BigShinyThing

These photographs were published in The Independent magazine a few months back. They were taken by Laura Ashley’s daughter Jane who happened to be at art school with Mick Jones and Paul Simonon. In 1976 they were in the process of forming The Clash and Viv Albertine (pictured, with Simonon) later played guitar in the all girl punk band, The Slits. Everyone was, of course, completely broke and so well up for doing a photoshoot for £30. The photos were never used because Laura Ashley herself refused to display them on her shop walls.

In an interview with The Independent, Jane Ashley explained how the shoot was originally intended as a way to reconcile her flouncy, deeply unhip family background with her mates in the burgeoning punk movement. But the shoot also exposed the conservatism and strictures of punk itself – typical of an apparently ‘liberating’ subculture. Viv Albertine remembers:

It was quite a brave thing to do, but we really needed the money. It was such a judgmental time: you had to be so precise – no corduroy, no flares, wearing brown was a sin. But even a punk likes to dress up sometimes and look like a girl, and the boys were pleased to see us in long dresses. I was going out with Mick at the time and he said I looked lovely.

Ashley, however, gets the last word on her incongruous photos:

These extraordinarily creative times in our lives are also full of drama and conflict. Those pictures of Viv and the Clash helped me resolve conflicts about my identity. Isn’t that what creativity is for?