Way back in 1986, the Worlds End shop had just opened again after being closed for nearly 18 months. It had been closed because Vivienne’s business had been going through a difficult yet transformative period in which she had finally finished all business ties with Malcolm McLaren,had been living in Italy, met future business manager Carlo D’Amario & had been working on the designs for what was going to be the Mini Crini collection. She had then gone to New York & shown the collection there.
When she came back to London, the only people working for her were myself, my brother Joe, Carlo’s girlfriend Jeb & my grandmother Dora.
At this time I was also taking up photography & Vivienne asked me to take some pictures of some new items she was working on.
Two of them are shown here.
The girl on the steps of Worlds End is a glamorous neighbour we had at the time called Mandy.
She is wearing a white round collared shirt (no orb embroidered on it yet, that was still to be developed) & one of the alternative crini skirts Vivienne was designing at the time. This skirt was a lot longer than the mini crini & was made in city stripe suiting (mentioning this, Vivienne was also making these same skirts out of the denim from cut up Levi jeans, patched together).
In the second photo are two friends from the time. On the left is Jane Francis, commonly known as Minnie who was going out with another friend of mine, Oleh Witer the creator of an Australian band called Big Pig (Oleh modelled in the Time Machine fashion show). Minnie later worked at Westwood for several years.
The girl on the right is Rosemary Turner who did the door at Philip Salon’s nightclub, the Mud Club.
Here they both are on the Kings Road having a portion of chips.
Minnie wears a sample dress & Rosemary wears a mini crini outfit & star belt.