Sex (shop)
Sex is a shop of Vêtement S and accessories located at the 430, King' S Road with London launched and held by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.
History
Let It Rock
End 1971, Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood and Patrick Casey settle to the 430 King' S Road with London in a dark shop with a juke-box of the name of Paradise Garage .They rename it quickly Let It Rock and all kinds of accessories in relation to sell to with it the rock'n'roll of the Années 1950 of the discs of the time while passing by Blouson S out of leather of occasion to the clothing made by Vivienne Westwood.
What will make in particular the success of the shop, in addition to its incredible decoration, is that it is arranged in two parts, of which a first part before where people - customers or not - take the practice to trail.
The store quickly becomes the center of the revival Teddy Boys of the time and is the subject of several press articles.
This notoriety brings customers connected to the shop which is far away from the personal convictions of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood whereas in same time, competition settles and that the revival Teddy Boys begins his decline.
Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die
They then change gradually the orientation of their shop to go towards a tendency Biker S , however always inspired by the Années 1950. They start to work vestimentary technology and develop a method to fix Paillette S on the Vêtement S with a special adhesive in order to print there Slogan S or Logo S. It is the progression of this idea which leads them thereafter to use nails.Their product-headlight is Tee-shirt S where are spread out in spangle the logo of Gene Vincent, names of Elvis or Chuck Berry; tee-shirts where is registered key words like rock' roll with boiled chicken bones maintained with chain S; cut out tee-shirts of two vertical lines under the chest and recousues with zippers from where chains hung; tee-shirts trimmed with tires of bicycle studded with the shoulders (known as tee-shirt tire of motor bike ).
The customers change with this change of orientation and become more rock.
A young boy engaged with the shop for customiser clothing paints a slogan which he says being a slogan of American gangs in homage to died of James Dean
Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die
. Malcolm McLaren finds the sentence extraordinary, it becomes the new name of the shop in August 1973 which remakes a design less Kitsch and darker with death's-heads.
Again, the shop is in the center of a species of fauna underground, the musicians in vogue of the moment attend it.
Clothing of Vivienne Westwood is inspired then by the Années 1940 and of the mode of the Zoot follows S .
The shop settles and again, Malcolm McLaren with the feeling to make balance. He wants something of innovator, he does not want to turn more to the past.
Sex
In April 1974, Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die firm for several months of work. Malcolm McLaren wants a store black where clothing Sexy or Fétichiste S would be sold which is usually sold by correspondence.They find suppliers of clothing in latex and Cuir; they decorate the shop with a spongy material which gives him the aspect of a uterus and bend sentences found in fetishistic books on the walls which will be re-used to make tee-shirts. The new shop is called Sex , one finds there vestiges of old stocks of the preceding shops, fetishistic accessories, creations of Vivienne Westwood. It is about this time that Jordan (Pamela Rooke) becomes saleswoman with the store.
This new environment inspires Vivienne Westwood which stresses more the carnal one in its creations and still develops its range of tee-shirts by simplifying the cut at least (two fabric squares bent together) and while taking as a starting point the sexual Tabou S and the slogans Situationniste S to decorate them.
Before the departure of Malcolm McLaren for New York, he works with Vivienne Westwood on the first tee-shirt proclamation You' Re gonna wake up one morning and know what side off the bed you' ve been lying one! ; this tee-shirt will be the starting point of a new style.
Vivienne Westwood enriches its range by tee-shirts on which she adds zippers, studded leather, plastic pockets, tears, etc.
She uses the visual ones inspired by the Pornographie: a pair of centres placed at the height of the chest, a naked black footballer with the sex during, a twelve year old expiring boy the smoke of a cigarette in a suggestive attitude, the hood of the rapist of Cambridge , two cow-boys without pants facing their sexes which are passed very close to. These visual is generally printed in yelling colors (chestnut on pink, red on green).
Some of these visual go too much far and are prohibited. It is the case of the tee-shirt with the hood of the rapist of Cambridge which McLaren republishes on its return of New York in an ironic way while adding With Hardware Day' S Night - Brian Epstein - found dead on August 27th, 1967 after it taken share with sadomasochistic practices/sadomasochism was its trick by provocation. Or the visual one with the two cow-boys whose tee-shirts were confiscated following a police raid in the store what been worth an infringment with McLaren and Westwood.
As from the summer 1975, a new fauna attends the shop including one some John Simon Ritchie and some John Lydon. On a blow of bluff, more than by conviction McLaren makes pass a hearing to John Lydon on the juke-box of the store on Eighteen of Alice Cooper which ends in laughter and will however be the beginning of the Sex Pistols whose fame will popularize the look inspired by this shop.
As the group is success, the fame and the customers of the shop increase.
L' investment of McLaren in the group will make it possible Westwood to be expressed front in clothing and to affirm its style.
shirt S in fabric of Parachute are made with legends drawn from the novels of Alex Trocchi on the chest, there were a series of tee-shirts and shirts with charts to play sexy fixed above in plastic small pockets.
But the most known elements of this collection remains the shirt Anarchy and the costume bondage .
The shirt Anarchy is striped red, black and brown in a cut Années 1960, it is covered with Slogan S made with the Pochoir inspired by the events of 1968 ( Seuls the anarchists are beautiful , Prenez your desires for realities , With bottom the Coke , etc), small portraits of Karl Marx are placed on a side of the chest while on the other side, a Croix-gammée flowering ash the collar; the whole carried with an arm-band where chaos is registered.
The costume bondage consists of narrow glossed black cotton pants on which Zipper are added (behind the knee, under the thigh, with the back of the between-leg), of the straps to block the legs and the reductions on the buttocks.
Seditionaries
With the whole beginning 1977, the store still changes style and of name for Seditionaries . The money resulting from the success of Sex allows Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood to completely develop the environment which they wish for the shop: high-tech, chaotic, industrial and kitsch.
Vivienne Westwood is invested more and more as well in the shop as in the collections and during the year 1977, its clothing makes the cover of the magazines.
regularly
New parts appear and cottoient always the old elements sold in the shop like tee-shirts printed with the head of split queen, a swastika with back and Destroy in overprinting above while the handles too long are brought back behind by fasteners of collars of dogs.
As from this time, other stores are installed on King' S Road and start to compete with the shop by presenting their own collection.
Worlds End
In 1980, the new collection of Vivienne Westwood inspired by a tendency Pirate is the occasion to change decoration and name of the store to become Worlds End . In 1983, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood separate definitively putting a term at their collaboration and the shop, continuing each one on different ways.