Infrequent “Quote of the Day” #29

Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is easy and lazy but mysterious … But above all black says this: ‘I don’t bother you. Don’t bother me.’

– Yohji Yamamoto

More:

• Yohji Yamamoto Official Site

You’re gonna wake up one morning and know what side of the bed you’ve been lying on!

“Them-speak”: Bernie Rhodes, Malcolm McLaren, and Vivian Westwood (1974)

[Hates:] Television (not the group) / Mick Jagger / The Liberal Party / John Betjeman / George Melly Kenny & Cash / Michael Caine / Charles Forte / Sat nights in Oxford Street / SECURICOR impotence or complacency (slogan & Robert Carr) / Parking tickets / 19, Honey, Harpers, Vogue in fact all magazines that treat their readers as idiots / Bryan Ferry / Salvador Dali / A Touch of Class / BRUT for–who cares? / The Presidents Men / Lord Carrington / The Playboy Club / Alan Brien, Anthony Haden-Guest, Vic Lownes, to be avoided first thing in the morning / ANTIQUARIUS and all it stands for / Michael Roberts / POP STARS who are thick and useless / YES / Leo Sayer / David Essex / Top Of The Pops / Rod Stewart oh for money and an audience / Elton John–quote in NME 25 Sept re birthday spending / West End shopping / Stirling Cooper, Jean Junction, BROWNS, Take Six, C&A / Mars bars / Good Fun entertainment when it’s really not good or not funny Bernard Delfont / a passive audience / arse lickers / John Osborne Harry Pinter Max Bygraves Melvyn Bragg Philip Jenkinson the ICA and its symposiums John Schlesinger Andre Previn David Frost Peter Bogdanovich / Capital Radio / The Village Trousershop (sorry bookshop) / The narrow monopoly of media causing harmless creativity to appear subversive / THE ARTS COUNCIL / Head of the Metropolitan Police / Synthetic foods / Tate & Lyle / Corrupt councillors / G.K.N. / Grey skies / Dirty books that aren’t all that dirty / Andy Warhol / Nigel Waymouth David Hockney & Victorianism / The Stock Exchange / Ossie Clark / The Rag Trade / E.L.P. / Antiques of any sort / Housing Trusts who profit by bad housing / Bianca Jagger / Fellini / John Dungar / J. Artur’s / Tramps / Dingwals without H / Busby Berkeley MOVIES / Sir Keith Joseph and his sensational speeches / National Front / W. H. Smith / Censorship / Chris Welch and his lost Melody Makers / Clockwork soul routines / Bob Harris (or the sniffling Whistler as we know him) / The job you hate but are too scared to pack in / Interview magazine–Peter Lester / rich boys dressed as poor boys / Chelita Secunda, Nicky Weymouth, June Bolan, Pauline Fordham halitosis / Rose & Anne Lambton Chinless people / Antonia Frazer / Derek Marlow / Anne Scott-James / Sydney Edwards / Christopher Logue / Osbert Lancaster / Shaw Taylor–whispering grass / The Archers / BIBAS / Old clothes old ideas and all this resting in the country business / The suburbs / The Divine Light Mission / All those fucking saints

[Loves:] Eddie Cochran / Christine Keeler / Susan 602 2509 / My monster in black tights / Raw Power / Society For Cutting Up Men / RUBBER Robin Hood Ronnie Biggs BRAZIL / Jamaican Rude Boys / Bamboo Records / Coffee bars that sell whiskey under the counter / THE SCENE–Ham Yard / Point Blank / Monica the girl who stole those paintings / Legal Aid–when you can get it / Pat Arrowsmith / Valerie Solanis / The Price Sisters / Mervin Jones article The Challenge To Capitalism in New Statesman 4th Oct. 74 / Buenoventura Durutti The Black Hand Gang / Archie Shepp Muhammed Ali Bob Marley Jimi Hendrix Sam Cooke / Kutie Jones and his SEX PISTOLS / This country is run by a group of fascists so said Gene Vincent in a 1955 US radio interview / Seven Days with Alexander Cockburn / Olympia Press / Strange Death of Liberal England–Dangerfield / Mrs Scully love goddess from Shepherds Bush her house slaves and Search magazine / Labour Exchanges as your local / FREE RADIO stations / A chance to do it for more than a month without being ripped off / The Anarchist Spray Ballet / Lenny Bruce / Joe Orton / Ed Albee / Paustovsky / Iggy Pop / John Coltrane / Spunky James Brown / Dewey Redman / KING TUBBY’S sound system / Zoot suits and dreadlocks / Kilburn & the High Roads / Four Aces Dalston / Limbo 90–Wolfe / Tiger Tiger–Bester / Bizarre Humphries / Woolf–Waves / Walt Whitman poet / Exupery, Simone de Beauvoir, Dashiell Hammett, Dave Cooper, Nick Kent, Carl Gayle writers / Mel Ramos painter / Davd Holmes the newsman / Mal Dean cartoonist / Guy Stevens records / Mal Huff funny stories / D.H. / Valve amps / Art Prince / Marianne Faithfull / Jim Morrison / Alex Trocchi–Young Adam / Patrick Heron v. The Tate Gallery and all those American businesslike painters / Lady Sinthia 908 5569 / Experiment with Time–Dunne / John Lacey and his boiled book v. St Martin’s Art School experiment to be seen in New York. Imagination….

 

More:

• Seditionaries (seditionaries.com)

All I want is little Nazi children

“For the occasion, she [heiress Francoise Dior, niece of Christian Dior] wore a black and gold swastika necklace, encrusted with diamonds. They supped mead, toasted the British Nazi movement to the strains of the ‘Horst Wessel Lied’, and over a swastika-draped table, swore that they were of untainted Aryan blood, cut their fingers and let the mingled drop of their blood fall on to an open page of a virgin copy of Adolf Hitler’sMein Kampf.”

– Extracted from ‘The National Front’, by Martin Walker (Fontanna, 1977).

More:

• “Fashionably Fascist – The Forgotten History of Dior” (whomakesthenazis.com)
• “Francoise Dior’s Nazi Wedding” (viciousbabushka.com)
• Francoise Dior (wikipedia.com)

Dress cute wherever you go…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you already have your limited edition Converse/Clash shoes and Sex Pistols oven gloves you’re probably at a loss about what to do with your discretionary income.

Well, fret no more…

“Another boring scarf? More mittens? We’re not gonna take it! And neither should you! Pretty in Punk salutes counterculture fashion with 25 entirely original designs inspired by fashion icons Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano, and punk legends. Indulge your girly side with the Ready Steady Go mini skirt, rebel with Feel the Pain wrist cuffs, or channel your inner rock star with the very same Mohawk hat Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore wears on stage. Whether you’re new to knitting or a veteran desperately seeking patterns with an edge, you’ll find projects here for every mood and every genre. With step-by-step instructions, helpful technical illustrations and intarsia graphs, plus high-fashion photos of all the finished projects, Pretty in Punk is the only authority on anti-authority knitting.”

“The only rule is don’t be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.” – Paris Hilton

More:

• “Pretty in Punk” (amazon.com)
• “Pretty in Punk” free download (freshwap.com)
• “Oh, I thought you’d just made them up.” – the official Clash / Converse shoe (blogspot.com)
• “26 Punk Knits” (amazon.com)

Everybody would like to be Cary Grant

Despite the pedigree of the author, and the threat of a foreword by fashion dimwit Giorgio Armani (a man who wouldn’t know style if it came round his house and polished his tassled loafers for him), the forthcoming ‘Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style‘ by Richard Torregrossa will be an essential purchase for me.

Throughout the 1940’s, and into the ’50’s, Grant eptomised stylish, sophisticated manhood. If extracts published in the September 2006 edition of ‘Town & Country’ magazine are anything to go by, this book will provide a new level of detail about his enviable and timeless style and how it evolved.

“I got a phone call one day, and the voice on the other end said, ‘Good morning, this is Cary Grant. I am going to send you an evening shirt that I would like a new neckband put on. Is that okay?’ I said, ‘Yes’” When the shirt arrived, Lachter was amazed. “The label in our shirt had the old Prince of Wales coat of arms on it, which meant that the shirt was actually made before Edward VIII became king, probably around 1934 or ’35. Yes, He really did send me a forty-year-old shirt to repair!”
Stephen Lachter (former manager of Hawes & Curtis, London)

More:

• Cary Grant filmography (imdb.com)
• Hawes & Curtis
• London Lounge (thelondonlounge.net)
  The premier forum for discussion of male style
• The 30’s Style (the30sstyle.com)
  Dedicated to the ‘Elegant, Dandy and Exquisite Style of The Golden Age’