Introduction

The heritage label that significantly influenced British punk rock & streetwear style in the 1970s and what was to become the British leatherman look of the late- 1960s, 70s and 80s.

The London Leatherman, the clothing and accessories label was founded in circa 1971 to an audience of style connoisseurs, rebels and fetishists with a penchant for leather. It dressed the glam rock, heavy rock and soul boy scenes of the early 70s, the arrival of disco in 1976 and by 1977 was being worn by all notable punk rockers who visited the showroom in Battersea or one of the many punk rock and gay interest boutiques it supplied along the Kings Road, Chelsea and around the world.

A label not limited to leather, The London Leatherman designed and made clothing in terry-toweling cloth, ciré wet-look nylon, leather-look vinyl and wool, never designing to appease the public but dictating a fetish style that would go on to become a favoured streetwear look for decades to follow. The streetwear look The London Leatherman denotes is so stylish that men straight and gay embraced it, from Brian Ferry to Rodolph Nureyev, Peter Wyngarde to David Bowie, Adam Ant and Johnny Rotten with the youth sub-culture punk rock fully adopting The London Leatherman’s outerwear style of wearing drain-piped jeans, studded leather belts and wristbands, leather motorcycle jackets, cock rings on belts, cock rings on wristbands, belt loop key rings, fitted T-shirts and a hanky sticking out the back pocket of jeans.

Woman of punk rock Jordan Mooney, Linda Ashby, Nancy Spungen, Siouxsie Sioux and the band The Slits all wore and self-styled The London Leatherman clothing and accessories to wear on stage or to nightclubs like Club Louise and The Vortex in Soho. Style icon Marianne Faithful performed live wearing The London Leatherman studded accessories and elite fashion model Marie Helvin was photographed by David Bailey wearing full outfits made by The London Leatherman.

The London Leatherman has influenced some of the worlds most celebrated fashion entrepreneurs who were attracted to its subversiveness and because it was sophisticated, stylish and expensive whilst at the same time outrageous, provocative and frowned upon which seminal figures of punk rock style Malcolm McLaren and Dame Vivienne Westwood embraced and looked to replicate. McLaren and Westwood stocked The London Leatherman designs and product in their shops Let It Rock, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, SEX and Seditionaries at 430 Kings Road in Chelsea, London and post-punk worked with The London Leatherman to help them turn their own ideas into museum worthy designs.

Other illustrious business’ and boutiques along the Kings Road that bought and stocked The London Leatherman product includes Granny Takes A Trip, BOY London, Smutz and Frisco Leathers. Designer and stylist Antony Price dressed the newly signed Roxy Music in The London Leatherman clothing and accessories in 1972, and it’s a label that caught the eye of designers at fashion houses Pierre Cardin, 90s Gucci and 21st century Dior, with the label being an interminable style reference amongst those in the know.

In the 1970s working with leather and supplying a fetish scene wasn’t something new and The London Leatherman certainly wasn’t the first to do that, but was absolutely pioneering in publicly making and selling clothing with sexual connotations and making studded leather accessories at a time when they were considered weapons and you could and would be arrested for wearing them. It was also a time when being sexually explicit or openly gay meant taking your life in your hands, the Sexual Offences Act (UK) was passed in 1967 but only allowing for homosexuality in private, to be seen as being gay during this time or seen to be producing gay paraphernalia made you a target to the police and a disgruntled public. Discretion by The London Leatherman was imperative for those who wanted to shop privately and anonymously, whilst the label simultaneously perpetuated the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 70s by making provocative designs and wares readily available when nobody else would.

Towards the end of the 70s, when leather and studded leather began to be tolerated by the general public The London Leatherman was being worn by everyone from pop stars on TV to kids who would turn up to the showroom in Battersea (London, England), wanting to buy the studded belts, wristbands, T-shirts and leather jeans they’d seen their music idols wearing, terrified to go in, yet at the same time unfazed that it was in fact a leather fetish shop where you were greeted with sexual innuendos and bizarre merchandise. A place not for the prudish, but the open minded and creative. The impact The London Leatherman’s had on bringing what was once kept behind closed doors to the fashion forefront, not only in England, but across the world is tremendous.

Until now it’s been easy for historians and journalists to overlook The London Leatherman’s significant role in fashion history when there were opportunists, designers and entrepreneurs who saw what The London Leatherman was doing and ran with it themselves once social prejudices had shifted. They stepped into the lime light and positioned themselves in the history books as the trailblazers, the provocateurs and even took credit for original The London Leatherman designs.

This series of articles are by Dave Carroll and Bridget Veal. Dave grew up around the corner from The London Leatherman shop and his mother worked for the shop in its founding years making garments like leather jockstraps, by the hundreds, from their dining room table in Battersea, London. Co- written and researched by Bridget this is the story of how by no co-incidence The London Leatherman dressed an international gay leather scene alongside the founding punk rockers of the 1970s, it’s impact on Britain’s streetwear history and how it fit into so many style icons lives sartorially. It’s also most importantly the story of the labels founder Ken (Heddle Law Magson) whose charisma, talent for sewing, impeccable taste met with a proficiency for leather fetish, dictated a streetwear style and inspired a fashion movement that’s still very much revered by style connoisseurs today.