Paul Gorman is…

The Filth & The Fury: Punk Fashion at the NFT tomorrow with Amber Butchart + SEX & Seditionaries superstar Jordan Mooney

Aug 5th, 2016

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Tomorrow I’m a guest of historian Amber Butchart at London’s National Film Theatre for a conversation and q&a about Punk fashion with her special invitee Jordan Mooney, SEX and Seditionaries superstar and inner member of the Sex Pistols circle.

I’ve put together a presentation from my archive to run during our chat, including images of Jordan’s striking series of visual personae and slides showing how the designs by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at 430 King’s Road were regularly featured in the fashion and national press from the early 70s to the time of Punk later in the decade.

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//Selection of Let It Rock designs showcased in a May 1972 issue of The Sunday Times Magazine. Photos: Hans Feurer. Paul Gorman Archive//

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PRINT @SHOWStudio: Interviewed by Lou Stoppard and shots from my magazine archive

Jul 21st, 2015

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The launch of SHOWStudio’s new series PRINT features an interview with me by editor Lou Stoppard about my magazine archive.

There is also a section dedicated to images from the archive, including front covers, spreads and ads.

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Print @ ShowStudio: Lou Stoppard on the abiding allure of inspirational and off-the-map magazines

Jun 26th, 2015

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//Magazines from my archive (clockwise from top left): Creem, August 1974; Grand Royal #3, 1995; Club International, August 1973; Harpers & Queen, October 1976//

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//After Dark, September 1974; Ben Is Dead #26, 1996//

I’m one of the contributors to Print, writer Lou Stoppard’s forthcoming celebration of the great fashion and music magazines of the past and present.

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Iggy Pop’s Wild Thing jacket: Not from Paradise Garage

Jul 22nd, 2013

//From The Look blog 2009//

A few years back I wrote a series of blogs about the so-called “Wild Thing” jacket worn by Iggy Pop on the cover of his and The Stooges’ album Raw Power; in 2008 I had brokered a deal for the jacket designers John and Molly Dove to reissue a t-shirt range – including a version bearing the Wild Thing’s panther head – via Topman.

Around that time I also hooked them up with the current owner of the jacket, US maverick pop culture entrepreneur and collector  “Long Gone” John Mermis (who I’d met as far back as the mid-90s at his extraordinary Long Beach mansion).

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Pictures from an exhibition: Glam! The Performance Of Style

Feb 19th, 2013

//Kenny putting on make up, Nan Goldin, Boston, 1973 //

Perhaps it is a matter of displacement – that slippery moment when art becomes commerce, shifting back again into the cultural arena as another kind of commodity. The fact is, even today, few among us are willing to acknowledge that certain mass culture forms and practices may comprise the most significant ‘culture’ of our time, precisely because of their ‘popular’ characteristics.

Marcia Tucker and William Olander, New Museum Of Contemporary Art, 1988.

In the 25 years since Tucker and Olander made this statement, the displacement they sought to define has become, if anything, more slippery.

For this reason alone, Liverpool Tate curator Darren Pih must be applauded for negotiating such tricky waters with Glam! The Performance Of Style, the exhibition he has curated in an attempt to locate the early 70s glam-rock phenomenon in the context not just of a certain area of artistic practice of the period but also more broadly the interplay between “high” and mass culture.

//Fashion spread featuring Mr Freedom and Ossie Clark designs, Nova, May 1970 //

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Photography: David Reed’s portrait of Tommy Roberts + John Paul, 1971

Jul 10th, 2012

Thanks to photographer David Reed for this portrait of Tommy Roberts and John  Paul in much satin finery in the office hallway above their Mr Freedom boutique at 20 Kensington Church Street in 1971.

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Photography: Jordan by Peccinotti

May 3rd, 2011

These photographs of SEX shop superstar Jordan appear in the photographer Harri Peccinotti’s illustrated career resume HP.

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