Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren A Worlds End 'Pirate Shirt', 1981
Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren
A Worlds End 'Pirate Shirt', 1981
off-white cotton smock shirt, with large collar, bell sleeves and buttoned cuffs, with 'World's End' label affixed to the inside collar, accompanied by a letter of provenance
Footnotes:
This 'Pirate Shirt' is an important and pivotal piece in Westwood and McLaren's fashion story, since it effectively inaugurated the New Romantic period which gave rise to a host of young British design talent as well as to such world-beating stars as Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.
Having established the Worlds End label – with a logo adapted by McLaren from the flag of the 18th-century privateer-turned-pirate Thomas Tew - and refurbished and renamed their boutique at 430 King's Road, the shirt was featured in McLaren & Westwood's first formal venture into catwalk fashion in the spring of 1981 when they were invited to participate in the London Designer Collection (the forerunner to London Fashion Week) at Olympia by Jeff Banks.
The shirt was based on an 18th-century shirt pattern as one of a number of designs taken by Westwood from the historian Norah Waugh's 1964 book The Cut Of Men's Clothes 1600-1900. With men's tailoring not starting in Britain until the end of the 18th century - prior to that 'men's clothes had a distinct dressmaker quality' - McLaren was determined that the unstructured silhouette would lend itself to becoming the focal point of their new direction, 'I could see it being worn as a dress by the young paramour of a pirate captain with his belt, one of his waistcoats and a pair of his sagging buckled boots,' McLaren said in the mid-00s. The shirt also appeared in the first prominent acknowledgement by the wider fashion world of the pair's design work, on the cover and in a tropical photo shoot in British Vogue in May 1981. This issue extended the romantic theme with a profile of Lady Diana Spencer ahead of her marriage to the then-Prince of Wales.
Provenance
Given to the vendor by Vivienne Westwood on the last day of the Chelsea Town Hall fashion weekend in 1983. Having been the DJ for the weekend, the two met due to the stage being right next to Westwood's stall.
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Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren
A Worlds End 'Pirate Shirt', 1981
off-white cotton smock shirt, with large collar, bell sleeves and buttoned cuffs, with 'World's End' label affixed to the inside collar, accompanied by a letter of provenance
Footnotes:
This 'Pirate Shirt' is an important and pivotal piece in Westwood and McLaren's fashion story, since it effectively inaugurated the New Romantic period which gave rise to a host of young British design talent as well as to such world-beating stars as Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.
Having established the Worlds End label – with a logo adapted by McLaren from the flag of the 18th-century privateer-turned-pirate Thomas Tew - and refurbished and renamed their boutique at 430 King's Road, the shirt was featured in McLaren & Westwood's first formal venture into catwalk fashion in the spring of 1981 when they were invited to participate in the London Designer Collection (the forerunner to London Fashion Week) at Olympia by Jeff Banks.
The shirt was based on an 18th-century shirt pattern as one of a number of designs taken by Westwood from the historian Norah Waugh's 1964 book The Cut Of Men's Clothes 1600-1900. With men's tailoring not starting in Britain until the end of the 18th century - prior to that 'men's clothes had a distinct dressmaker quality' - McLaren was determined that the unstructured silhouette would lend itself to becoming the focal point of their new direction, 'I could see it being worn as a dress by the young paramour of a pirate captain with his belt, one of his waistcoats and a pair of his sagging buckled boots,' McLaren said in the mid-00s. The shirt also appeared in the first prominent acknowledgement by the wider fashion world of the pair's design work, on the cover and in a tropical photo shoot in British Vogue in May 1981. This issue extended the romantic theme with a profile of Lady Diana Spencer ahead of her marriage to the then-Prince of Wales.
Provenance
Given to the vendor by Vivienne Westwood on the last day of the Chelsea Town Hall fashion weekend in 1983. Having been the DJ for the weekend, the two met due to the stage being right next to Westwood's stall.
