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  • The great rock 'n' roll swindle?

  • By John Lewis

    Posted: Wed Mar 8 2006

  • The great rock 'n' roll swindle?

  • Can a punk festival really work at Selfridges, the crucible of conspicuous consumption? Only so long as you don’t gob on the perfume counter

    Punk svengali Malcolm McLaren has a story about Selfridges. A week before Christmas in December 1968, he and 24 pranksters from an anarchist collective called King Mob visited the toy department. Dressed as Santas, they proceeded to hand out the store’s toys to bewildered children before being chased from the store by security staff and police.
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    ‘Let’s smash the great deception,’ said King Mob’s manifesto. ‘Let’s light up Oxford Street and dance around the fire!’ It was a situationist prank that mixed chaos, theft, utopianism and subversion, and – according to McLaren’s mythology – was a key moment in the birth of punk.

    Of course, capitalism has an endless ability to absorb such rebellion. This Saturday, McLaren returns to the store he once gleefully trashed as the guest of honour in Selfridges’ mammoth month-long festival, FuturePunk. It’s part of a series of films, lectures, exhibitions, stalls, fashion shows, live bands and workshops that celebrate punk’s DIY ethic – this in a temple of high fashion and bourgeois decorum.

    Film director Julien Temple, who hosts a film screening on Sunday, is amused at the irony. ‘Selfridges is a wonderful store,’ he says, ‘but this festival is slightly absurd. Any self-respecting punk would have lobbed a brick through a Selfridges window 30 years ago.’

    Punk photographer Bob Gruen agrees: ‘It reminds me of the time I saw a boutique selling a silver safety pin for $2,000. It’s kinda strange and a little bit funny.’

    It’s tempting to complain that FuturePunk signals the ultimate commodification of dissent, an example of how punk was hijacked by big business. But let’s not forget that McLaren’s vision of punk started in a fashion boutique on the Kings Road, or that Joe Strummer was singing about ‘turning rebellion into money’ as early as 1977.

    FuturePunk follows other themed festivals at Selfridges, like 2004’s celebration of Bollywood, last year’s Brazil 40 or the Las Vegas-themed Vegas Supernova. Where these were littered all over the store, FuturePunk sees them focus activity around the ‘Ultra Lounge’, a secluded area in the basement. Alannah Weston, creative director of Selfridges & Co, describes this as ‘getting more bang for your buck’, a way of intensifying the themed nature of the event. In June, this same area (it’s on your right as you go down the escalator) will be transformed into a ‘World Cup Lounge’, with big screens, bars and footballing memorabilia, while other events this year include a ‘Beauty Lounge’ – where you can come along for makeovers, massages, teeth whitening and (never mind the) botox.

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  • See also

  • Time Out London magazine (Issue 1855) Time Out London magazine (Issue 1855)
    Go Green! The good life explained, with 100 ways to spring clean the capital and your conscience. Including how to recycle your old beds, glasses, fridges, faxes and phones; eco-friendly clubbing and Londoners who can work wonders with waste.
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