
Marco PirroniMarco Francesco Andrea Pirroni is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer...
,
Siouxsie SiouxSiouxsie Sioux is an English singer-songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer of the critically acclaimed rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees and of its splinter group The Creatures . The Banshees produced eleven studio albums and a string of hit singles including "Hong Kong Garden",...
, Steve Severin and the rest of the
Bromley ContingentThe Bromley Contingent is a label invented by journalist Caroline Coon about a group of followers and fans of the Sex Pistols. They owed their name to Bromley, a suburb of London, in the county of Kent, where some of them lived. They helped popularize the fashion of the early UK punk movement...
.
The store's designs confronted social and sexual taboos, and included T-shirts bearing images of the Cambridge Rapist's face hood, semi-naked cowboys from a 1969 illustration by the US artist
Jim FrenchJames French may refer to:* James R. French, American aerospace engineer* James French , American criminal, last Oklahoma pre-Furman execution* Jim French , New Mexican cowboy...
, a trompe-l'œil image of bare breasts from a novelty shirt first produced by Rhode island School Of Art students Janusz and Laura Gottwald in the late 60s , and pornographic texts from the book
School for Wives by the beat author
Alexander TrocchiAlexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi was a Scottish novelist.-Early career:Trocchi was born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and Italian father. After working as a seaman on the Murmansk convoys, he attended University of Glasgow. On graduation he obtained a traveling grant that enabled him to...
.
Among the designs were clear plastic-pocketed jeans, zippered tops and the
Anarchy shirt which used stock from the 60s manufacturer Wemblex. These were bleached and dyed shirts and adorned with silk
Karl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
patches and anarchist slogans.
In December 1976, 430 King's Road was renamed
Seditionaries, trading under that title until September 1980. Designs were licensed by Westwood to the operators of King's Road boutique "Boy" who issued them - some with alterations - over the next eight years
In late 1980, the shop at 430 King's Road re-opened under the name World's End. The building was designed by McLaren and Westwood and realised by Roger Burton, aided by Jeremy Blackburn and Tony Devers[SOURCE?], to resemble a mixture of the Olde Curiosity Shoppe and an 18th century galleon. The facade was installed with a large clock which spun backwards with the floor raked at an angle. McLaren and Westwood launched the first of a series of collections from the outlet at the beginning of 1981 and collaborated for a further three years. World's End remains open as part of Vivienne Westwood's global fashion empire.
Famous shop assistants
Many people related with the punk scene worked at the shop in one way or another. A notable employee was
Jordan (Pamela Rooke)Jordan , is a model and actress noted for her work with Vivienne Westwood and the SEX boutique in the Kings Road area of London in the mid-1970s, and for being a fixture at many of the early Sex Pistols performances...
, whose provocative fashion sense served as a walking advertisement for the shop. At various times,
Glen MatlockGlen Matlock is an English bass guitarist most famous for being in the original line-up of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. Drummer Paul Cook has said that Matlock came up with much of the music for the band's songs and most of the lyrics, while lead singer Johnny Rotten made some adjustments...
,
Chrissie HyndeChristine Ellen "Chrissie" Hynde is an US musician best known as the leader of the rock/new wave band the Pretenders. She is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and has been the only constant member of the band throughout its history.-Early life and career:Hynde is the daughter of a part-time...
and
Sid ViciousSid Vicious was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols...
also worked there.
See also
- SEX: Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die
SEX: Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die was a compilation album edited by Marco Pirroni, which was compiled from the records on the jukebox at Malcolm McLaren's shop SEX.- Track listing :#Psychotic Reaction - Count Five#Through My Eyes - The Creation...
, a compilation album of songs on their JukeboxA jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
.
External links
- Only anarchists are pretty Photos and information.Closed as of 11/08.
- Sex & Seditionaries Clothing designed by Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren circa 1975-1979.
- Punk Pistol Seditionaries tribute site to clothing designed by Westwood & McLaren.
- Punk Pirate 1981 Clothing line designed by Westwood and McLaren. (previously punkpirate.com - no longer accessible)