He was a promoter and a manager for punk rock and new wave bands such as New York Dolls , Sex Pistols , Adam and the Ants , and Bow Wow Wow , and was an early commercial architect of the punk subculture.
McLaren was brought up by his grandmother after his father, Peter, left the family home. He attended several British art colleges in the s, where he became involved in underground art and left-wing activism. From to , he operated the Chelsea boutique Sex with his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood , which helped shape early punk fashion and became an early hub for the subculture in London. The issue of a controversial record, " God Save the Queen ", satirizing the Queen's Jubilee in , was typical of McLaren's shock tactics, and he gained publicity by being arrested after a promotional boat trip outside the Houses of Parliament.
In the s, McLaren continued managing other London based acts and performed as a solo artist, initially focusing on hip hop and world music and later diversifying into funk , disco , and electronic dance music. When accused of turning popular culture into a cheap marketing gimmick, he joked that he hoped it was true. In his later years, he lived in Paris and New York City and died of peritoneal mesothelioma in a Swiss hospital. Even she doesn't like him. Subsequently, McLaren was raised by his grandmother Rose, alone, [ 7 ] next door at No.
At age 16, McLaren left Orange Hill with three O-levels and was briefly employed in a handful of jobs before attending classes at St Martin's School of Art and then undertaking a foundation course at Harrow School of Art. With the assistance of art school friend Patrick Casey, McLaren converted the entire ground floor into the store and renamed it Let It Rock initially selling clothing dead stock, military surplus and objects he'd sourced.
(mh=9psBD9GWMe6Uf0P2)8.jpg "Prostitutes in Bellinzona")
When the shop became a success, he enlisted the help of his then-girlfriend Vivienne Westwood who customized and repaired original clothing and made facsimiles. Among the commissions were costumes for Ken Russell 's film Mahler. This ploy was not successful and the Dolls soon broke up, with guitarist Johnny Thunders specifically naming McLaren as "the reason why we broke up. In the summer of , McLaren ejected frontman Wally Nightingale from the line-up because he did not fit with McLaren's vision for the band's image.
