A job at Vivienne Westwood's boutique made me a Sex Pistol | Glen Matlock
I walked into Let It Rock, looking for a pair of brothel creepers. I was there a little too long and a guy said, "Can I help you?" I said I was looking for work. I had been fired from my part-time job in the pants department at Whiteley's. He told me to call Malcolm and Vivienne. That's how I started in the shop. They probably thought I was just a straight kid, which I was.
A month or two later, I asked Vivienne to ask Malcolm s would give me a reference for college art. She said, “Really? I don't think you would want to ask Malcolm because he was expelled from all universities in London. Right away I became more interested in them and they became more interested in me.
That summer, McLaren and Westwood turned the shop into Sex. They had had enough of the plush boy right-wing mentality and I helped with the outside sign. I had learned to screen print, so they asked me to do two images: a big red baseball player with a huge dick and another of two cowboys with their penises touching. I said I would try. It took too long and Vivienne became dogmatic, saying I was trying to censor her work when I wasn't at all. If you were on the wrong side, she would let you know.
At that point, Steve (Jones) and Paul (Cook) started arriving. It was my job to keep an eye on them. They were trying to get a band together and I heard them say they needed a bassist. That's how it all started.
Many people think that Vivienne and Malcolm made all the clothes, but that's not the case: they provided a base where we all met. The hippest place in London on a Saturday afternoon, where all the eccentrics and weirdos congregate. We gravitated there for our own reasons, a hodgepodge of people who kept doing something. And Vivienne was like the mistress of a Belle Epoque salon. I don't think she did it on purpose. She understood things, like when John [Lydon] walked in with a safety pin in his ear.
Whatever she did, she did with real expertise. If anything came back from Mr. Green in the East End with a seam in the wrong place, Vivienne was on it. She used sewing to get her ideas across, to subvert what you were meant to look like. She was always at the V&A or the Wallace Collection. She was in conflict of ideas and knew what she wanted to do.
She was one of the first vegetarians I met. Yet when I had chicken, she would take the bones home to boil them and sew them onto T-shirts. They had the shop for less than a year when I arrived and they were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do. It's amazing now. There is a Vivienne Westwood flagship store in Shanghai and go to Harajuku in Tokyo and the girls are dressed in Westwood. Chicken bones at the helm of a fashion empire: only by standing tall can you achieve lasting recognition and having continued success is difficult. She did it. I'm not sure we'll ever see people like her again.
Glen Matlock was the bassist of the Sex Pistols
I walked into Let It Rock, looking for a pair of brothel creepers. I was there a little too long and a guy said, "Can I help you?" I said I was looking for work. I had been fired from my part-time job in the pants department at Whiteley's. He told me to call Malcolm and Vivienne. That's how I started in the shop. They probably thought I was just a straight kid, which I was.
A month or two later, I asked Vivienne to ask Malcolm s would give me a reference for college art. She said, “Really? I don't think you would want to ask Malcolm because he was expelled from all universities in London. Right away I became more interested in them and they became more interested in me.
That summer, McLaren and Westwood turned the shop into Sex. They had had enough of the plush boy right-wing mentality and I helped with the outside sign. I had learned to screen print, so they asked me to do two images: a big red baseball player with a huge dick and another of two cowboys with their penises touching. I said I would try. It took too long and Vivienne became dogmatic, saying I was trying to censor her work when I wasn't at all. If you were on the wrong side, she would let you know.
At that point, Steve (Jones) and Paul (Cook) started arriving. It was my job to keep an eye on them. They were trying to get a band together and I heard them say they needed a bassist. That's how it all started.
Many people think that Vivienne and Malcolm made all the clothes, but that's not the case: they provided a base where we all met. The hippest place in London on a Saturday afternoon, where all the eccentrics and weirdos congregate. We gravitated there for our own reasons, a hodgepodge of people who kept doing something. And Vivienne was like the mistress of a Belle Epoque salon. I don't think she did it on purpose. She understood things, like when John [Lydon] walked in with a safety pin in his ear.
Whatever she did, she did with real expertise. If anything came back from Mr. Green in the East End with a seam in the wrong place, Vivienne was on it. She used sewing to get her ideas across, to subvert what you were meant to look like. She was always at the V&A or the Wallace Collection. She was in conflict of ideas and knew what she wanted to do.
She was one of the first vegetarians I met. Yet when I had chicken, she would take the bones home to boil them and sew them onto T-shirts. They had the shop for less than a year when I arrived and they were still trying to figure out what they wanted to do. It's amazing now. There is a Vivienne Westwood flagship store in Shanghai and go to Harajuku in Tokyo and the girls are dressed in Westwood. Chicken bones at the helm of a fashion empire: only by standing tall can you achieve lasting recognition and having continued success is difficult. She did it. I'm not sure we'll ever see people like her again.
Glen Matlock was the bassist of the Sex Pistols
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