The 1970′s_Age of 50′s Nostalgia

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Vivienne Westwood Let it Rock

Back from the New Year & I’ve received the below e-mail from ‘Skinerjack’:

Hello Ben
I found this video with clothes from the “too fast to live too fast to die” shop. It’s Elkie Brooks when she and Robert Palmer were in Vinegar Joe from 1973. It would make a good piece for your blog if they are the real thing.
Have a good new year
Nigel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G51tmiwMlk
I checked out the link & yes indeed Elkie Brooks (better known as a solo artist in the 1980’s) is wearing a Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die ‘Elvis’ T-shirt & a studded & fringed …Too Young to Die mini skirt.
I showed the link to Vivienne as I wanted to know what the word studded on the skirt read. Continue reading →

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Happy Christmas 2014

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Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne Westwood

Another year & another Christmas…
A lot has happened & now we have got the basement. When the shop opens towards the end of January 2015 it should make a big difference.
The shop has only once other been closed this long since 1979-1980 when it changed from Seditionaries to World’s End, & that was in 85-86 when the change came from Malcolm’s co-operative influence with Vivienne to Vivienne’s alone.
The above is the Westwood ‘in house’ Christmas card shot by Jurgen Teller during the last advertising campaign (this is my card I am sharing with you but I have brushed out my personal message)(the other lady in the photo is the actress Stella Schnabel).
There IS a lot to do next year. The UK elections are in May for a start.
The most likely rebellion is the legal one where we vote for a true representative of ourselves.. New ideas to vote for are out there (vote Green/Reality Party/SNP/Russell Brand) …
If Britain can change it can help to open up things for the world..
Vivienne has been a lot more politically active in the last couple of years because the threat to the rights we hold as society have become a lot more imminent suddenly.
2015 will be the year to Act on what is important to us.
Free Leonard Peltier for a start..
Happy Christmas Leonard.
(& make sure that you are registered to vote!)

BenX

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Katherine & Tracy O’Keeffe

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Vivienne Westwood World's End
Work on the Kings Road shop World’s End is coming along. It looks now very likely that it will re-open at the end of January.
A lot of you have expressed worries that the shop will be changed but this is not the case. It will just be better.
To illustrate this I will take the example of the photographs which have been hanging in the shop since 1980. Continue reading →

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The South Bank Show 1990

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First broadcast on London Weekend Television on the 8th April 1990 (Vivienne’s 49th Birthday), Melyvn Bragg introduces a 51 minute documentary about Vivienne Westwood, directed & produced by Gillian Greenwood.
Copied from an old VHS recording & supplied once again by Simon at http://punkpistol-seditionaries.tumblr.com/  this video has a few technical problems in that it tends to jump a bit, normally just when Vivienne or Malcolm are about to make a great revelation to us.
Filmed in the period of the Pagan 5 collection & just before the Portrait collection, there is plenty of footage from the time. Excepts from the Terry Wogan show where the audience & other guests laughed at her designs. A clip from the Dame Edna Everage show where she wears her fig leaf bodysuit & interviews with Malcolm, Jaspen Conran, Peter York & others.
Interesting to see are the staged pieces starring Sara Stockbridge, Suzie Bick & my brother Joe in the black leather armour waistcoat
(I made the illuminating Horns & also the illuminating body harness that Sara wears at the end…Oh,La,La).
There are also clips from the old Nostalgia of Mud shop & the Davies St shop which had only just opened.
There are some other extracts from this documentary on the web if you want to investigate a bit, but not the whole show.

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To Fight for Justice is to Fight the Law

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Shaker Aamer Guantanamo

Some months ago my mother gave me a rather difficult job to do. She wanted me to see what I could do to secure the release from Guantanamo detention center of the Saudi citizen & British legal permanent resident Shaker Aamer.
The reason for this is that his case is an ideal illustration for the title of this piece ‘To Fight for Justice is to fight the Law’.
Shaker Aamer (known as prisoner 239) is trapped in a hellish legal 13 yearlong limbo. Not charged or convicted of anything but yet unable to legally challenge his situation… because of the legal situation.
Getting Shaker out of a US overseas military base is rather a tall order for me, so I want to call on YOU!! I would really like to involve more people in this & try to get some ideas about what next to do…
I shall publish below the results of my research. There is a lot of stuff & a lot of references to official sounding, obscure acronyms like the AUMF, the NDAA & SOFA. Even the USA Patriot Act actually stands for ‘Uniting & Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept & Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.

Continue reading →

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