Showing posts with label post punk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post punk. Show all posts

Sunday 17 September 2023

Friday 30 December 2022

Punk Beijing











What can I say...

This blog wouldn't exist without Punk. I was too young be one in 1976, and certainly too Catholic. Fast forward to 1999 and one of my newest and closest friends (professional troublemaker) Blue Doran sat me down in his Bangkok apartment over bottles of Sangsom and underneath his vintage movie poster collection (Midnight Cowboy and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid) draping the walls, he explained Punk to me from his first hand experience of following the Sex Pistols around as a fifteen year old from Worcester, and my mind was blown. I got the concept, I got the sizzle and I got the history all in one night, from a living witness and nothing was ever the same again. By coincidence my daughter's Aunty was a punk inspired designer in Thailand with the widely loved Scotch-Soda clothing brand.


On one of my returns to the UK I stayed with Rob, my former design lecturer at Uni, and he had a very expensive Vivienne Westwood collection for both himself and his partner. 

She tossed her prezzies out when they separated and Rob mentioned it was about 20 grands worth. That's just the stuff she was given. Back in the 90's she also refused a chance to be a model for one of the Vivienne Westwood collections. Super Croydon girl is Audrey (went to school with Kate Moss), totally grounded and couldn't give a shit about any attention seeking lifestyle. In a way that's about as punk as it gets.

While at Robs we took the opportunity to go and see Vivienne's retrospective at the Victoria & Albert museum and that's when I really got into her work. He also gave me Jane Mulvagh's biography of Vivienne, An Unfashionable Life, to read. It's a really good book and provides a bit more dispassionate granularity than most biographies.

Raised in Derbyshire from working class stock, Ms Westwood established LET IT ROCK with Malcolm 'Svengali' McLaren on the Kings Road. I dare say Tavistock were all over the show, without even letting them know. Nobody wants to talk about that so let's roll on. After leaving the rock (let it rock, black rock, tavistock... quarry men then the rolling stones and G Brethren and so on and so forth).

I can't let it go



In a way it's Tolkienesque right? 

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. 

Next thing, we're in Rivendell

Perfect

All around the alleged globe, the British don't quite understand that of course the people are loved, but the empire?

... nah... the international community want to punch the football into the net like Maradona, unless it's filling Kiev's MuthaWEFFer pockets or the EU or the WHO or do I really need to continue?

If you consider yourself British (i'm a space mongrel) I can assure you there's lot's of British historiography around the world (all over the world)


Vivienne as it were.

You will only see two British iconographies from the slums of Rangoon to the Showrooms of Beijing. 

Those are Bentley Motors & Punks

All strata of society around the world know those two and till recently the Queen and the Beatles.

Prove me wrong

Friday 3 May 2013

The Genius Social Commentary Of @ChunkyMark


-*


None of that celebrity seeking, ROTFLMAO, LOL shit the new agers are into even though it's passe 90's mIRC Yes I'm addressing you if Saturn is passing your asshole.

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Beijing Fashion and Trends

I got caught in Xidan again last weekend. That flat peaked baseball hat thing that was hitting London when I left may not have arrived full-on in Beijing yet, but I do like the perched and slightly tilted action going on below with subverted logos .



These guys really made me think I'd lost my antenna for what's going on because their piercings and punk goth look had in my opinion overstepped what Beijing tolerates as acceptable. Its one thing to be rebellious but in my estimation their look (even though its ace) would surely lead to some kind of 'social alienation' in this part of China. I think Vivienne Westwood collector and fashion lecturer Robert De Niet in London would be particularly pleased with those bondage trousers which, like the rocking shoes she designed, are somewhat impractical but look insanely good. Clothes for heroes indeed.



I bumped into them later in that cheap clothes mall I've been raving about and had a chance to ask them a few more questions where they told me in quite good English that they were of Canadian/Korean descent and here to learn Chinese. This kind of pleased me because I couldn't believe how much attitude their style had, although I will always be slightly disappointed in a city that doesn't have room for a few Punk Goths. I understand that Worcester wasn't the sort of place to wear this stuff in 76/77 either!



Here are some examples of those insane T Shirts I've been going on about.



Does Linda know?



Thus adding another dimension to the uncanny valley.



I have no idea what Beverdially Sweetbones Brondnated Beveriseeds means but its the sort of thing I'm beginning to enjoy and expect from Xidan. One of the things I like about the cheap shops is the resourcefulness they put into making them hip, and here in the Jing it seems that using magazine photography covered in glass on the floor is one way the young can inexpensively add some attitude. A lot of the shops also take pride in having rare trend curiosities to attract people in. Although that is a post for another day that I'm keen capture.

Tuesday 29 May 2007

Joy Division



The Ian Curtis biopic won Best European Film at Cannes. The post-punk aesthetic of Anton Corbijn's stark black-and-white cinematography was winning over the critics on Friday night but I'm delighted that one of my early music heroes is beginning to earn the the full credit he deserves. I'm also a bit annoyed that I didn't reserve lovewilltearusapart.com when no one else had thought of it and it was going for... erm a song.



Update: Video not functioning. Will investigate.