Paul Gorman is…

One of the rare Colin Bennett and Lloyd Johnson ‘Gasoline Alley’ jackets comes to light after nearly 50 years

Jan 12th, 2019

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).

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Inside the mind of a fashion pioneer: Freddie Hornik and his pop culture treasure trove scrapbook in new issue of GQ Style

Mar 24th, 2016

czechborn-british-fashion-entrepreneur-freddie-hornik-wearing-a-black-picture-id82249705

//”Old clothes are a short cut to style”, Freddie Hornik quoted by Drusila Beyfus and photographed by John Patrick for Finding Your Style: Male, published in The Daily Telegraph Magazine, June 13, 1969//

Book cover copy

IMG_2298 IMG_2300

The new issue of British GQ Style features an essay by me about the late Freddie Hornik, the man responsible for exporting Britain’s dandy peacock look around the world in the 70s.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Published for the first time in 46 years: Inside legendary King’s Road boutique Alkasura

Feb 18th, 2016

Alkasura 1

//Alkasura staff inside 304 King’s Road. Photographer: Unknown. Paul Gorman Archive. No reproduction without permission//

This is the first time these photographs – taken inside London’s legendary glam boutique Alkasura – have been published since they appeared in a Japanese fashion magazine in 1970.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A pop culture treasure trove: Freddie Hornik’s Granny Takes A Trip scrapbook

Feb 17th, 2015

P1150964 copy

//Hornik featured in the Telegraph magazine in 1969 and GTAT paperwork dating from 1972. The livery was taken from a design by Granny’s founder Nigel Waymouth//

P1150953 copy

//Hornik maintained his scrapbook from the 60s to his death in 2009//

I have just filed a piece for GQ about Granny Takes A Trip and the branches of the King’s Road boutique which opened in the 70s in Manhattan and Hollywood under the stewardship of the late Freddie Hornik.

The feature also scrutinises the scrapbook Hornik maintained from the mid-60s, when he worked at the rival Dandie Fashions at 161 King’s Road, through his acquisition of Granny’s at 488 King’s Road in 1969 from founders Sheila Cohen, John Pearse and Nigel Waymouth.

P1150955 copy

P1150957 copy

It charts in snapshots, magazine clippings, company paperwork and notes Hornik’s ambitious expansion plan which resulted in partners being brought on board at the Chelsea shop – in the form of co-owners Marty Breslau and Gene Krell – and for the launch of the New York outlet at 304 E.62nd Street, which was owned by John LiDonni and Richie Onigbene.

This strategy proved successful, and was capped by Hornik’s launch with Jenny Dugan-Chapman of an LA branch, first on Doheny in Beverly Hills and then on Sunset Strip.

P1150961 copy P1150962 copy

By this time the Granny’s international operation had hit the moment when rock turned to glam. Existing customers such as Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were joined by the new raft of dandy peacock performers making the moves in the early-to-mid 70s, including Marc Bolan, Alice Cooper, Bryan Ferry, Elton John, Lou Reed, Todd Rundgren, Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood.

Hornik’s scrapbook – which was updated for him for a time by LA store manager Roger Klein – makes for a pop culture treasure trove, one which offers rare insights into this exciting era of rock and roll fashion.

P1150950 copy P1150965 copy

Having returned to the UK to live a quiet life in the late 70s, it is poignant to note that Hornik, who died in 2009, kept an eagle eye out for any mention of his outlets and his associates, adding to the scrapbook as the revival of interest in the clothes and characters of the period really started to roll.

I’ll keep you informed as to when the piece is due to appear. Access to the scrapbook courtesy Alex Jarrett.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Highly recommended: The unpindownable John Pidgeon’s blog

Feb 2nd, 2015

home

//”This photograph was taken by Chris Morris in my bedroom at Commonwood Cottage in Downley village near High Wycombe in 1965 (when I swapped my mod life for university). I’m wearing an almost unwearably itchy John Stephen herringbone wool shirt. Apart from the Ricky Tick poster, I’d permanently pasted up two vintage London Transport posters I found in the attic. My old man wasn’t too pleased about that”. From http://johnpidgeon.com//

81hUuS2ufwL

//Front cover of Pidgeon’s 1974 book//

I highly recommend John Pidgeon’s blog; Pidgeon is another of those unpindownable figures in the cultural landscape. His considerable talents have been expressed from music journalism and magazine publishing through roadie-ing for The Faces and composing songs with their recently departed and already much missed keyboard maestro Ian McLagan to commissioning stunning design work from Barney Bubbles and producing BBC documentaries and radio comedy (and in the process promoting the talents behind hit series such as Dead Ringers, Little Britain and The Mighty Boosh).
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Christie’s homes in on collectible Granny Takes A Trip suits first featured on The Look blog in 2008

Jun 17th, 2014

christies-grannys

//From the catalogue for Christie’s Pop Culture auction, June 20,2014//

Six years ago on The Look blog I posted images and memories supplied by Terry Slobodzian, who ran boutiques Explosion and Lacy Lady in the upstate New York town of North Tonawanda in the late 60s and early 70s.

Such shops as Slobodzian’s and The People’s Space (run by Tommy Hilfiger in the neighbouring Emira) were part of a regional US trend for wild and usually wildly-named clothing stores sparked by eccentric retail ventures such as Granny Takes A Trip in England.

As I discovered through contact with vintage dealer/expert Ben Cooney, these are the places who showed at the National Boutique Show in NYC and broadcast their wares from the back pages of Baron Wolman’s fashion/music mag Rags: A Long Time Comin’ in San Anselmo, The Bead Experience in Baltimore, The Great Linoleum Clothing Experiment in LA, Bouncing Bertha’s Banana Blanket and Jenny Waterbags in New York, Mom’s Apple Grave in San Francisco…you get the picture.

terrylook

//From The Look blog, December 2008//

Granny’s occupied a totemic status for the people who operated these outlets; Slobodzian visited London on a buying spree in 1970 and naturally dropped in at 488 King’s Road. “What a trip it was,” he told me in 2008.“Every piece fit like a glove right off the rack. The craftmanship and choice of fabric was amazing.”

Now Slobodzian’s Granny’s suits as featured on The Look blog are in this Friday’s Pop Culture sale at Christie’s along with two shirts from Bouncing Bertha’s Banana Blanket.

Here’s Rod Stewart in the same paneled velvet suit design as Lot 55 in the sale:

Read The Look post here.

Find out more about the Pop Culture sale here.

Cassandra Tondro has uploaded pages from Rags Magazine here.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The mystery of Pierre Laroche’s Breakfast, The Who at Charlton + the tragic demise of Alkasura’s John Lloyd

Mar 22nd, 2012

Pierre's Breakfast, 1974, by Willie Christie.

I am beguiled by this photograph, which is entitled Pierre’s Breakfast and was taken by Willie Christie at David Hockney’s house in Notting Hill on May 18, 1974.

The identities of the two individuals on the left are a mystery*; with Clark (in the white jumpsuit) are make-up artist Pierre Laroche, Marianne Faithfull and Michael Roberts (then writer/photographer at The Sunday Times, now Vanity Fair’s fashion/style director). Behind the group are a selection of artist Mo McDermott’s signature painted wooden tree sculptures.

Laroche, who had worked at Elizabeth Arden for five years before taking up with rock & roll when he was recruited by Brian Duffy for the cover of David Bowie’s 1973 album Aladdin Sane, engaged Willie Christie for the May 74 session for a potential magazine feature.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Patti and Rod in barnet excelsis

Mar 8th, 2011

Last week I recovered this from the back pocket of a pair of trousers; a page torn from a copy of Mojo found on the tube a few months back.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Photography: Kate Simon

Feb 18th, 2011

This portrait of David Bowie was taken by Kate Simon at Olympic recording studios in Barnes, west London, on January 14, 1974.

Simon’s photograph captures a man on the cusp; furiously occupied in the studio, Bowie was tying up loose ends ahead of his departure for America 10 weeks later. He hasn’t lived in Britain since.

Three days before this was taken, Bowie’s production job on Lulu’s version of The Man Who Sold The World was released as a single. Applying himself to finishing Diamond Dogs, Bowie also recorded such eventually unreleased tracks as Take It Right (to become Right, a “plastic soul”  anthem on Young Americans) and a try-out of Bruce Springsteen’s Growin’ Up.

Sessions with vocal trio The Astronettes – including paramour Ava Cherry – had proved inconclusive, though an olive branch recently extended to erstwhile producer Tony Visconti soon bore fruit in the form of renewed collaboration.

A month after the shot was taken, Rebel Rebel was released ahead of the marathon US touring schedule over 1974/5 which marked the severing of business relations with Tony Defries and the faltering of his marriage to Angie.

I wanted to talk to Simon about the stories behind this image and others which deliver an emotional charge yet retain the reportage stance of the cool documentarist.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,