SICK
You may not have heard of
Stephane Raynor, but I’m sure
at some point or another you
have heard of his most famous
venture - BOY London, famed
for heart attack-inducing
window displays. Imagine a
chopped up corpse with a Dr
Martens boot by a bleeding
head and signet ring on a severed
hand, or an explicit display
of Polaroids capturing the
action of changing rooms, and
there you have the essence of
Stephane Raynor. Taking into
account the sheer audacity of
many of his designs, this man
IS shock art.
I took a look at the man himself,
his various ventures over
the years, and his most recent
endeavor, the Sick shop- currently
operating for its second
year in Shoreditch, East London.
His story begins when he
started selling vintage 1950’s
get-up to names such as
Malcolm McLaren. His first
concept brought to life though
was ACME Attractions. He
hired Don Letts, soon-tobe-DJ,
and Jeanette Lee,
soon-to-be-member of PIL.
Customers and fans included
Robert Elms (journalist) and
Boy George. Placed on King’s
Road in the second of the famous
street scene takeovers,
it was a prime time to launch
a career through controversial
clothing as punk was about
to break through to the mainstream.
In 1976, his seminal concept
was brought into being by
the birth of BOY. BOY wasn’t
a shop. BOY was a party, a
lifestyle, and a brave choice
for ’76. Here’s a place where
Billy Idol sold clothes to Sid
Vicious! We can’t really be
sure if any money actually
exchanged hands, though.
Musicians came to sit on the
floor to sing their songs while
Phillip Salon made them tea.
BOY was absurd and was
about to help absurdity conquer
the mainstream through
one of the greatest youth
explosions, and as Stephane
thinks, possibly the last.
PX was opened quickly on
the heels of BOY. It signaled
a change in direction for
Stephane and his work from
punk to the New Romantics.
There, Princess Julia
worked her cockney charm
and sales techniques on the
likes of Spandau Ballet. Steve
Strange and Rusty Egan
worked there as well, and it
was within these walls that
the Blitz club and the subsequent
New Romantics scene
were devised on the advice of
Stephane. They were young,
bold and brash, and PX fans
found a nighttime home at
the Blitz club. This is where
they could go to show off all
the fashions they had either
bought or ripped off from the
PX shop.
BOY was at the forefront once
again in 1980. This is when
it really takes off, staging
elaborate fashion shows with
the who’s who of inventive
clothing at its helm. Everyone
from the Pet Shop Boys to
Madonna via Boy George was
involved. There is a story that
once upon seeing Boy George
dressed in BOY before one of
her gigs, Madonna asked him
to get her some. He proceeded
to the BOY shop and
cleared it out, returning with
a shop’s worth of new and
controversial pieces for her.
During what are considered
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