Sex (stylised SEX) was a

boutique A boutique () is a small shop that deals in fashionable clothing or accessories. The word is French for "shop", which derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek ἀποθήκη (''apothēkē'') "storehouse". The term ''boutique'' and also ''de ...

run by Vivienne Westwood and her former partner

Malcolm McLaren Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provo ...

at 430

King's Road, London King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

between 1974 and 1976. It specialised in clothing that defined the look of the

punk movement The punk subculture includes a diverse and widely known array of ideologies, fashion, and other forms of expression, visual art, dance, literature, and film. Largely characterised by anti-establishment views, the promotion of individual freedo ...

Paradise Garage

From 1969 to 1970, No. 430 was the premises of '' Mr Freedom''. In October 1971,

and a friend from art school, Patrick Casey, opened a stall in the back of the ''Paradise Garage'' boutique at 430

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents), is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

in London's

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

district. On sale were items collected by McLaren over the previous year, including rock & roll records, magazines, clothing and memorabilia from the 1950s.

Let It Rock

Trevor Myles Trevor Myles is a British former fashion entrepreneur and designer who ran the Mr Freedom boutique at 430 King's Road, Chelsea, London Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 m ...

(who ran Paradise Garage), relinquished the entire premises to McLaren and Casey in November 1971. They renamed the shop ''Let It Rock'' with stock including

second-hand Used goods mean any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps. Risks Furniture, in particular bedding or upholstere ...

and new

Teddy Boy The Teddy Boys or Teds were a mainly British youth subculture of the mid 1950s to mid 1960s who were interested in rock and roll and R&B music, wearing clothes partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, which S ...

clothes designed by McLaren's school teacher girlfriend Vivienne Westwood. The shop-front corrugated iron frontage was painted black with the name pasted in pink lettering. The interior was given period detail, such as "Odeon" wallpaper and

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

trinkets. Bespoke tailored drape jackets, skin-tight trousers and thick-soled "

brothel creepers Brothel creepers, sometimes shortened to creepers, are a style of shoe that has thick crepe soles, often in combination with suede uppers. This style of footwear became fashionable in the years following World War II, seeing resurgences of popul ...

" shoes were the mainstays. ''Let It Rock'' was soon covered in the ''

London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

''.

Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die

In 1973 the outlet interior was changed and the shop was given a new name, ''Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die'', to reflect a new range of clothing from Britain's early 1960s "rocker" fashions. In the spring of 1974 the shop underwent another refurbishment and was

rebranded Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investor ...

with the name ''Sex''.

Sex

The façade included a 4 ft sign of pink foam rubber letters spelling "SEX". The interior was covered with

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

from the

SCUM Manifesto ''SCUM Manifesto'' is a radical feminist manifesto by Valerie Solanas, published in 1967. It argues that men have ruined the world, and that it is up to women to fix it. To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of SCUM, an organization de ...

and chickenwire. Rubber curtains covered the walls and red carpeting was installed. ''SEX'' sold fetish and bondage wear supplied by existing specialist labels such as Atomage, She-And-Me and London Leatherman as well as designs by McLaren and Westwood. Jordan ( Pamela Rooke) was a sales assistant. Among customers at ''SEX'' were the four original members of

Sex Pistols The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they were one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music. They were responsible for ...

(the bass-player

Glen Matlock Glen Matlock (born 27 August 1956) is an English musician, best known for being the bass guitarist in the original line-up of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. He is credited as a songwriter on 10 of the 12 songs on the Sex Pistols' only albu ...

was an employee as a sales assistant on Saturdays). The group's name was provided by McLaren in partial promotion of the boutique. In August 1975, nineteen-year-old

John Lydon John Joseph Lydon (; born 31 January 1956), also known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten, is an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the late-1970s punk rock, punk band the Sex Pistols, which lasted from 1975 until 197 ...

was persuaded to audition for the group by singing along to

Alice Cooper Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guilloti ...

's "

I'm Eighteen "I'm Eighteen" is a song by rock band Alice Cooper, first released as a single in November 1970 backed with "Is It My Body". It was the band's first top-forty success—peaking at number 21—and convinced Warner Bros. that Alice Cooper had the ...

" on the jukebox. Other notable patrons included occasional assistant

Chrissie Hynde Christine Ellen Hynde (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician. She is a founding member and the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band the Pretenders, and one of the band's two remaining original members alon ...

Adam Ant Stuart Leslie Goddard, better known as Adam Ant (born 3 November 1954), is an English singer, musician, and actor. He gained popularity as the lead singer of new wave group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring 10 UK top ten ...

Marco Pirroni Marco Francesco Andrea Pirroni (born 27 April 1959, London, England) frequently credited simply as Marco, is a British guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with Adam Ant, Sinéad O'Connor, Siouxsie and the Banshees and many ...

, Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin and the rest of the

Bromley Contingent The Bromley Contingent were a group of followers of the Sex Pistols. The name was coined by ''Melody Maker'' journalist Caroline Coon, after the town of Bromley where some of them lived. They helped popularise the fashion of the early UK punk move ...

. The store's designs confronted social and sexual taboos, and included T-shirts bearing images of the Cambridge Rapist's face hood, semi-naked cowboys from a 1969 illustration by the US artist Jim French, trompe-l'œil bare breasts by

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

students Janusz and Laura Gottwald in the late 1960s, and pornographic texts from the book ''School for Wives'' ("I groaned with pain...in a soft corrosion") by the beat author

Alexander Trocchi Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi ( ; 30 July 1925 – 15 April 1984) was a Scottish novelist. Early life and career Trocchi was born in Glasgow to Alfred (formerly Alfredo) Trocchi, a music-hall performer of Italian parentage, and Anni ...

. Also featured were T-shirts with the slogan 'Prick Up Your Ears', a reference to the biography of influential proto-punk subversive

Joe Orton John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brie ...

, and text culled from the biography of Orton stating how cheap clothes suited him. Among the designs were clear plastic-pocketed jeans, zippered tops and the ''Anarchy shirt'' which used dead stock from the 1960s manufacturer Wemblex. These were bleached and dyed shirts and adorned with silk

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

patches and anarchist slogans.

Seditionaries

In December 1976, 430 King's Road was renamed ''Seditionaries'', trading under that title until September 1980. Designs were licensed by Westwood to the operators of the boutique at 153 King's Road, Boy (formerly Acme Attractions) who issued them, some with alterations, over the next eight years. Boy London was founded by Stephane Raynor and Israel-based businessman John Krivine in 1976 on the King's Road. Krivine sold the company in 1984.

World's End

In late 1980, the shop at 430 King's Road re-opened under the name ''World's End''. The building was designed by McLaren and Westwood and realised by Roger Burton, aided by Jeremy Blackburn and Tony Devers, to resemble a mixture of the Olde Curiosity Shoppe and an 18th-century galleon. The façade was installed with a large clock which spun backwards with the floor raked at an angle. McLaren and Westwood launched the first of a series of collections from the outlet at the beginning of 1981 and collaborated for a further three years. ''World's End'' remains open as part of Vivienne Westwood's global fashion empire.

Famous shop assistants

Many people related with the punk scene worked at the shop in one way or another. A notable employee was Jordan (Pamela Rooke), whose provocative dress sense served as a walking advertisement for the shop. At various times,

and

Sid Vicious John Simon Ritchie (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. Despite dying in 1979 at age 21, he remains an icon of the ...

also worked there.

References

External links

Only Anarchists Are Pretty
(archive.org)
Seditionaries
Clothing designed by Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren c. 1976–1979. (Shockwave Flash) (archive.org)
Punk Pirate
1981 Clothing line designed by Westwood and McLaren. (archive.org)
Punk Pistol
Seditionaries tribute site to clothing designed by Westwood & McLaren. (Shockwave Flash) {{coord, 51.4834, -0.1774, type:landmark_region:GB-KEC, display=title Clothing companies of the United Kingdom Sex Pistols Shops in London Former buildings and structures in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Punk fashion 1974 establishments in England 1976 disestablishments in England 1970s fashion King's Road, Chelsea, London