KITSCH-22

What’s clear is they are both designers/artists who merged music, fashion, art and graphics. They saw the common t-shirt as a vehicle for art and commentary and their revolutionary development of inks and silk screening meant they could produce them in quantity and cheaply.

The T-shirt is a socialist revolution born out of a product of the capitalist modern world. The T-shirt belongs to everyone – part of a universal language – more personal than a Pop poster, more poignant than a song – from its humble beginnings in the novelty genre through the Pop and the Literary to the Illusionary and the Surreal. John Dove and Molly White 2011

America, Pop Art, Dada, Surrealism and Rock ‘n Roll were a huge influence and used as subject matter but their designs were also enhanced by the applique of diamante, tassels, glitter and rhinestones. Their 1971-73 Wonder Workshop label range of t-shirts was truly groundbreaking.

Their Mickey Mouse t-shirt was a typical example of their approach as a political statement on the Vietnam War and the US involvement.

Another design was their ‘Painless Tattoo Collection’ from as early as 1968, which used see-through tights-like material with tattoos printed on them to look like real ones and an extension of this was the first ‘Tits’ t-shirt which effectively made the wearer nude.

Their first brush with Punk came when Iggy Pop was photographed by Mick Rock on the back cover of The Stooges album Raw Power wearing one of their leatherette jackets with a leopard head on the back. Inside it had a green leopard print lining based on a Molly designed black and white zebra stripe furnishing textile.

Back in the WONDER WORKSHOP studio in 1971 the concept was to create a Rocker jacket using the basic materials of a cheap, mass-produced leatherette jacket (plastic, nylon and fake fur) but still retain a Rock’n’Roll authenticity. It would never be worn by a Hells Angel but by someone who identified with that rebel attitude – someone like IGGY POP. KITSCH-22 Originals Instagram

Wonder Workshop jacket as worn by Iggy Pop on the seminal Raw Power album cover – photo Mick Rock

The leopard head also featured on their Wild Thing t-shirt as worn by Marc Bolan (T Rex), Mick Ronson (Bowie) Steve Marriott, Nigel Harrison (Blondie), Brian Connolly (The Sweet) and a very young Sid Vicious. amongst many others. Later in 2007, Steve Jones would wear one for the Sex Pistols gigs.

Molly and I have always considered The WILD THING T-Shirt as our earliest ‘Punk’ image because It appealed to individuals who would translate the phrase ‘Wild Thing’ into their own kind of interpretation. It would emblazon the chests of a decade of Rock’N’RolI rebels from Marc Bolan to Sid Vicious. Wonder Workshop

The jacket had probably been purchased from the shop Paradise Garage shop in the Kings Road London to which they also supplied their Wonder Workshop label t-shirt range.

In 1971 events saw the owner Trevor Myles decamp to Jamaica to get married. He left money problems and gave a concession to a couple called Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. They would take over the shop and bring in 50’s furniture and artifacts and decorate the interior in the style of a fifties living room with a view to selling to rock n roll rebels the teddy boys. As the couple came in, John and Molly duly exited.

A relationship of sorts developed with McLaren & Westwood and a mutual interest in ideas and design. Vivienne reputedly had a collection of their t-shirts but was forging designs of her own.

John White Vivienne was cutting standard T-shirts up into tremendous shapes using chains and studs to assemble the parts. She had no education with design or manufacturing so she couldn’t help breaking the rules in an original fashion. We loved the new clothes and she gifted many of them to us. Honeyee Interview, 10.10.2017

That said there are some borrows and influences from John & Molly not least the range of rock n roll t-shirts being done by them and ones then done by McLaren and Westwood along with the rocker image. More obviously the iconic Venus t-shirt has its basis in the Elvis Sun t-shirt.

When McLaren and Westwood were thinking about changing their shop, the two couples exchanged ideas with the former wanting to collaborate and stock the latter’s designs. John & Molly however started selling in another Kings Road shop Granny Takes A Trip.

John White V&M wanted to talk about a collaboration with us. They were especially interested in changing the shop from the Teddy Boy culture to a more challenging concept. They wanted to stock our new photo-collage printed T’s.

We discussed the story of DaDa-ist art and pornography. Vivienne was investigating sex fetish clothing … She was interested in the idea of shaking off the taboo – she saw that people were buying their fetish-wear in brown paper bags ‘under the counter’ – she talked about making this style of clothing more accessible through opening a new shop and closing Let It Rock. Honeyee Interview, 10.10.2017

John White The word” SEX “became a hot topic when Malcolm and Vivienne first visited our studio, … I referred to a time in the 60’s when we were …asked to design the cover of Germany’s “Stern Magazine”. Stern was planning a story on the ‘Sexual practices of the German people’.

…What I proposed was a design that portrayed the word “SEX” in pink on a black background to extend over the entire cover….Vivienne and Malcolm liked this story and named their store “SEX”. Honeyee Interview, 10.10.2017

The pair also stocked a collection of proto-punk records (Standells, Love, Seeds etc) in old Weetabix boxes which Mclaren had never heard of till he became New York Dolls manager and explored the New York punk scene. McLaren invited the pair to Sex Pistols rehearsals and their earliest gigs in 1975 and they suggested songs to cover like Stepping Stone by the Flys and What’cha Gonna Do About It, by The Small Faces.

The pair stayed involved with and influenced by punk watching the developing McLaren & Westwood designs and their stores SEX & Seditionaries as well as the Sex Pistols and the punk explosion. Having supplied outlets with their t-shirt designs, which now began to reflect the current musical zeitgeist, they decided to set up a shop called KITSCH-22 in November 1976 making them the second punk fashion outlet. The shop was rented to them by the makers of Burberry coats who had ditched the shop.

The explanation of the name is described by John, albeit a trifle pretentiously!

The name of the shop came from the address …22 Woodstock Street and was from the English phrase” Catch-22 ” (means that everything is between two worlds of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions). KITSCH means art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste but also can be appreciated in an ironic way. I invented the name KITSCH-22 to obscure the evaluation of others.

John Krivine in the foreword to the BOY Blackmail catalogue describes their shop as:

This bizarre and garish establishment with its vast following of dayglo juvenile barbarians caused consternation and outrage in neighbouring Bond Street but firmly established the name KITSCH on the London fashion scene.

The outside was suitably eye-catching to match the musical and fashion zeigeist.

The second sign was made in a couple of days after Roger’s melted metal sign had been taken down with a council warrant. I cut the letters from junk pieces of wood covered with foam rubber and stretched pink PVC over the foam studded with chrome upholstery studs. The striped facia board was from a tracing of Molly’s Zebra/Tiger-skin fabric design we had made for Modzart Jeans. The residents complained but Westminster Council did not remove it. KITSCH-22 Instagram

The outside of the shop is certainly an amalgamation of both pop art with the giant silver surfer painted on the shop window, their own stripe design and a nod to SEX (and their own rejected Stern magazine cover) with the pneumatic pink lettering of KITSCH-22 on the outside.

Inside the shop, the design was a framework of scaffolding and corrugated iron spray painted and covered in posters and flyers with the centerpiece a counter looking like a giant fender/car front designed by metalworker Roger Lee, who also worked in the shop. On the ceiling, looking like an Alice Cooper stage set, were menacing dolls hanging down courtesy of Carole Lee. There was also a giant fibreglass duck somewhere! The shop was run by a girl called Wendy May and John & Molly would regularly visit the shop on Saturdays when not producing the stock.

The shop featured on TV in a Nationwide segment and also in the papers like the Sunday Times.

These are the clothes shops ’78 style. Terribly Futuristic aren’t they? You can’t see in, you can’t tell whats going on, can’t see what to buy or can’t tell whether they’re open or closed. Until you enter – dare you? What’s inside? Dehumanised merchandising. Lots of chrome, grillwork, clothes stacked in cages or shackled to walls….. Kitsch-22, 22 Woodstock Street, W1. As lurid and appealing as the cover of an Asimov paperback. Pink lettering, black paintwork, punched metallic Meccano style framework. Dark window artfully painted with a Dayglo space-traveller – The Silver Surfer. They sell mainly ‘Off-beat’ dayglo clothes, some artfully splodged with Jackson Pollock styled dribble dyes. Michael Roberts, Sunday Times, 1.1.1978

Both Molly & Wendy were incredibly punkily photogenic in the style of the time.

Their own advert in Time Out December 1977 had the strapline – “Unique clothing for bored teenagers and other frustrated optimists.”

And it certainly was unique. While Seditionaries went all out with shock and awe clothing featuring swastikas, porn, bondage and so on or BOY did variations on that theme and included Clash style militaristic zipped ranges, KITSCH-22 clothes had a very stylish unique quality which was definitely more arty pop art punk. It was colourful, vibrant. Now it was not just T-shirts but also trousers and jeans.

While we were building the shop, we were still creating the clothes. Molly thought regenerating the printed Jeans would be an interesting project to see how far we could go with prints on the legs She said “We have all these printed T-shirts but we don’t have any bottom halves”…. we had already drawn the Leopard and Tiger for the coloured T-shirt prints we’d made 7 years earlier. The first was Fluorescent Pink on White cotton drill. See Wendy May below in them from 1976

The jeans were on their own label Modzart and the printed leopard, tiger and striped ones were very popular as were their Pollock paint-splattered and zippered ones. The Pollock designs dated back to the sixties but had entered punk fashion The jeans were on their own label Modzart and the printed leopard, tiger and striped ones were very popular as were their Pollock paint-splattered and zippered ones. The Pollock designs dated back to the sixties but had entered punk fashion The jeans were on their own label Modzart and the printed leopard, tiger and striped ones were very popular as were their Pollock paint-splattered and zippered ones. The Pollock designs dated back to the sixties but had entered punk fashion predominantly via The Clash’s DIY look.

When we prepared new prints for Kitsch-22, we grabbed the old Jackson Pollock screens and printed in black + colours on white denim. The print was made into Donkey jackets with PVC yokes and covered buttons. We also produced drainpipe Jeans in 5 different colour-ways. Perfect for the new style of Kitsch-22.

I don’t have much of my punk clothes left – just a few T-shirts and these trousers. They were from a shop just off Oxford Street in London called Kitsch-22. Their label was Modzart. I also had some red leopard print drainpipes but they are long gone. Below me in red leopard print kitsch-22 strides. Ralphadeus Blog Spot

The stripe originating way back from Molly’s sixties textile design through the early seventies Raw Power was a fashion link through the decades and became one of the defining punk looks appearing on their jeans, t-shirts, vests and miniskirts.

They also had a range of ‘Face’ and ‘Rebel’ t-shirts which were extremely colourful featuring collage and enlarged faces that included Lou Reed, Bowie (#1), Sid Vicious, Jim Morrison and Siouxsie (#2), Rotten (#4) & Jordan (#3). They also added extras things like d-rings with a nod to Westwood.

The full rebel collection was 1 Elvis 2. James Dean. 3. Lou Reed. 4. Iggy Pop. 5. Sid Vicious 6. Johnny Thunders 7. John Lennon 8. Wayne County 9. Marianne Faithfull 10.Little Richard. 11. Jerry Lee Lewis 12. Andy Warhol.

The Face images are about urban tribal makeup and adornment, they celebrated a new kind of face paint of the tribes of London.

The Siouxie print was part of a set of three Face T-shirts made for the opening of Kitsch-22 at 22 Woodstock Street in November 1976. It was a mass media image transferred onto film with black over-painting so the effect was the same as a discharge print. The colours of the makeup were hand-painted onto film for separate screens. KITSCH-22 Originals Instagram

Like their Pollock-inspired designs, their Mickey Mouse and Painless Tattoo collection fitted in perfectly to the punk collection and they also added all the other typical punk accessories as well to complete the look including knitwear by Jan Horrox.

The Time Out Advert gives the rundown with prices.

Heavy studded belts 11.95  Florescent socks .65p  Modern art t-shirts 3.50  Electric blue Beatle boots 15.00  Action-man camouflage trousers 24.50  Pink leopard skin jeans 15.50    Flame red mohair sweaters 19.50  Black drainpipes 9.85

By the end of 1977 most of the clothes production for the shop was selling wholesale before it reached the rails.

[In 1978] The Kitsch-22 Collection was expanded again. New prints “Psycho-Fur”, “Snakeskin”, “HalfInch Stripes” in black and dayglo colours, ‘Union Jack Combat Trousers”, Jeans and Rocker Jackets in Pink Leather. Knitwear made with dyed string and leather with chrome chains studded into each arm. “The Last Resort” in the East End stocked the Kitsch-22 and Modzart labels to cover the entire London Streetstyle scene. John Dove & Molly White CV

The store becomes a regular meeting place and destination point for celebs to check out the new designs and hang out.

Malcolm and Vivienne often visited and kept us updated with their adventures. Jamie Reid, Ben Kelly, Chrissie Walsh, Adam Ant, Philip Sallon, Boy George, Screamin’Lord Sutch, Lloyd and Jill Johnson, Pat Booth, Glen Matlock, Rusty Egan ….the beat goes on.

They advertise in influential fanzine Ripped & Torn #13 in September 1978 for one issue.

However, it also becomes (like Seditionaries) where shoplifting and stealing are rife. By the end of 1978, they were struggling to keep the shop going as the wholesale side exploded and they closed it.

The shop, Kitsch-22 was mismanaged and fell vulnerable to massive shoplifting, mostly from Glaswegian hordes of Punks that invaded the shop en-mass. The notorious Angels turned up in suits and sharp haircuts when they were targeted by another biker gang. The shop was closed in the autumn. John Dove & Molly White CV

In the introduction, Krivine described KITSCH-22 clothes as below which is pretty much true except they had to increase production to meet growing demand as there was no way they could individually keep doing what they had been doing.

All their original designs are produced in limited editions and sold to selected shops throughout the U.K. and abroad. They don’t advertise or solicit publicity and refuse to increase production to meet a growing demand because they insist on printing and supervising every individual garment themselves. The result is a quality and detail that is instantly recognisable to discerning punk rockers and teenage rebels everywhere.

As of 2024 John and Molly are still going strong – artists to the core.

Like just about everything from the period, the original artifacts command ludicrous prices, and t-shirts go upwards from £3000. Their pieces are in museums and there are retrospective shows periodically displaying the designs of this couple who played a major part in fashion both pre-punk during it and post with some enduring designs that become part of the very fabric of rock n roll and culture.