Am I the only Londoner who is feeling like May-July is bursting with new exhibitions and events, all mildly-fashion related. I haven’t even had a chance to catch any of the FFF (tonight’s the night…) yet despite my ambitious goal to see ALL of the films. I’m still squeezing in more stuff, so much so that I had to use Outlook to organise my days (urgh…. how sad…). Anyhow, one thing I had to squeeze in was THE LOOK (it’s a book by Paul Gorman but has manifested itself into clothing label, wicked blog and allround music-fashion linkup!) presenting a conversation between Paul Gorman and Roger K. Burton.
What HASN’T Roger done? Vintage dealing in the early 60’s, supplied to shirts to Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood for their Anarchy shirts, opened up cult boutiques for New Romanticists in the late 70’s, supplied clothing to films like The Who’s Quardophenia, designed McLaren and Westwood’s World’s End boutique, successful commercial, music video and film director and then he put together the Contemporary Wardrobe Company. It’s quite shameful that I had no idea this existed… the Contemporary Wardrobe Company is basically a secret basement archive of of street fashions from the last 60 years, consisting of about 15,000 pieces. It’s a ceiling to floor or racks affair filled with clothing representing many a youth movement over the past decades. Biba and Seditionaries jostle with Givenchy and YSL. The TV, film, music and fashion industry has been using this collection heavily and the CWC has dressed over 400 pop stars; David Bowie, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Kanye West. Mags like Vogue, i-D, The Face etc have used it. Now designers like Christopher Bailey and Marc Jacobs visit the collection for some inspiration.
From the 3rd May to the 31st May, pieces from the collection will be on display as part of CWC’s ‘Be Reasonable – Demand the Impossible’ exhibition on at The Horse Hospital with a slideshow of the collection being used in fashion editorials as well as unseen pieces documenting different youth movements…Zoot Suiters, Spivs, Mods, Rockers and yes…Chavs.
But going back the the event on the 22nd May…it will be jolly good spiffing fun (felt like veering into Enid Blyton language there…) with a chance to see said exhibition, a fashion show of crazy get-ups, a lot of great tunes, intelligent convo between Paul Gorman and Roger Burton chatting about the loopy stuff Roger has got up to over the past 40 years and also his latest documentary film ‘Vive Le Punk’ which is apparently the ONLY filmed interview of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. This film is on throughout May at the Horse Hospital so I plan on catching that too… The Look’s blog has a sneak snippet from the film which makes me even more intrigued…
Shall be seeing some of you there… tickets are available if you mail here or contact The Look on the blog. I believe this event is free or a fiver per person… whichever one, it’s all cheap larks…
I’m a lovely shade of ‘pea green’…thanks!!!!
vivienne looks amazing in this film!
You’re very lucky living in London with all these great things to go and see. I’m very jealous, I hope you enjoy it. x
wow this is amazing. i had no idea it even existed. think i might be busy on thursday but if not i may venture down. will check out the exhibition at least.
Oh God I’m SO going to this! I’ve always wanted to go there. Was just grumbling to D that ‘Susie’s blogged about this amazing talk I would have loved to go to and we’ve missed it’ before realising it’s THIS week. Duh!