“It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs”

Jonathan Swift, from a letter to his friend Esther Johnson, 1711

//Simon Haynes in his ICA sitting room, 1970. Source publication: Unknown//

Ten Sitting Rooms was the title of a group exhibition curated by Jasia Reichardt at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1970. She organised a budget of £100 for each artist and gave them the brief of making a sitting room in spaces of either 15 x 18 feet or 12 x 24 feet.

I was alerted to the show’s existence by participant Simon Haynes, whose work I have been featuring here. Haynes’ Pop environment, which was produced in collaboration with his wife Sue, developed the themes and materials they used in the boardroom interior and furniture created earlier that year for Trevor Myles’ and Tommy Roberts’ boutique Mr Freedom at 430 King’s Road.

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Tags: Andrew Logan, Bruce Lacey, Carol Joseph, Charles Hayter, Diane Livey, Diane Logan, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Elizabeth Harrison, Gerard Wilson, ICA, Ivor Cutler, Jasia Reichardt, John Furnival, Jonathan Meades, Jonathan Swift, Marlene Raybould, Oxford School of Architecture, Patrick Hughes, Simon Haynes, Sue Haynes, Trevor myles, Vaughan Grylls

A viewing of Jes Benstock’s fab doc A British Guide To Showing Off occasions this opportunity to dig out the London Belles feature from a 1973 issue of shortlived free magazine West One.

Above is milliner Diane Logan in one of her outfits as contestant Rita Ritz in the 1973 Alternative Miss World.

Logan – wife of sculptor Peter, mother of fashion illustrator Blue and sister-in-law of AMW host & hostess Andrew – is wearing a satin bathing suit with one of her own hats (from Logan’s Chiltern Street shop) and sandals from Tommy Roberts’ Covent Garden boutique City Lights Studio.

Another London Belle was Vivienne Westwood in an early media appearance wearing a Let It Rock striped suit, ankle boots, patterned stockings and an adapted Chuck Berry t-shirt from 430 King’s Road’s incarnation as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die.

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Tags: Alternative Miss World, Andrew Logan, Biba, Blue Logan, Chuck Berry, City Lights Studio, Diane Logan, Frederick Freed, Fulham Road, Jean Howell, Jes Benstock, Laurita, Let It Rock, Louise Doktor, Mary, Models 1, No One To Love Me, Peter Logan, Sha-Weez, Shelley Martin, Society for Cutting Up Men, Suzi Quatro, The British Guide To Showing Off, Tommy Roberts, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Valerie Solanas, Vivienne Westwood, West 1, Zandra Rhodes

//John Rotten performing with the Sex Pistols at Andrew Logan’s Valentine’s Ball, February 1976 in a hybrid Sex t-shirt combining the images from the ‘Tits’ and ‘Naked Footballer’ designs. Note Jordan Mooney (far left), Luciana Martinez (third right), Derek Jarman (with camera) and Vivienne Westwood (far right). Photo: Joe Stevens. No reproduction without permission//

Last summer I spent a pleasant afternoon in the company of American academic Benjamin Court, who has been researching a dissertation entitled The Politics of Musical Amateurism, 1968-1981.

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Tags: Andrew Logan, Audun Engh, Benjamin Court, Bob Anthony's Beefcake, Dave Martin, Jim French, Joe Stevens, Johnny Rotten, Jordan Mooney, Lavender Scare, Luciana Martinez, Maurice Spencer, Naked Footballer, Peter Gravelle, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Stanford University

//David “Piggy” Worth and Judy Nylon at the back of the building which housed his basement flat, Edith Grove, World’s End, London, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

//Worth in Ossie Clark snakeskin coat, Brompton Cemetry, west London, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

//On West Pier, Brighton, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

“Piggy was a special dreamer” Judy Nylon

“Piggy got me my first job with Helmut Newton” Yvonne Gold

“He was an amazing character, funny, exuberant, outgoing, such fun to be with. Everybody wanted to be his friend” Tony Hall

Before David Gandy, before Nick Kamen, there was David “Piggy” Worth.

//With Graeme Edge’s girlfriend at the Moody Blues’ drummer’s apartment, Bayswater, west London, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

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Tags: Adel Rootstein, Biba, David "Piggy" Worth, Duggie Fields, Gaby Longhi, Graeme Edge, Helmut Newton, Herb Schmitz, Jean Machine, John Stephen, Jordan Mooney, Judy Nylon, Ken Russell, Missionaries of Charity Sisters, Moody Blues, Ossie Clark, Shirley Russell, The Boyfriend, Tony Hall, Tony Lonsdale, Yvonne Gold

//Siouxsie Sioux, 42 Arlington Square, N1, 1982. © David Gwinnutt//

//”This was taken in hospital when she had the brain tumour but oddly seems to reflect the end of that heroin chic period.” The late photographer Corinne Day, Whitechapel Hospital, east London, 1996. © David Gwinnutt//

//Timberlina, east London 2009. © David Gwinnutt//

Photographer David Gwinnutt’s new show Portraits Trouvés at north London estate agency Currell provides documentation of the drastic transformation of our city through portraiture of some of the leading lights in arts and culture from the 80s to the 10s.

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Tags: Andrew Logan, B2, Corinne Day, Currell, Gilbert & George, Grayson Perry, Jonnny Woo, Leigh Bowery, Michael Clark, Neil Bartlett, Norman Rosenthal, Rhyannon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ryan Styles, Ted Walker, Timberlina, Trojan

//Vivienne Westwood in felt Inside Out Jacket with assistants Debbie Wilson and Michael Collins in Seditionaries, 1977//

While updating his rich and varied archive, photographer Homer Sykes came across these superb photographs taken inside Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s boutique Seditionaries at 430 King’s Road in the spring of 1977.

The images capture the air of raw uncertainty surrounding the shop and the McLaren/Westwood coterie in this period. McLaren’s charges the Sex Pistols had recently been signed to their third record company in six months – Virgin Records – after being publicly excoriated for their behaviour and bounced out of EMI and A&M. The national media had seized upon punk as a source of sensationalism and the release of the Pistols’ explosive God Save The Queen was a matter of weeks away.

//Debbie Wilson (aka Debbie Juvenile) sports Hangman Jumper, Seditionaries, 1977. Note the studded Venus Top and leather jacket on the wall behind the counter//

//Westwood expounding against the photographic mural of Dresden after WW2 air-raids, Seditionaries, 1977. Note Collins’ Cambridge Rapist design produced by Westwood’s partner Malcolm McLaren a couple of years earlier//

//Behind the customer in black bondage jacket is the wall-size inverted photographic mural of Piccadilly Circus, Seditionaries, 1977//

On Saturday August 20 1977 Sykes again took to the King’s Road to document the atmosphere of unrest embodied by the outbreaks of violence caused by marauding Teddy Boys targeting punks and such boutiques as Seditionaries and Boy.

//Young Ted bops while another’s jacket mourns Elvis Presley’s recent death, King’s Road, 1977//

//Musician/actor Gary Holton and girlfriend Tracy Boyle lead a demonstration against violence between Teds and Punks along the King’s Road. Far left is punk Mick Bladder//

Some of his photographs feature the punk Mick Bladder, whose arrest on that day in August 1977 was featured in Wolfgang Büld’s Punk In London. This documentary  shows how the movement’s initial creative burst swiftly dissipated, while Sykes’ images capture the ways in which a cult movement had entered the mainstream, infiltrating the media, music, fashion and the wider culture.

Sykes’ archive covers the waterfront, from social unrest including the Notting Hill Carnival riot of 1976 and the riots in Toxteth and Brixton in the early 80s, to the on-the-road antics of Paul McCartney & Wings and Sigue Sigue Sputnik, the New Romantic haven the Blitz club, Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World and Quentin Crisp . Visit www.homersykes.com.

Tags: A&M, Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World, Boy, Cambridge Rapist, Debbie Juvenile, Debbie Wilson, Elvis Presley, EMI, God Save The Queen, Hangman Jumper, Homer Sykes, Michael Collins, Paul McCartney, Quentin Crisp, Seditionaries, Sex Pistols, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Virgin Records, Vivienne Westwood, Wings

//Showing Price The Look Of London map.//

Conducting the in conversation with Antony Price at London’s Fashion + Textile Museum earlier this week was fun.

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Tags: Andrew Logan, Antony Price, Baillie Walsh, Cadbury Flake, Fashion & Textile Museum, Harpers & Queen, Keith Wainwright, Peter York, Stirling Cooper

On October 17 I’m hosting the opening session of the Pop! Design Study Day at London’s Fashion & Textile Museum.

The event is part of the FTM’s Pop! Design Culture Fashion exhibition and I’ll be kicking off proceedings in conversation with John Dove & Molly White, Antony Price and Tommy Roberts.

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Tags: Andrew Logan, Antony Price, Fashion & Textile Museum, Glenn Adamson, JOhn Dove, Jon Wealleans, Justin de Villenueve, Keith Wainwright, Molly White, Natalie Gibson, Peter York, Priceless, Steve Jones, Sue Timney, V&A

Peter Golding has very kindly supplied this shot of the facade of his glam Chelsea shop Ace, which ran for a decade from 1975 (for the first couple of years from 185 King’s Road) as a “purveyor of funky elegance” to well-heeled celebrities and pop and rock stars.

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Tags: Ace, Andrew Logan, L'Uomo Vogue, Peter Golding, South Molton Street

//Front and back of Vive le Rock/Punk Rock Disco and the radical political and military texts used as source material for the design//

There were T-shirts left over from the Wembley Rock & Roll revival festival in our cupboards in South Clapham; we had to do something with them. Sid Vicious liked them just the way they were and was often photographed in the original Vive Le Rock! design. But I needed to throw a few messages across them and reinvent them. So, I married the slogan and images of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis with words and drawings from various texts, using the title of The Anarchist Cookbook as well as the famous phrase of the Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durutti.

Malcolm McLaren 2008

Imogen Hunt is a recent graduate from London College Of Fashion who tells me she was inspired by my work to write her thesis for the college’s history of fashion and culture course.

Part of Hunt’s dissertation – on the importance of the Situationist International and King Mob to the development of punk style – is dedicated to an examination of the influences and source material for the double-sided design Vive Le Rock/Punk Rock Disco, which was printed on the front and back of t-shirts and tops first sold in Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s King’s Road store Seditionaries in 1978.

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Tags: Abbie Hoffman, Buenaventura Durruti, Christopher Gray, Hiroshi Fujiwara, Imogen Hunt, Internationale Situationniste, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ken Knabb, King Mob, Leaving The 20th Century, Little Richard, London College Of Fashion, Pierre van Paassen, Seditionaries, Steal This Book, The Anarchist Cookbook, The Return of the Durruti Column, The Toronto Daily Star, US Army Improvised Munitions Handbook, Vive le Rock/Punk Rock Disco, Vivienne Westwood, William Powell