Dame Vivienne Westwood has led the tributes to her former boyfriend and punk pioneer Malcolm McLaren, who died yesterday in Switzerland after a battle with cancer. He was 64.Westwood, who along with McLaren ran the King's Road-based, S&M-inspired clothing shop SEX in the ‘70s, said, "When we were young and I fell in love with Malcolm, I thought he was beautiful and I still do. I thought he is a very charismatic, special and talented person. The thought of him dead is really something very sad. We hadn't been in touch for a long time."
Their son, Agent Provocateur co-founder Joe Corre, said that his dad was "the original punk rocker" who revolutionised the world. He added, "He's somebody I'm incredibly proud of. He's a real beacon of a man for people to look up to."
McLaren may have become famous for pioneering the punk movement and turning the Sex Pistols into one of the most influential bands in music history (incredibly, despite a career lasting just two-and-a-half years and producing one album), but he will also be remembered for creating a fashion movement, with Westwood, to go with it.
The pair opened their iconic London boutique, originally called Let It Rock, in 1971 to sell Teddy Boy clothes and items that the pair had designed for theatre and film productions. After visiting New York and meeting the band The New York Dolls they renamed the shop Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die and supplied the group, which he then managed, with stage costumes. Four years later the couple changed the shop name again, to SEX, selling S&M-inspired clothing that became synonymous with the punk movement and McLaren's new band, the Sex Pistols.
In an interesting insight into two legendary careers, McLaren told WWD in 1983 how he convinced his then-girlfriend to give up teaching and start making clothes. "I persuaded Vivienne to buy a sewing machine and sew up all these extraordinary T-shirts I wanted to design, to couple with the selling of these records." A decade later Westwood reiterated McLaren's comments, crediting him with encouraging her career in fashion. She said, "I got into clothes because of Malcolm. But I was always good at making things."
McLaren's body is to be flown back to England next week for a private funeral at Highgate Cemetery in North London.
Picture: Malcolm McLaren pictured circa 1984.
