A couple of weeks ago Vivienne left a page torn out of The Week magazine on my desk. It was an obituary for one of the three founders of OZ magazine, Richard Neville who died on the 4th September this year. I asked her if she had any connection with him & she told me that she hadn’t, just that she liked him & thought that it might be interesting for this blog. Continue reading
On the 12th of May, this year I was asked to come to a recording studio nearby in Battersea to shoot some video of a collaboration Vivienne was doing with lyricist & rap artist Mic Righteous. Continue reading
There are so many different new mini kilts in Worlds End shop right now that we just had to do a shoot with all of them together & what better idea than to get some of the many lovely women working behind the scenes here at the Elcho St office to dress up & show their legs! (the plots in the Carry On films of the 70’s were always vehicles for this after all).
The brief was to style themselves, the only stipulation being that they did not blatantly use other designer stuff (apart from my range).
First worn by Linda Evangelista for the A/W 93 ‘Anglomania’ collection in Paris; the same show that Naomi Campbell famously stumbled over in her blue Elevated Gilly shoes; the mini kilt has been a Worlds End classic for many years.
I asked the staff taking part if they would introduce themselves & write a quick something about the shoot, shop & kilts, so now over to Saoirse, Shop Manager Lise (who doesn’t have to write anything, she will sell you one), Rachel, Raffaella, Alba, Sophie, Dolce & Leliena. Continue reading
On the Worlds End label is the 430 Kings Road shop’s mission statement:
“The shop has a triumphant history of creating “clothes for heroes”- dandies, rockers, punks and pirates. “Worlds End Look” is chosen from classics with items from the latest Vivienne Westwood collection, special; samples and one-offs”.
The latest additions to this look are now in store & include reproductions of classic Worlds End items from seminal early 1980s collections. Like all the items with the Worlds End label they are exclusive solely to The 430 Kings Road shop & no one else has them!
All styles are unisex.
In the first photo Jamie is wearing a pirate waistcoat and matching trousers in brown herringbone cotton from the Pirates 81/82 collection. He also wears the sleeveless Apache shirt from the successive Savage SS82 collection. The trousers are also available in a tartan we call ‘Mac Stone ‘and the third option is in an ultra -light soft cotton baby cord offered in a rich navy.
In this photo Jamie is listening on his headphones & this is a direct reference to the time in the early 80’s when these clothes were first designed. The first Walkmans were produced at this time & were used by Malcolm who was promoting an attack on the music industry by advocating that people record their own music from the radio onto tapes & not to pay for it.
BowWowWow was his band at the time & their first single was “C30, C60, C90 Go” (C30 etc were the playing minute lengths of recordable tapes). The music industry at the time retaliated against Malcolm by actively placing this track lower in the charts than it should have been placed, keeping it out of the top 10 where it would have had more playtime…
In the second photo Freya wears the new Punkature shirt made in pure cotton, specially woven shirting. This is also available in White.
The Punkature collection (SS83) with its emphasis on distressed inexpensive fabrics was like a futuristic interpretation of Punk, complete with safety pins & shirts printed with scenes from the film Blade Runner.
The third photo shows Freya wearing a Climate Economy jumper (Coming Soon!) & the long full gathered Hobo skirt printed with Native Dancers Print in pure Cotton. This piece comes from the Buffalo Collection (also known as Nostalgia of Mud) from AW83.
At the time Malcolm explained the look of this collection by saying “What’s interesting about England right now is that there is a definite movement to get involved with the Third World; to wear an African dress, and put it with a Dominican hat, throw in some Peruvian beads, and wear make-up like one of the tribes in New Guinea – simply because we have to go even further to demonstrate that we want to get out of this island mentality, this village we live in, and relate ourselves more to those taboos and magical things we believe we’ve lost ”. Rather an ironic thing to say really after this year’s Brexit vote.
In addition to the in house photo of the Alien coat above we have the below photo from Murray. His accompanying letter explains everything… Continue reading