“When your young and first discover a new look which has music attached to it, it's like falling in love and really turns you on, it can be incredibly liberating, and you can't get enough, at least until everyone else discovers it...”

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By Abigail Bruley  |  Send to Friend

Roger Burton was behind everything you’ve ever loved about vintage rock n' roll fashion. He’s supplied shirts for Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLauren for their famous SEX shop in London and documented the first and greatest of punk fashion in his film Vive Le Punk. He’s the reason why Bowie became Ziggy Stardust and for the countless style transitions of both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He supplied all the clothing for The Who’s Quadrophenia and, today, designers like Christopher Bailey and Marc Jacobs often visit his wide collection of vintage youth-culture clothing for inspiration.

two.one.five: Did you yourself ever identify yourself with one of the fashion counter cultures of the UK (teddy boys, skinheads, mods, punks, etc)?
RB: One way or another I've been involved with, and certainly influenced by, all of the above, but primarily I was a Mod from 1963 to 1966 and elements of that ethos have always stayed with me.

two.one.five: Are you thrilled or appalled to see the fashion involved with the World End store now making it's way down the runways?
RB: For as long as I can remember I have had a love-hate relationship with the fashion industry, so I'm thrilled to see maverick designers get work accepted by the mainstream and onto the catwalk, but I also hate the fact that they invariably lose a lot of their edge by doing so, and eventually sell out.

two.one.five: When making Vive Le Punk, did you function mostly as a fly on the wall or did you encourage McLaren and Westwood to ham it up?

RB: Well, the film was only ever meant as a documentation of the exhibition, but it took masses of persuasion for M&V to even come and see the show, as far as they were concerned they had both moved on in their separate ways and although it was an important period of their lives, they preferred not to look back. Also, they hadn't seen each other for 10 years until that night so they were both quite uncomfortable about meeting again, and it was only because they knew and trusted me that they finally agreed. So, yes, my role was mostly fly-on-the- wall, trying to steer the conversation as best I could, but neither of them needed any encouragement to speak out about what they had created, especially Malcolm who is always charming, witty and opinionated but romanticizes about everything!

two.one.five: Is there anyone today that you consider to encompass the feeling of the original Worlds End fashion?

RB: Not really, I don't think we will ever see anything like them again, but then, that was mainly due to the climate in the UK at the time, when fashion desperately needed to change and they responded by breaking all the rules. The problem is now, that there are no rules to be broken any more.

two.one.five: You obviously have made quite a career out of the relationship of music and fashion. In terms of individuality, do you think dressing like the music you listen to is inhibiting or liberating?

RB: When your young and first discover a new look which has music attached to it, its like falling in love and really turns you on, it can be incredibly liberating, and you can't get enough, at least until everyone else discovers it....and then all you want to do disassociate yourself from it as quickly as possible, or at least thats the way it happened to me. Its very interesting for me being a keeper of culture, revisiting old styles that you adored at the time, although there is usually a lot of nostalgia involved, they really make consider them in a different light.

two.one.five: Who was your favorite artist to design for?

RB: Too many to mention and all for different reasons, not one artist in particular, they each have there own little quirks and fantasies that I try to encourage, which makes my job exciting. A large part of the design process is spending time getting inside artists heads and giving them confidence to wear stuff they wouldn't normally look at. I quickly learned that in general the more professional the artist, the easier they respond to new ideas.

two.one.five: What style did you influence that we would know David Bowie for?

RB: Working with Bowie on the Blue Gene film, was great fun developing up the idea of an alter ego character. I think I broadened his taste and introduced him to a more eclectic way of dressing, mixing up casual with formal clothes, clashing fabrics, subtle colors and styles using both Japanese and English designers at the time.

two.one.five: What was it like styling George Harrison and the Beatles, did they need much guidance or did they have a pretty innate sense of style?

RB: George was a real dream to work with, and although he had no great interest in clothes he knew what he liked, his taste was very diverse One day it was all gypsy influenced, and the next day, I'm making him a whole range of country and western style suits, he loved to mix it up.
Ringo is a great character always one to dress up, and could carry off pretty well anything I threw at him...Paul was quite design conscious, but also very conservative and never that adventurous when I worked with him, again he pretty much knew what he liked and what he felt comfortable wearing.

two.one.five: Tell me about the t-shirts that got Westwood and Mclaren arrested...

RB: The famous naked Cowboy t-shirt with their penises exposed got them arrested, after the police had seen one of their customers wearing the t-shirt around Piccadilly Circus. The shop was subsequently raided and the offending t-shirt confiscated, but when it came to court they got off on a technicality, i.e. the penises were not quite touching. So they carried on making them, and also a lot more offensive pornographic designs, featuring guys fist fucking and an image of Marilyn Monroe with piss all over her etc etc... they were raided quite often, but as Malcolm put it "we didn't care, we thought we had nine lives at the time"..

two.one.five: What modern fashion designers and music artists do you like?

RB: My taste today is still very diverse, personally I always loved work wear, and vintage western wear, but if I have an artist to dress I'll usually look at Galliano, Westwood, Mui Mui, and Marc Jacobs current collections first for inspiration, and then probably end up buying interesting vintage or designing something timeless, that is inspired by all of the above.
I really love all types of music, and listen to it all the time, everything from jazz to rock, alt country to rap, it depends what mood or country I'm in. I spent many years buying albums and loved discovering weird fucked up obscure experimental music from all periods, now I listen mostly to WFMU.org on the net, they seem to dig up the weirdest shit and juxtapose it with the most unlikely mainstream stuff, that always keeps me entertained.