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I’m indebted to reader Dave Shaw, who has sent me the photograph above left of himself wearing a very rare rock fashion garment: one of the canvas and leather jackets made famous by Rod Stewart, who sported his on the sleeve of 1970 solo album Gasoline Alley.

The cream jackets with heraldic-style brown trim were made by the maverick British tailor and leatherworker Colin Bennett and co-designed with Lloyd Johnson for sale in Kensington Market in the early 70s.

“When I bought it the guy told me it was the last of three; the others had gone to Rod Stewart and Allan Clarke of The Hollies,” says Shaw. In fact, as Johnson reveals in the comment below, Bennett made around 20 (and Stewart’s has survived in a collector’s archive).

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Tags: Allan Clarke, Bona Clouts, Colin Bennett, Cream, Dave Shaw, Gasoline Alley, Granny Takes A trip, Hampstead, Lloyd Johnson, Rod Stewart

British fashion designer John Alexander Skelton’s preview of his latest collection at the ancient Fleet Street watering hole Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was a sensually overloaded and eerie delight.

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Tags: Alsatia, Clive Jennings, Dolmen Music, Hobo-Punkature, John Alexander Skelton, Oscar Foster-Kane, Stephen Jones, The House Of Beauty & Culture, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

I’m extremely grateful to artist/designer/photographer Ash Hudson for sending precious photographs and design sketches from the archive of his late mother Ola Hudson, the super-talented fashion designer and costumier best known for providing David Bowie with the formal yet other-worldly collection of garments he wore in Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth and as The Thin White Duke on the subsequent Isolar world tour.

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Tags: Ash Hudson, Bob Gruen, Carly Simon, Dean Stockwell, Dewar's, Diamond Dogs, Iggy Pop, Isolar, John Lennon, Nicolas Roeg, Ola Hudson, Skitzo, Slash, The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Pointer Sisters

Stacia Blake, the artist and performer best known for her association with Hawkwind, has produced a new t-shirt, poster and postcard featuring an amazing design by the legendary Barney Bubbles 

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Tags: Space Ritual, Stacia Blake

Next month British artists David Stephenson and Josh Stapleton’s music project Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band releases a limited edition double vinyl album to coincide with the opening of the exhibition of the same name at London gallery Gazelli Art House.

The show, curated by Stephenson and Gazelli’s Mila Askarova, celebrates the life and work of the art dealer Robert Fraser, the “Groovy Bob” of pop culture legend who represented cutting edge artists from the 1960s to the 80s.

Housed in a handsome gatefold sleeve designed by the great British artist Derek Boshier, the limited edition record features tracks dedicated not just to Fraser but also the constellation of artists in his firmament, including Boshier himself (on the track An Englishman in LA), Jean-Michel Basquiat (Samo), Brian Clarke (Dangerous Visions Of Brian Clark), Keith Haring (Keith Haring’s Pop Shop) and Ed Ruscha (I Want To Hang Out With Ed Ruscha).

Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band is available from January 10 from Gazelli Art House. Order copies here. 

The exhibition runs from January 11 to February 23, 2019. Details here.

Harriet Vyner’s must-read biography of Fraser is available here.

Tags: Brian Clarke, David Stephenson, Ed Ruscha, Gazelli Art House, Groovy Bob, Harriet Vyner, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Josh Stapleton, Keith Haring, Mila Askarova, Robert Fraser, Robert Fraser's Groovy Arts Club Band

Today marks eight years since the death of visual artist, designer and cultural provocateur Malcolm McLaren.

His friend Joe Stevens sent me this photo a couple of years back. It was taken during the period when McLaren – wearing one of the tartan bondage suits he designed with Vivienne Westwood – was mounting the defence of Sid Vicious, then on the murder charge for having killed Nancy Spungen.

This extraordinary episode from an extraordinary life – during which time McLaren encountered the likes of Donald Trump’s vile mentor Roy Cohn, the legendary radical lawyer William Kunstler and criminal defence attorney F. Lee Bailey (the latter by way of an introduction by Allen Ginsberg) – will of course be covered in my book Malcolm McLaren: The Biography, which is to be published by Constable & Robinson next year.

Tags: Allen Ginsberg, Constable & Robinson, Donald Trump, F. Lee Bailey, Hurrah, Roy Cohn, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Vivienne Westwood, William Kunstler

“In graphics, in the music business at least, Barney pioneered the use of everyday objects in his work. He could see the design and the beauty in the apparently banal”
Suzanne Spiro, artist

The Barney Bubbles exhibition Optics & Semantics at London gallery Rob Tufnell closes tomorrow evening; if you have a chance, do go along and enjoy the late graphic arts maestro’s unique celebrations of the mundane and workaday.

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Tags: (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass, Billy Bragg, Brian Griffin, Charisma Records, Chiswick Records, Clarice Cliff, El Lissitzky, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, F-Beat Records, Get Happy!!, Is That Love, Jake Riviera, John Arlott Talks Cricket, Johnny Moped, Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy, Moholy-Nagy, Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack, Radar Records, Rob Tufnell, Squeeze, Stiff Records, Strongbow, Suburban Voodoo, Suzanne Spiro, Teenburger, Terence Conran, They Called It Rock, Utility

Tomorrow is Anthony Burgess’s centenary; would that I could, I’d be in Manchester, specifically at the Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, home to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation for its celebration of the great fellow with an “unforgettable evening of typewriters, music, rough cider and poison-pen letters”.

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Tags: Angela Carter, Anthony Burgess, Graham Greene, Hunter S. Thompson, International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Stanley Kubrick

I am one of the guests of the photographer David Gwinnutt at an event being staged next month to coincide with the opening of his forthcoming exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery.

Before We Were Men showcases Gwinnutt’s documentation – with hand-held camera and exclusive use of natural light –  of creative London in the 1980s. Among his subjects were the designer/performance artist Leigh Bowery, artists Cerith Wyn Evans, Duggie Fields, Gilbert & George and Grayson Perry and dancer/choreographer Michael Clark.

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Tags: Before We Were Men, Cerith Wyn Evans, David Gwinnutt, Derek Jarman, Grayson Perry, Ian Massey, Jeffrey Hinton, John Maybury, Margaret Thatcher, Michael Clark, National Portrait Gallery

On Sunday night the performance art biennial Performa 15 culminated with a celebration of  the 40th anniversary of punk.

As part of the event at New York’s Hôtel Americano, the Malcolm McLaren Award – designed by Marc Newson with $10,000 prize money – was presented to Edgar Arceneaux by Young Kim of the McLaren Estate and writer/musician Richard Hell.

Arceneaux won for his experimental play, “Until, Until, Until . . .,” inspired by the controversial appearance by African-American actor Ben Vereen in black-face at Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inaugural celebration.

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Tags: Ben vereen, Bert Williams, Edgar Arceneaux, Gillian McCain, Hôtel Americano, Legs McNeill, Marc Newson, Please Kill Me, Ronald Reagan, Young Kim