Malcolm Was Here
Written by Miranda Vidak
4/21/20103 min read
lf I have to go, I wanna go like this.
Leave it to the one and only Malcolm McLaren to punk everybody, even in death.
How rad is this funeral?! Anarchy rose bouquet, a double-decker with flags, and THE shit of all shits - a GRAFFITI CASKET!
Man, oh, man. This is the way to go.
See, I was always bothered by the theory of death and how breakable we all are, but what makes me shiver the most is the quickness of funerals. You can be the biggest badass in the world, and you just evaporate one day; they put you in the box, send you packing in the underworld, and it's like your essence never even mattered.
This funeral gives me hope. The essence is there. His presence is all over it. There is some playful antagonism in the air, like the one he exuded in life. He sent us his famous slogans on the way to the ground, and It was the funeral fit for a Punk King.
Too much is said about Malcolm during his life, but what always stayed with me was how good he was with words, sending slogans about his causes to the world in the most original ways possible.
Yeah, he created Sex Pistols and masterminded New York Dolls, but it's his marketing genius and his visual construction of Punk that makes me in awe of him. He and Vivienne Westwood, both. Together.
They were the fashion with the cause geniuses. Some people identify McLaren with the creation of Sex Pistols solely, but I share opinions with many that felt he only created Pistols to use them as a marketing tool, an outlet for spreading his and Vivienne's political and fashion ideas - through Pistols' stage clothes.
The names of their stores - LET IT ROCK, TOO FAST TO LIVE TOO YOUNG TO DIE, SEX, or the T-Shirt slogans - GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, PLEASE KILL ME, CASH FROM CHAOS, just to name some, are - if you understand the times they were created at (70's) - the work of marketing Svengali.
Detail I find fascinating, and what I just found out recently, is that one of my all-time favorite brand names names - AGENT PROVOCATEUR, is founded by a guy named JOSEPH CORRE. I always wondered who thought of that name, it's simply perfect. Joseph Corre is the son of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.
Figures. What a legacy! And shoes to fill.
Malcolm used chaos to showcase chaos in the world. A simple piece of clothing is not something you just wear, it's something that matters and something that can also change the world. A simple safety pin on the Queen's cheek on the T-shirt is not there for the sake of fashion, it means something.
He could say so much with so little, with the simplest detail. I did a paper on Malcolm and Vivienne while in college, and while researching the subject, I found one of his quotes that stayed with me for the longest time. It made up for all the drawing until my eyes came out, all the paint under the nails that you can never ever wash out, all the sleepless nights and questions like - will it ever pay off?
“Magnificent failure is the only real means of effecting change in the popular culture. All of my obsessions are fueled by one thing: the power of the amateur.
With Western popular culture split into a dominant, over-produced mainstream, remaining an amateur is the only true path to self-expression.
A picture that is a magnificent failure actually breathes life and allows the culture to change. If you have perfection, there is nowhere to go. With perfection there is no communication. The disasters are what brings life and allow us to connect. Failure’s not such a bad thing. It’s just one long struggle.
To be an artist of any worth is a journey, and the journey never ends. You understand the struggle. That’s why you’ll survive. But don’t think you can just ‘fail’. Be a flamboyant failure. That’s better than being any kind of benign success. I’ve always believed that talent only truly emerges when there is a cause, a cause which is governedby survival.”
Flamboyant failure. Benign success.
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood made their T-shirts on the kitchen floor, silkscreened in the bedroom of their small apartment, and wanted to do rag-like, dipped in oil "impossible to sell T-shirts", commercially undesirable to even have in the shop.
Malcolm didn't even want to sell them. He liked the contradictions of having the shirts hung in the store with the idea of "not for sale". Ironically, those T-shirts now stand as objects in museums and Sotheby's auction rooms, inside the frame. For me, that right there is his legacy. Saying so much, with so little. Doing so much, with so little.
A professional provoker who provoked for one last time.
Rest in Chaos, Malcolm!