Smutz

Smutz was a punk fashion stall upstairs in Beaufort Market off the Kings Road London. It was run by Nigel Brickell and was a key punk destination point after BOY and Seditionaries along the Kings Road for fans and tourists alike. After McLaren and Westwood’s punk boutique at 430 Kings Road, Nigel and Smutz had the highest media profile appearing in national papers, magazines and books.

Nigel turned his back on what would be a safe career in the family printing business and aged 18 and interested in screen printing left Dorset and went to the London School Of Printing. He supplemented his grant by going to wholesalers and selling on clothes at Brick Lane and Portobello Road. When he took his finals in 1976 he continued selling.

Nigel and James Henderson first took a stall downstairs in Beaufort Market and originally bought and resold vintage before becoming aware of punk fashion and music shopping in both SEX and Acme Attractions and catching the Sex Pistols at their Screen On The Green gig. Smutz-Fifth Column opened upstairs in February 1977 before BOY making BOY the 4th Punk boutique to open.

Nigel Brickell  When the rumblings of punk started I had a friend James Holdsworth who had just left Chelsea Art School and he was interested in the screen printing I was doing, and with our friend James Henderson we started designing our own prints and also manufacturing punk clothing. They were my best pals, and still are from those days. To be honest it was one five year long party! London Leatherman

Smutz sold a number of affordable self-made designs augmented by the popular cire t-shirts and studded belts and wristbands from London Leatherman. Smutz and shop workers were featured several times in national newspapers and magazines in articles on punk.

The first was five weeks after opening in March 1977 in the Kensington News & Post (18.3.1977) where reporter Neil Sargent investigated punk fashion with an article called “Putting the kinks back in the King’s Rd”. In it, he visited Seditionaries and the then-called ‘Smutz – Fifth Column’ stall and tried to become a punk dressed in clothes from the latter.

He wears the latest in bondage from Smutz- Fifth Column. “I felt a little asphyxiated”, he reports. The bondage tee-shirt is a little tight. But the mock patent trousers were more to his taste. “I felt great, when I could breathe.”

“Boy” is a new boutique that has recently opened. “Seditionaries is now well established but are being rivaled by “Smutz – Fifth Column” (a stall in the Beaufort Antiques Market) which opened five weeks ago. I asked Adam Shand, a designer for Smutz, what clothes he would suggest for someone who desperately wanted to infiltrate the punk rock scene.

He prescribed military ‘guerilla’ trousers at £13, high Dr. Marten boots at £15, a T-shirt (“but keeping in with the Nazi bit in order to shock”) at about £4, a leather bondage shirt at £15 and a leather bondage jacket at £18. To complete the appearance, he said, you would need an Iron Cross and a couple of Swastikas.

And he did not rule out that the fashion would be different next week. Currently waiting to be sold was the “surgical” look.

Above – Sargeant props up the vintage Wurlitzer juke-box in Smutz flanked by genuine New Wavers James Henderson & Alex Bourn.
Below – Sargeant in mean mood clad in para-military guerilla gear!

Smutz and Nigel would feature in a feature in a Sunday People punk expose on 19.6.77 and the following week.

Also making money out of the punk rock craze is 21 year old Nigel Brickell, known as “Bricks” who has a boutique in London’s Kings Road Area.

He abandoned the chance to become a director in his father’s publishing firm to lead the Punk Rock fashion world.

His philosophy is to make money by shocking. Among his bestsellers are suits designed like straitjackets complete with restraining belts and buckles. Other winners have been his shirts with imitation blood and massages like “Destroy.”

“To score with Punk it has to be outrageous and shocking,” said Nigel. Clothes are  a major part of their rebellion. Much of it, especially for girls, has a sexual expression.

I move with the Punk Rock brigade enjoy their music, the girls and the fashions which I create. But I don’t make any bones about it. I’m here for the money” admitted well spoken Nigel. Up to £150 a week. Sunday People, 19.06.77

The shop was suitably graffitied and ‘wet dream’ was spraypainted in large writing over one brick wall. He also bought from Malcolm McLaren the SEX jukebox that Johnny Rotten had auditioned to Alice Cooper’s 18 for his role in the Sex Pistols. It was upstairs in Beaufort Market. Sadly he sold it later.

I don’t think the shirts were ever labeled and I’ve only ever seen one design for sale (see above Humpty Dumpty riot t-shirt by Smutz) but Smutz’s screen printing knowledge enabled them to produce some striking punk t-shirt designs at a time when there weren’t many. Did they have the ideas, politics innovation, and the art of Westwood’s designs? No, but they filled a gap in the market very early on for just the look featuring among others, Jordan, abstracts, Elvis and Rotten and variations on Westwood’s theme with some nice punk jackets, shirts and trousers.

James Henderson set up Fifth Column designs in 1976 and I assume set up on his own in late 1977 as Fifth Column started to produce an increasing number of punk T-shirt designs and are still going today.

Left Nigel shows a Smutz t-shirt design. – Photo credit? Photo credit right – Alex Humphries – Model in Smutz wearing a London Leatherman LN6 Ciré T-shirt in black wet-look nylon.

Here’s another one as captured by photographer Homer Sykes.

Chelsea, London, England circa 1977 – He is wearing a fashionably torn T-shirt, neatly pinned together from Smutz, which was upstairs in Beaufort Market at 374 King’s Road. Homer Sykes

One of Smutz’s designs featured notorious East London gangsters The Krays until Mrs Kray and then threats from heavies made Nigel withdraw the t-shirt; though John Krivine from BOY still took them. There was a bit of irony there, as Nigel counted as a friend the colourful notorious actor, and gangland-linked John Bindon. Bindon also allegedly did work for both The Krays and associates so that may have been the reason the t-shirts were moved on.

There was also some short video footage captured of Smutz boutique with shoppers plus another stall holder, the DJ and promoter Jock McDonald.

He was also featured in two books from the time Punk Rock (quoted) by Virginia Boston and In The Gutter (pictures) by Val Hennessey.

You’ve got to be pretty eccentric to shock anyone. You went through the early seventies and no one turned a blind eye down the King’s Road. It was only when you got people wearing out rageous make-up, clothes that weren’t from Take 6, that’s when you started shocking people. It just took off from there…

A punk wears his clothes. He’s making an outward sign he’s rebelling

As with any rock’n’roll fashion thing, at the moment it all ties up, the music, fashion, everything. Make-up, the whole thing. Nigel Bicknell (sic) Virginia Boston, Punk Rock

Smutz was more egalitarian and Nigel more gregarious and loved the lifestyle, so while there you would likely see members of bands like 999 or The Lurkers hanging out.

Photo credit – Alex Humphries – In Smutz. Model and Nigel Brickell

When Beaufort Market finally closed in 1979, Nigel took a lease on an old supermarket next to the Roebuck pub but his heart wasn’t in it and left retail.

Nigel Brickell  We were never elitist, we outfitted kids who could not afford high prices. Sex or Seditionaries was sometimes an intimidating space to go into. I like to think that we were a party anyone could gate crash, none of the ‘your’e not on the list’ thing. I met some A-listers, yes, but the real fun originals were the true punks from the streets of England. London Leatherman

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