This is designer Ben Kelly at his 1974 degree show at London’s Royal College Of Art.

Kelly adopted the alter-ego The Photo Kid, who is portrayed in the work by which he is standing. The Photo Kid wore clothes – in particular brothel creepers – from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop Let It Rock, as did Kelly; the shoes, pink socks and belt in this photograph all came from there, while the Hopalong Cassiday & Topper top (see Ian Harris’s comment below) was picked up at a Paris flea market.

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Tags: Ben Kelly, BKD, Covent Garden, Geoff Hollington, Haçienda, Keith Wainwright, Let It Rock, Long Acre, Paul Howie, Royal College Of Art, Seditionaries, Smile, The Photo Kid, Vivienne Westwood

//From Frendz, June 24, 1971//

I’m a fiend for line ads in print media; all human life is contained in the few words demanding the casual reader’s attention.

Leafing through a 1971 issue of British underground magazine Frendz (which had previously been titled Friends) I spied this ad, and wondered whether it might have been placed by the American photographer Joe Stevens. The number has a west London prefix and he was living in that part of town at the time.

I fired off an email and received this reponse earlier today:

Yes. That’s me. Ramen-scarfing “Straight Press” Joe. Looking for work, living on £10 a week, not eligible for the dole.

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Tags: Barney Bubbles, Bay City Rollers, Eric The Tramp, Felix Dennis, Frendz, Friends, Joe Stevens, Jon Goodchild, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Nicki Hepworth, NME, Pennie Smith., Phil Franks, Portobello Road, Rosie Boycott, Time Out, Tony Elliott, Vivienne Westwood

//Photographer Kate Simon and performer Chrissie Hynde (lifting the front of her mohair jumper from Sex), London, 1976. (c) Joe Stevens//

This photograph – taken by Joe Stevens in early 1976 in Fulham, west London – is featured in the exhibition Just Chaos!, which opens tomorrow (May 7) at Marc Jacobs’ Bleecker Street NYC bookstore BookMarc.

The T-shirts worn by Simon and Hynde were among the first variants of a limited edition designed by Malcolm McLaren to promote the newly formed Sex Pistols. A few were also sold in Sex, the environmental installation/shop operated by McLaren with Vivienne Westwood at 430 King’s Road in World’s End, Chelsea.

“Malcolm dropped the shirts off at my Finborough Road studio; they were freshly silk-screened from a limited edition,” says Stevens, then working for the NME and living with Simon (who was employed by rival music paper Sounds). “Chrissie was living in a squat and cleaning offices for a living. She’d drop by the pad to take showers. I’d hear her singing in there and realised she had a wonderful voice.”

McLaren produced the designs with the express aim of promoting the new group. “This was my first attempt at making a Sex Pistols T-shirt,” he told me in 2006. “I wanted to create something of a stir.”

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Tags: bernie Rhodes, Bleecker Street, Bob Gruen, BookMarc, Boys Express, Chrissie Hynde, Fulham, Glen Matlock, Godlis, Hans Herbert Hubermahl, Joe Stevens, Kate Simon, Lee Black Childers, Marc Jacobs, SEX, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Vivienne Westwood

I’m quoted in today’s article in UK Sunday newspaper The Observer about the factual failings surrounding the punk clothing collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum Of Art’s Costume Institute.

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Tags: Alan Jones, Allen Jones, Andrew Bolton, Costume Institute, Derek Jarman, Edward Helmore, Jubilee, Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Naked Cowboys, Vivienne Westwood

//Outside 430 King's Road (from left) summer 1971: Unknown, assistant Lisa Petersen, manager Roly Poltock, designer Diana Crawshaw and founder Trevor Myles. Photograph: Julian Allason.//

Harpers & Queen ran this photograph of the short-lived but significant World’s End boutique Paradise Garage in the Shopping Bazaar section of the September 1971 issue.

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Tags: Chris Snow, Diana Crawshaw, Electric Colour Company, Harpers & Queen, Julian Allason, Lisa Petersen, Paradise Garage, Patrick Casey, Roly Poltock, Trevor myles, Vivienne Westwood, Worlds End

//Photo detail (from left): SEX customers Danielle, Alan Jones + Chrissie Hynde; Vivienne Westwood; assistant Jordan.//

As a follow-up to my recent post about the rarely seen 1975 interview with Malcolm McLaren in soft porn mag Gallery International, here is another exclusive: for the first time since publication in June 1976, the full article featuring McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop SEX in British sex guide Forum.

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Tags: 1975, 1976, Bryan Derbyshire, Chrissie Hynde, Country Cousins, David Dagley, David May, Earl's Court, Forum, Gallery International, Icognito, IT, Jordan, Len Richmond, Rick Szymanski, SEX, Sex Pistols, Steve Jones, Street Life, Vivienne Westwood, Zipper

//Malcolm McLaren at Joe Stevens' studio in Fulham, south-west London, 1976.//

In the late 60s, New Yorker Joe Stevens made a name for himself as an all-action photographer, covering riots, demonstrations and ant-Vietnam War marches for radical weekly The East Village Other (whose contributors’ list also included Allen Ginsberg, Robert Crumb and Abbie Hoffman).

But Stevens grew restless. “I wanted to do the same thing in London,” says Stevens. “I told my editor I’d probably return in a few weeks. By the time I did 10 years later, the US underground press had vanished.”

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Tags: Charles Shaar Murray, Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers, Chris Salewicz, Danny Baker, Dirty Projectors, Dr Feelgood, Dropkick Murphys, ELP, Frendz, Friends, Hoboken, International Times, Jim Thirlwell, Joe Stevens, Lady Gaga, Lydia Lunch, Nancy Spungen, NME, Oz, Paul Morley, Peter Gabriel, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, The Clash, The Est Village Other, The Jesus and Mary Chain, tUnE-yArDs, Vivienne Westwood, Yes

This morning I am participating in the V&A’s study day From Biba To Topshop with a presentation on the rise and fall of boutique culture in London’s King’s Road, starting with the opening of Bazaar by Archie Nairn, Alexander Plunket-Green and Mary Quant at 138a in 1955 and closing with the establishment of World’s End at 430 by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

More details here.

Tags: Alexander Plunket Green, Archie Nairn, Bazaar, From BIba To Topshop, Malcolm McLaren, Mary Quant, V&A, Vivienne Westwood

//Frederiques Cifuentes photographs Diana Crawshaw outside 430 King's Road.//

Filming continued yesterday for this summer’s King’s Road Fashion & Music Trail, which is is being launched to visitors to west London’s historic thoroughfare as part of Kensington & Chelsea’s InTransit festival in July.

We will be covering all the boutique manifestations at 430 King’s Road; for a start I plumped for its incarnation as Paradise Garage in 1971, operated by Trevor Myles with Chris Snow and Diana Crawshaw.

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Tags: Alan Holston, Charming Baker, Chris Snow, Dandie Fashions, Diana Crawshaw, Freddie Hornik, Granny Takes A trip, InTransit, Nigel Waymouth, Paradise Garage, Proud Gallery, Rumer, Trevor myles, Vivienne Westwood, Wilde Ones, Worlds End

British Design From 1948: Innovation In The Modern Age – the new book accompanying the forthcoming show at the V+A – is a bumper edition: 400 pages weighing in at 5lbs.

It’s cheering to see Barney Bubbles’ design Ian Dury With Love granted upfront prominence; the poster is in select company given special treatment by the book’s designer, Barnbrook’s Daniel Streat. The others are: Cecil Beaton’s 1953 coronation portrait of The Queen, a shot of Damien Hirst’s Notting Hill restaurant Pharmacy and Brian Duffy’s Aladdin Sane portrait of David Bowie.

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Tags: Brian Duffy, Cecil Beaton, Christopher Breward, David Bowie, Ettorre Sotsass Jr, Ghislaine Wood, John hegarty, Michael Bracewell, Paul Smith, Pharmacy, Terence Conran, The Queen, Vivienne Westwood, Zaha Hadid