Punk, fashion’s most outrageous moment
It’s all sex, safety pins and rock’n’roll in a new miniseries about the birth of punk.
When Liza Bracey began her journey as costume designer on upcoming miniseries Pistol, she immersed herself in hours of original film footage of the Sex Pistols in all their confrontational creativity.
It was an iconoclastic onslaught of the history of punk: amazing, filthy, obscene and fabulously compelling. Bracey was on a clear mission to render the costumes for this project as authentically as possible, which transpired to be a complex undertaking.
Her team set out to painstakingly match originals from the 1970s era, which Bracey says was “harder than designing from scratch”, although she did have a fantastic buyer who unearthed lots of vintage finds.
It was a mammoth task, but an exciting one, too, especially for a punk obsessive such as her.
Setting the scene
Pistol is a miniseries directed by the legendary Danny Boyle and is based on Sex Pistol Steve Jones’s autobiography Lonely Boy. Jones is played by Australian actor Toby Wallace. The book is unapologetic, uncomfortable and sexually adventurous. The miniseries begins with Steve Jones and Paul Cook as they form their band.
“Everyone’s really 70s at the beginning, especially those two, because they were quite stylish and very into their clothes, like big flares,” says Bracey. “And then gradually it builds into the whole punk thing.”
Cue a riot of ripped up and destroyed T-shirts, slogans, tartan and fetish rubber. The most challenging part of the project, Bracey says, was the controversial iconography.
“Using real footage and recreating music videos, we tried to stay as faithful as we could, but there were quite a lot of things we couldn’t use – today you’re not allowed to shock people, basically,” she says. “I did find it frustrating because it’s hard to tell the story of rebellion, punk and anger [without them] … It’s a fine line.”
Fact: Bracey estimates there were “something like 650 changes”.
The Priestess of Punk
Pistol, and any punk storytelling, would be incomplete without the legendary life force that is Vivienne Westwood. In the 70s Westwood helped define and build the anarchic language of the movement.
“It was about smashing all the values,” she has said. She did so with then boyfriend, Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren – played in the series by Love Actually’s Thomas Brodie-Sangster – and from Westwood’s 430 King’s Road boutique, which became the birthplace of punk as a fashion movement.
The store went through numerous names changes over the years including ‘Let it Rock’ and ‘SEX’, but by the start of the 80s, after the death of Sid Vicious in 1979, it was called ‘Worlds End‘ remaining an excess of discordant deconstructed kilts, crinolines and a swathe of expertly tailored ideas.
Fact: In 2015, Westwood collaborator model and actor Jordan Mooney (aka Pamela Rooke) sold her Venus T-shirt (recreated for the miniseries, top left) for an undisclosed thousands of pounds. Kate Moss was the rumoured buyer.
Living legend
Bracey worked closely with the Vivienne Westwood Foundation and Joe Corré, Westwood and McLaren’s son.
“He came in and helped us with some original stuff because there’s not a lot left – it wasn’t built to last,” reflects Bracey. Murray Blewitt, who has worked with Westwood for years overseeing her archive, was also a consultant on the series.
“He knew everything,” Bracey says. “He understands how Vivienne thinks. We couldn’t have done it without him. He’d take a picture and show it to Vivienne.”
However, Bracey admits they never got any feedback. “I don’t know how much she cares about the past, to be honest.”
Fact: Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire, 1941. Her mother worked in a cotton mill and her father bought Tintwistle post office for £100.
Becoming Vivienne
Talulah Riley – star of Pride & Prejudice – landed the part of Westwood, which she says was so much fun.
“Obviously, there’s a weight of responsibility that comes with portraying somebody who is real and alive,” Riley says. “She was gracious enough to meet with me and very generous with her time … just to be Vivienne in some sense was a wonderful experience. She’s the classic English eccentric.”
After being cast, Riley dug out her old sewing machine and started making clothes and playing around. “I wanted to get used to doing and making, rediscovering the joy of that,” she explains. “We had a lot of scenes where Vivienne would be in the back of the shop boiling up some bones to stick on a T-shirt or dying it with beetroots and big vats and cauldrons … it was all very wizard-like.”
Fact: Riley’s favourite costume was the bondage trousers. “Looking at them I thought, ‘Oh god, that’s going to be quite fussy with the straps and buckles,’ but actually they were supremely comfortable.”
Getting the look
Bracey loved working on the costumes for punk icon Jordan Mooney, who is also synonymous with establishing punk as a look and an attitude. Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams plays Mooney, and says that the role required a huge physical transformation.
“Zipping into the pleather and melting into the rubber gave me a posture and an attitude, which felt distinctly different to my own,” Williams shares. “Her costumes were always the centre of attention, and all I needed to do was stand like a piece of living art.”
Stepping into Mooney’s platform shoes was “a labour love”, she adds, which gave her “the freedom to perform; there were no rules, and every day was a discovery. I felt stripped of my safety blanket, but it pushed me to step up my game and find something real.”
Fact: Of her costumes, Williams adored a blue leotard, slashed across the chest and safety-pinned back together. “I loved the attention to detail.”
London calling
Trawling through all the footage of the Sex Pistols fully immersed the team.
“You listen and watch over and over and think, ‘When did this top get ripped?’” reflects Bracey. She unearthed a CD from long ago, which had the music played on the jukebox in the SEX boutique.
“I’ve been a fan for a long time,” she says, confiding that Westwood is part of the reason she became a costume designer. “I wanted to learn how to make corsets because Vivienne made corsets. She’s had a massive influence on me growing up.”
The hope for Pistol is to capture the era’s mood, the feeling.
“Danny wanted to capture the rawness and chaos of it all,” says Bracey. “It was about rebellion, but I think it all came from boredom – people were bored so they decided to do something themselves. The essence of punk is if you don’t like what it is, change it yourself, do something different. Don’t be told you can’t.”
Pistol is streaming on Disney+ from May 31.
This article appears in the May 2022 edition of Vogue Australia, on newsstands now.