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Sex (stylised SEX) was a boutique run by Vivienne Westwood and her then-partner Malcolm McLaren at 430 King's Road, London between 1974 and 1976. It specialised in clothing that defined the look of the punk movement.[1]
 | |
| Location | London, England |
|---|---|
| Owner | Malcolm McLaren Vivienne Westwood |
| Type | Boutique |
| Opened | 1974 |
| Closed | 1976 |
Westwood and McLaren’s boutique underwent several name and correlating interior decor changes through the 1970s to connect with design inspirations, the boutique finally being renamed Worlds End in 1979, a name which (following a short period of closure) the shop retains to this day.
Prior to Westwood and McLaren taking over tenancy in 1971, 430 Kings Road had been the site of several fashion boutiques, including The 430 Boutique, operated by Carol Derry and Bill Fuller in the early 1960s, Hung On You run by Jane Ormsby Gore and Michael Rainey from 1967 to 1969, Mr Freedom, from 1969 to 1970,[2] and Paradise Garage from 1970 to 1971.
In October 1971, Malcolm McLaren and a friend from art school, Patrick Casey, opened a stall in the back of what was then the Paradise Garage boutique at 430 King's Road[3] in London's Chelsea district. On sale were items collected by McLaren over the previous year, including rock & roll records, magazines, clothing and memorabilia from the 1950s.[4]
Trevor Myles (who ran Paradise Garage), relinquished the entire premises to McLaren and Casey in November 1971. They renamed the shop Let It Rock with stock including second-hand and new Teddy Boy clothes designed by McLaren's school teacher girlfriend Vivienne Westwood.[5] The shop-front corrugated iron frontage was painted black with the name pasted in pink lettering. The interior was given period detail, such as "Odeon" wallpaper and Festival of Britain trinkets, furnished in the style of a 1950s living room.[4]
Bespoke tailored drape jackets, skin-tight trousers and thick-soled "brothel creepers" shoes were the mainstays of stock retailed under the label. Let It Rock was soon covered in the London Evening Standard.[citation needed]
In 1973 the outlet interior was changed and the shop was given a new name, Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die, to reflect a new range of clothing from Britain's early 1960s "rocker" fashions.[6] Features of garments retailed under Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die included chains, leather, and sleeveless t-shirts adorned with provocative statements,[5] reflecting Westwood's politically-informed design inspirations. With the boutique’s name paying homage to James Dean, the signage featured a black background with white lettering spelling out the shop’s new name around a large skull and crossbones, a new era of youth subculture was echoed.
In the spring of 1974 the shop underwent another refurbishment[7] and was rebranded with the name SEX.
The façade[8] included a 4-foot (1.2 m) sign of pink foam rubber letters spelling "SEX",[9][10] and the interior of the boutique was covered with graffiti from the SCUM Manifesto and chickenwire. Rubber curtains covered the walls and red carpeting was installed.
SEX[11] sold fetish and bondage wear supplied by existing specialist labels such as Atomage, She-And-Me and London Leatherman as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood.[12] Jordan (Pamela Rooke) was a sales assistant.[13][14] Among customers at SEX were the four original members of Sex Pistols (the bass-player Glen Matlock was an employee as a sales assistant on Saturdays). The group's name was provided by McLaren in partial promotion of the boutique. In August 1975, nineteen-year-old John Lydon was persuaded to audition for the group by singing along to Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" on the jukebox. Other notable patrons included occasional assistant Chrissie Hynde,[15] Adam Ant, Marco Pirroni, Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin and the rest of the Bromley Contingent.
The store's designs confronted social and sexual taboos, and included T-shirts bearing images of the Cambridge Rapist's face hood,[16] semi-naked cowboys[8] from a 1969 illustration by the US artist Jim French,[17] trompe-l'œil bare breasts[18] by Rhode Island School of Design students Janusz and Laura Gottwald in the late 1960s,[17] and pornographic texts from the book School for Wives ("I groaned with pain...in a soft corrosion")[19][20][21] by the beat author Alexander Trocchi. Also featured were T-shirts[22] with the slogan 'Prick Up Your Ears',[23] a reference to the biography of influential proto-punk subversive Joe Orton, and text culled from the biography of Orton stating how cheap clothes suited him. Among the designs were clear plastic-pocketed jeans, zippered tops and the Anarchy shirt[24][25] which used dead stock from the 1960s manufacturer Wemblex.[26][27] These were bleached and dyed shirts and adorned with silk Karl Marx patches and anarchist slogans.[28][29][30][31][32]
In December 1976, 430 King's Road was renamed Seditionaries,[33][34] trading under that title until September 1980.[35] As Seditionaries: Clothes for Heroes, the boutique adopted brutalist interior and exterior styling: large murals depicting imagery of bomb damage, harshly bright lighting, and cavities perforating the ceiling created by McLaren,[7] surrounded Westwood's innovative garments now considered punk signatures.
Designs were licensed by Westwood to the operators of the boutique at 153 King's Road, Boy (formerly Acme Attractions)[36] who issued them, some with alterations, over the next eight years.[37] Boy London was founded by Stephane Raynor[38] and Israel-based businessman John Krivine[39] in 1976 on the King's Road.[40][41] Krivine sold the company in 1984.[42]
In late 1980, the shop at 430 King's Road re-opened under the name World's End. The building was designed by McLaren and Westwood and realised by Roger Burton, aided by Jeremy Blackburn and Tony Devers, to resemble a mixture of the Olde Curiosity Shoppe and an 18th-century galleon. The façade was installed with a large clock which spun backwards with the floor raked at an angle. McLaren and Westwood launched the first of a series of collections[43] from the outlet at the beginning of 1981 and collaborated for a further three years. World's End remains open as part of Vivienne Westwood's global fashion empire.[44]
- Albertine, Viv (25 November 2014). Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.: A Memoir. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-250-06599-5. OCLC 1330344195.
- Robb, John (15 December 2010). Punk Rock: An Oral History. PM Press. ISBN 9781604860054. OCLC 801388488.
- Westwood, Vivienne; Kelly, Ian (9 October 2014). Vivienne Westwood. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4472-5413-3. OCLC 1028471285.
- The Look: Adventures in rock & pop fashion by Paul Gorman. Publisher: London, Adelita Ltd, 2006 ISBN 978-0-9552017-0-7
- England's Dreaming Sex Pistols and Punk Rock by Jon Savage. Publisher: London, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1991 ISBN 978-0-571-13975-0
- Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs by John Lydon. Publisher: Picador, 1995 ISBN 0-312-11883-X
- SEX & SEDITIONARIES: The incomplete sordid works of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren" by PunkPistol. Publisher: First Edition, 2006. ISBN 0-9554643-0-7
- "DESTROY by PunkPistol. Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren: The destruction and deconstruction of punk clothing" by PunkPistol. Publisher: First Edition, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9554643-2-4
- World's End, Kensington and Chelsea, the district.
- SEX: Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, a compilation album of songs on their jukebox.
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