Vivienne's Shops and Analysis on Clothing

By Poppy Baines

Punk as a style succeeded evenmore when Vivienne Westwoodand Malcolm McLaren publicizedthe ideas through their joint designventures. McLaren launched theSex Pistols. The Pistols woreclothes from a shop called SEXthat Westwood and McLaren opened on the Kings Road,London in the 1970s. They soldleather and rubber fetish goods,especially bondage trousers. 

      Later the shop was renamed Seditionaries. Seditionaries on the Kings Rd, Chelsea, London was a store that played a big part in the 1970s punk movement. It first began when Malcolm McLaren opened a shop at Paradise Garage, which had a small shop behind it where McLaren sold records and eventually Teddy Boy clothes.  This evolved into his own store, which he ran with Vivienne Westwood, called Let it Rock, selling Teddy Boy clothes.

They later moved further down the road to open a rubber and leather fetish wear store which they named SEX. SEX received many famous visitors, including Adam Ant, The Sex Pistols, Bromley Contingent; and had their own little following such as Helen Wellington Loyd, store workers like Jordan of SEX, Chrissie Hynde and others. The store became very famous in the punk scene and produced such famous clothes as the God Save the Queen shirts, the Cowboys, "Destroy" shirts, "Venus" shirts and others. The SEX store ultimately became Seditionaries which sold mainly the same clothes but with more of a music aspect and gradually drifted away from selling leather gear.

Original 1977 Vivienne Westwood / Malcolm McLaren "Personal Collection Seditionaries" label Destroy t shirt.This t-shirt is a very basic style t-shirt and looks like it has just been printed on. It has a very large Nazi sign on which is what I am drawn to when I first look at it, I think that this relates to the punk era of the time as punk was all about offending people who were of an older generation, e.g.. The Nazi sign would offend most older people as it was the German sign for WW2. I think this would offend older people in the 1970’s as they must of really disliked that sign, and seeing it again would bring back all the bad memories of that horrible time.Also this t-shirt would offend people who were Christians, as you can see Jesus hanging upside down on the cross, this would make Christians think that Vivienne Westwood might have been taking the mic of their religion.Also the title, would be very different to normal writing on a top (normally it would be clear and simple, not messy and saying destroy)I personally think that Vivienne wasn’t a Nazi or didn’t have a hate on Jesus, I just think that she was really interested in the Punk fashion and wanted to experiment with different items on a t shirt, would possibly hadn't ever been seen before.

Original 1977 Vivienne Westwood / Malcolm McLaren 'Personal Collection Seditionaries' label 'God Save the Queen' t shirt.This t-shirt is also a very basic style t-shirt, but looks like the arms have just been cut off with a pair of kitchen scissors. This relates to the punk fashion as it was all about not caring and not making things neat and perfect.This top would have been one of the sex pistols tops, as it says there name on it and one of their song names (God save the Queen) I think this top would offend people as, there is a pin through the queens lip in the photo. This would offend the older generation, as they used to all look up to the queen and would never think to see a photo of her with a pin through her lip.Many older people hated this new punk fashion as it really went against everything that they believed in.Also through the queens eye, it says ‘NO FUTURE’, which is giving people bad thoughts about the future and about their life ahead.

Original 1980 'BOY' label Seditionaries Bondage Trousers and skirt (approx. 30 inch waist)These bondage trousers were totally new and different to what anyone had ever seen before. Before girls she of looked like girls with long hair, skirts and pretty clothes. Boys should of looked like boys with short hair, trousers and boy clothes.However, this garment changed the whole view on girls and boys as it was worn by both. It has a skirt and trousers in one, which mixes both the girl and boys clothes together. This really offended people as they didn’t want their children going out looking like the opposite gender to what they were. These trousers made girls cut their hair and wear baggy trousers, and for boys to grow their hair. It was almost like we were all becoming very similar, when before their was an obvious difference between both genders.Also near the bottom of these trousers, there was two pieces of fabric which you tied together so you couldn’t move very well. This relates to punk clothing as many of them ended up in prison from committing crimes and breaking the law but they still didn’t care and carried on.