Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

by Viv Albertine

  As soon as you round the bend and see the word ‘SEX’ in giant pink plastic letters, you know you’re safe.

  I push open the door and am hit by the cloying, sickly-sweet smell of latex; it’s funny how you never smell it anywhere but here. The long thin shop floor is empty except for the assistants, Debbie and Jordan. Jordan is a work of art. Her look is so extreme and yet she isn’t scary or threatening at all. She has a soft voice, gentle manner and is calm and centred. Sometimes Jordan doesn’t wear a skirt, just fishnet tights or stockings, high-waisted satin knickers, a leather or rubber bodice and bondage shoes. She paints two black slashes across her eyelids, looks like a robber’s mask, a cross between Zorro and Catwoman, her face is dusted with white face powder and her lips are pillar-box red. Her hair is piled high, ash blonde and sculpted into a huge wave dipping down over one eye. Jordan travels on the train from Sussex all the way into London dressed like this. Every day. She doesn’t go into the loos at Charing Cross Station and change her clothes once she’s arrived. Her attitude filters through to all of us. You have to live it.

  Now I’m inside, I can’t wait to look at the clothes, there aren’t many, not much to choose from, but that just makes everything more special. High up on the shelves are rows of white, pink or black patent ankle boots, scallop-topped, stiletto-heeled. I wish I could buy a pair in every colour, they’re like something out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue (fetish underwear makers in LA), which I think has influenced Vivienne Westwood.

  Vivienne’s scary, for the reason any truthful, plain-talking person is scary – she exposes you. If you haven’t been honest with yourself, this makes you feel extremely uncomfortable, and if you are a con merchant the game is up. She’s uncompromising in every way: what she says, what she stands for, what she expects from you and how she dresses. She’s direct and judgemental with a strong northern accent that accentuates her sincerity. She has a confidence I haven’t seen in any other woman. She’s strong, opinionated and very smart. She can’t bear complacency. She’s the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. Sid told me, ‘Vivienne says you’re talented but lazy.’ I’ve worked at everything twice as hard since he said that.

  I’m very influenced by how Vivienne looks. She gets it just right. Black lines drawn around her eyes, dark lipstick, pale face. Her hair is dyed white blonde, with an inch of dark roots showing and clumpy spikes sticking out in all directions. I’ve no idea where she got the look from, it doesn’t reference anything I’m aware of, no films or art. I think she’s very feminine in her own way. I do my version of Vivienne but it comes out a bit different and looks like my own style. I love changing my hair, you can’t get hair wrong, I’ve spent money on it from a young age. I stopped going to hairdressers after I copied Vivienne though, they didn’t get it. Keith Levene hacks at it and dyes it for me now.

  Vivienne has a good figure, she can carry off anything, usually she wears a rubber knee-length skirt and calf-length black boots, not sexy boots, they’re flat, slightly baggy, or a see-through rubber top with bondage trousers and lots of tartan. She makes everyone else on the street look irrelevant. Although the clothes she wears are daring, there’s something about her that’s quite puritan and austere. She’s also very private. There are rumours that she has a child but I’ve never seen one or heard her mention it. Vivienne’s a vegetarian and very strict about it, she gives anyone who eats meat a hard time. One day Chrissie Hynde – who’s also a vegetarian – saw Vivienne backstage at the Roundhouse eating a ham sandwich. Chrissie confronted Vivienne about it and Vivienne replied, ‘Well, it’s dead now.’ (Once when Vivienne asked Chrissie a question, Chrissie replied, ‘Oh, I just go with the flow.’ Vivienne thought that was unacceptable and wouldn’t speak to her again for a year.) We’re all very judgemental about everything, including each other, but if you state your position boldly enough, or just don’t give a shit, you can do what the hell you want. In some ways to be too passionate or attached to anything is considered weak; you don’t stick to things just for the sake of it or on a matter of principle, that’s rigid behaviour.

  Malcolm isn’t in the Shop so often – when he is, he’s always friendly and charming, I’ve never heard him be rude or confrontational to anyone. Although they’re often together, you never see Vivienne and Malcolm touch or kiss and I think that’s set the tone for how we all behave in relationships. Hardly anyone in Malcolm and Vivienne’s circle is in a couple; only Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie is part of the Bromley Contingent, followers of the Sex Pistols from the very beginning), who’s with Steve Severin, and sometimes Paul Cook has a steady girlfriend. I’ve heard rumours that some of the girls who hang around the Shop do hand jobs on Park Lane for money, which fits in with the way everyone views sex: as a commodity, no emotional involvement needed. Maybe things go on behind the scenes. Sometimes, when the Roxy or our other haunt, Louise’s, closes (Louise’s is a lesbian club in Poland Street, with a little hatch in the red door at eye height so the doorman can look you over before deciding to let you in), a group of people start whispering and arranging something, then they all disappear off together. I can’t imagine what they do. I wonder if they all go off and have an orgy somewhere. I don’t know, I’m not part of it. I don’t quite fit into that side of things, I’m a bit too straight, like Mick. I dress in fetish and bondage gear, rubber and studs, and give off sexual signals with my clothes but don’t act on them in real life.

  Debbie and Jordan always point out something new that’s come in or that they think will suit me. There’s lots of black, splashes of pink, silver and red; I love all the different textures: rubber, leather (the only other places you can buy anything leather in London are sex shops and motorbike shops), mohair, zips and fraying edges. Vivienne is very aware of texture, she uses it along with cut and text to make statements. She’s made me conscious of the signs and signals I’m giving off with my clothes, I’ve become much more visually aware from going to the Shop, more than from any art-school teaching.

  Today I choose a transparent skin-coloured T-shirt, a cowboy T-shirt (two cowboys with their cocks out screen-printed on the front) and black leather jeans (you have to get them taken in every couple of months as they keep stretching and losing their shape. We all go to a guy who has a little alteration booth in the back of the launderette on the King’s Road) and go into the changing room, which has floor-to-ceiling pale pink rubber curtains. There’s a photo shoot going on. Vivienne, Chrissie Hynde and Jordan are going to paint the word ‘SEX’ across their bare arses for the picture and Vivienne asks me to be part of it. I’m honoured but say no, not because I’m against it morally or am too prudish but because I’m not confident about my arse. It’s the part of myself I hate most. Not that I say this to Vivienne, she’d never accept that as a reason not to do it. She’s hard to say no to, so it’s quite something for me to hold out and go against her. I feel pathetic and uptight for not joining in.

  I’m always trying on the shoes and boots in the shop. One time there was a pair of red ankle boots shaped like buckets, a bit fetishy but too ugly to be sexy, on a shelf. They’d been there for ages and Vivienne was musing out loud about how surprised she was that nobody had bought them because she thought they were beautiful. Then she turned to me and said, ‘You should get them, Viviane, they’ll look good on you.’ I looked at these hideous boots, not convinced at all, but I had to try them on; she insisted. They made my legs look fantastic. I still thought they were too expensive and very odd-looking but I bought them anyway, I couldn’t say no to Vivienne twice.

  I still wear those boots. They’re my favourite item of clothing.

  The clothes in Sex are so expensive that most of us own just one or two items, a T-shirt or a pair of shoes, and we wear that treasured piece all the time. I think to be dressed head to toe in brand-new stuff from Sex is risible. You have to be very careful which piece you choose because it defines you. Just because you’ve bought something from Sex doesn’t mean you’ve bought the right thing. Within
that very narrow choice is an even narrower margin. We all care a lot about style; everyone is united on that subject, even if we have different taste (for instance Siouxsie and I buy very different things from Sex). How we look is extremely important and the nuances within the small scene are rigorously observed and judged.

  I’ve recently thrown away all my Biba T-shirts because the necklines are boat-shaped and the shoulders are puffed. I can’t wear my beautiful Terry de Havilland boots because they’re brown. You can’t wear brown. It’s the most reviled colour. Not just because it’s considered lame, being a mixture of other colours – even a colour has to state its position – but because it’s bourgeois, worn by people who live in the countryside. It’s too comfortable. Acceptable colours are black, white, red, shocking pink, fluorescent yellow or green (almost impossible to find anything in London in these colours), tartan, anything bold. Pastels are weak, unless you wear them ironically or in a contrasting fabric like rubber; grey is for old people and suits. As for beige, you may as well be dead.

  Vivienne and Malcolm use clothes to shock, irritate and provoke a reaction but also to inspire change. Mohair jumpers, knitted on big needles, so loosely that you can see all the way through them, T-shirts slashed and written on by hand, seams and labels on the outside, showing the construction of the piece; these attitudes are reflected in the music we make. It’s OK not to be perfect, to show the workings of your life and your mind in your songs and your clothes. And everything you do in life is meaningful on a political level. That’s why we’re all so merciless about each other’s failings and why sloppiness is derided.

  Wearing white seamed ballet tights from Freed of London; tits T-shirt and Jerry Lee Lewis knickers from Sex; white patent boots (unseen). Daytime outfit

  35 THE FLOWERS OF ROMANCE

  Summer 1976

  O Rose, thou art sick.

  William Blake

  Every day is so hot, I’m glad to be rehearsing in Joe’s basement – at least I’m not getting a tan – but it’s hard work lugging my guitar backwards and forwards in these high temperatures. We’re down here for five or six hours a day, and it’s getting a bit uncomfortable, not just because of the heat. We don’t have any of our own songs and Sid is so judgemental and difficult to talk to that rehearsals are becoming excruciating; I’m finding the awkwardness unbearable. I try and start discussions to fill up the time, like whether Bob Dylan is a good lyricist or not. I think he is, Sid thinks he isn’t. I say, ‘“Positively Fourth Street” has good lyrics.’ ‘Like what?’ says Sid. ‘It’s just one big put-down. It’s very honest.’ He wants me to convince him. He doesn’t care what I say, as long as I don’t waver. Another time we discuss the concept of ‘cool’. Sid says, ‘There’s no such thing as cool.’ I say, ‘You’re cool.’ ‘No I’m not,’ he replies.

  The not knowing how to play or how to structure a rehearsal is wearing us all down. Sid decides he’s not going to play sax, he’s going to be the singer. He keeps on at me, ‘You’ve got to write a song. We can’t meet again until you’ve written a song.’ The pressure. Every night, on my way home from rehearsal, I go into the bakery on Queensway and buy a soft white watercress and egg mayonnaise roll. I look forward to it so much, it’s my little treat. I try and ditch Sid at the end of each rehearsal so I don’t have to share it with him.

  By September, despite the hot summer, we’re as pale and spotty as ever, and despite rehearsing every day, we don’t have any songs and our playing hasn’t improved. We do have a name though: the Flowers of Romance. I think it’s the best band name in the world, reminds me of The Grapes of Wrath. Rotten thought of it, just came out with it, he’s so good with words. I love that the name goes against all the other band names that are fashionable at the moment, all the hard, shocking, aggressive names. Also, it’s true: we’re the children of the first wave of divorced parents from the 1950s, we’ve seen the domestic dream break down. It was impossible to live up to. We grew up during the ‘peace and love’ of the 1960s, only to discover that there are wars everywhere and love and romance is a con.

  Some evenings we go to a pub in Notting Hill after rehearsal and slump in the comfortable chairs. Journalists come up to us and ask if we’re in a band. We don’t have to do anything except look a bit different and we’re already being followed around. Sid won’t talk to them unless they buy us drinks, then he says, ‘Yeah, we’re in the Flowers of Romance.’ The journalists scribble it down, desperate to have something to write about. They know something’s happening but they can’t find the bands, can’t find the records. There aren’t any. When are you playing? they ask. ‘Soon.’

  I don’t look forward to rehearsals any more because I know Sid’s going to ask me if I’ve written a song, but every time I try and write something I’m crippled by the thought of him judging it. A song that Sid would like? Impossible. What subject can I write about that he won’t find stupid? I’m not going to write about Belsen, torture or S & M.

  After a couple of months, Sid decides to chuck Palmolive out of the band because she doesn’t look right, too hippyish – but I think it’s more to do with her standing up to him and disagreeing with him. Then he boots Sarah out because she can’t play. I realise he’s ruthlessly ambitious underneath his gawky facade. He gets in a bloke called Steve Walsh, he wants him in the band because he can play guitar. Steve wears a grey suit and his hair is immaculate. He can’t write a song either.

  Most nights after rehearsals Sid and Steve come back to my place and hang around until it’s too late to go home. We sit around smoking, sometimes taking speed, talking and listening to records with Alan and Paul until four in the morning. When I’ve had enough I say, ‘I’m going to bed. There’s room for someone else if anyone wants to.’ As I walk out of the room I hear a scuffle behind me. I say to myself, Please let Sid win. He does. He pushes Steve out of the way and stumbles into my room with a grin on his face.

  I take my jeans and T-shirt off and get into bed in my bra and knickers, Sid takes his top and jeans off. We lie facing away from each other. I don’t know if he sleeps. I don’t. I can’t, it’s too weird. As the sun comes up, we edge closer and closer to each other in tiny little movements, hoping not to be detected. By the morning we’re pressed hard against each other, back to back, stuck together with sweat, making as much physical contact as possible. This is what we do every time we’re in bed together, never anything more.

  Sometimes I manage to drift off during the night, but I come back to consciousness, revived by a strong smell of Newcastle Brown Ale, a thick treacly brown smell – mixed with ammonia, like a dose of smelling salts.

  ‘Sid! You’ve wet the bed again!’

  He giggles. He doesn’t care.

  One day Sid says something that really scares me. ‘Siouxsie’s asked me to be in her band, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and play their first gig at the 100 Club.’ My heart sinks. Oh no, he’s going to leave the band. This was bound to happen, he’s so interesting, of course someone’s going to pinch him.

  So this is it, the first time one of us is going to play live and I’m not part of it. I don’t really mind, I don’t feel ready to do it. I don’t have the guts to do what Mick, John and now Sid and Siouxsie are doing. But Sid’s going to try and make his dream a reality, no more talking and posing, he’s going to put himself on the line and actually do it. I’m excited and nervous. They’ve only had one twenty-minute rehearsal. Will it work? This is a huge moment for us. Although we like the idea that anybody can do anything, without any history, talent or technical ability, if you miss the mark, by even a tiny bit, you’ll be derided. Sid is the most stringent critic of all, so in a way, he has to get it the most right.

  36 THE 100 CLUB

  1976

  No one talks as we sit around in the half-empty 100 Club on Oxford Street, waiting for Sid and Siouxsie to go on stage. We’re all nervous but it’s important not to show it. Apart from the Sex Pistols, nobody else playing tonight has performed live before.


  Outside, Oxford Street looks Dickensian. Most of the shops are boarded up, there are mountains of rotting rubbish piled along the edge of the pavements because of the dustmen’s strike and half the street lamps are off due to electricity rationing.

  Inside, the tension is mounting. Siouxsie’s on first, she’s doing ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and Sid’s drumming (he’s never drummed before), Steve Severin, Siouxsie’s boyfriend, is on bass and Marco Pirroni (later in Adam and the Ants) plays guitar. They climb up onto the stage and start. Sid is good, no rolls, no fills, no cymbals. He pounds away at the drums, steady as a rock. He looks great and shows no fear. The song goes on for about twenty minutes, it sounds menacing with Siouxsie intoning over the insistent beat. I think she’s inspiring, she has such self-possession. I’m relieved when Sid tells me later he’s not going to join the band, he doesn’t want to sit at the back behind a drum kit, he wants to be the star.

  Me and Sid go along to the 100 Club again the next night to hang out. A group called the Damned are playing. I wear a black mesh see-through top with no bra. I saw Siouxsie wear a transparent top with no bra once and thought she looked great; the thing is, she has a much more boyish figure than me, my boobs are bigger and the effect is not the same. I ask for a glass of water at the bar, fighting the urge to cross my arms over my exposed chest whilst the barmen gawp at me. I’ll never wear this top again, I don’t have the bottle to carry it off. Whilst I’m standing there trying to look nonchalant, I hear shouting and scuffling coming from near the stage. I don’t think anything of it, probably people jumping on top of each other whilst the band’s playing.

  About ten minutes later someone tells me Sid’s been arrested and carted off to the police station for throwing a glass – it hit a post and shattered, injuring a girl in the audience. I know Sid didn’t do it, he was standing near me when I was at the bar, leaning against a pillar, he was miles away from the stage. I bet it’s been pinned on him because of his reputation as a troublemaker.