All language subtitles for BBC.Oh.You.Pretty.Things.The.Story.of.Music.and.Fashion.2of3.Idols.576p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

This programme contains
some strong language

It may seem excessive

but once I get on stage it will
all make sense.

You see, this routine you have to do
it every single time.

Come rain or shine.

# Now I'm here... #

Luke Spiller is lead singer
of The Struts.

He is about to show off a new
stage look to the crowds

at the Isle Of Wight Festival.

Sweet.

We make music which is
designed for big crowds,

with people ready
to have a good time.

Life is a pantomime,
why not dress for the occasion?

# Yes, you made me live again... #

It's a look deeply influenced
by a spectacular moment in British

music and British style, the heyday
of the dramatic rock gods, Queen.

It was larger than life.
It's theatre, as well.

Killer music, great frontman,
even better outfits,

Queen were in the vanguard in
an age when our rock and pop stars

were an other-worldly pageant
of outrageous outfits.

This is a later creation. Getting
a bit more fancy in a way,

a bit more frilly.

The 1970s was the age of artistic
collaboration between great

musicians and brilliant designers.

I think anyone going
out on the stage wants to really

project their own magical,
original image.

The stage costumes they created
could be inspired by mythology.

The Arthur Cape was velvet.

And it had a huge embossed sword
on the back,

which was absolutely beautiful.

And they could inspire fantasy.

Of course you're naked under
leather,

there's no room for anything,
you just wear like a little

G-string,
that's all you have the room for.

They could also be
acts of provocation.

I mean, Malcolm always
quipped that

he'd formed a band to sell trousers

and unless in a band that have the
right trousers on it doesn't work.

This zip goes
right round the back up the arse.

I don't know, I really don't know!

The sheer theatricality
of this collision of music

and style would help us to express
just what we wanted to say

and just who we wanted be.

# The light pours out of me... #

MUSIC: I'm Free by The Who

By the early '70s, British music
stars were tearing open

the dressing-up box
and going a bit wild.

Top Of The Pops was full of blokes

wearing more make up than your mum.

And then there was Bowie,

the prettiest thing of all -

a shining pioneer in a decade
of anything-goes liberation.

# I'm free... #

He turned the everyday rock star
into fantastical characters,

androgynous aliens
in cross-dressed finery.

# And freedom tastes of reality... #

ARCHIVE: He'd be the first superstar
of pop

to wear shorty dresses on stage.

But if the boys could dress
up like the girls,

maybe the girls could
dress up like boys.

# Well, you call your mamma Tiger

# And we all know you ain't lying

# And your boyfriend's name is Eagle

# And he lives up in the sky
- high high

# Watch out the tiger don't go
claw the eagle's eye

# But let the eagle take
the tiger by surprise

# Scratch out her eyes

# So make a stand for your man, honey

# Try to can the can

# Put your man in the can... #

That's memories.

# ..Get 'em while you can

# Can the can... #

I do like the leather
jumpsuit, catsuit.

It's foot-stomping, biker-gang,

you know, she's like
one of the boys.

# So make a stand for your man, honey

# Try to can the can... #

Remember the platform boots.

That was my concession to glam rock

and that was the only
concession to glam rock.

# Catch him while you can... #

Christmas Day 1973, and viewers
of the Top Of The Pops special

were shaken out of their mince pie
stupor by a stomping Suzi Quatro.

# Well can the can... #

It was an unlikely, but monumental,
moment for women's sound and style.

My look was surprising because it
was, er, female, you know,

a rock'n'roll female,
this just wasn't done, I mean,

look at that, you know,
that shocked people,

with the bass and the guys
and the rock'n'roll.

Suzi's tough girl style heralded
something we now call "rock chick".

The stuff of life as a rock'n'roll
mould-breaker is now

stored in a tiny room
at the top of her house.

This is... It's funny, it's my ego
room, it's everything I've

ever done,
and you kind of get lost up here.

When I first arrived, that's how
I looked. Oh, my God, look at that.

# A one, a two, a one, two three... #

Suzi brought her rootsy edge
with her

when she came to Britain on her own
in 1971 to make her name in music.

She had in hand a contract with
Mickie Most

renowned star maker and producer.

It was in Britain that Suzi would

combine her boogie-based rock'n'roll
with her full-on leather look.

I played this for years and years,
I mean, you can hardly lift it.

It's a professional Les Paul
recording bass.

Anyway, here's my clothes.

Let's see, first of all
the original, which is here.

That's an old, one of the old suits.
I like that detail,

the zips are good.

I was a big, big Elvis Presley
fan from the age of six, seriously.

# Everybody let's rock

# Everybody in
the whole cell block.. #

Then in '68, I saw his
come-back special.

He had leather on.

And I thought, "Ah, bang, bang,
bang, that's what I want to wear."

That 1968 American TV show

had brought a raunchy,
leather-clad Elvis

back from the rock'n'roll
wilderness.

And then when Can The Can was ready
to come out,

I had the big meeting with
Mickie Most

and he asked me what I wanted to
wear and I said,

"I'm wearing leather," and he was
against it

and I just wouldn't give in.

I said, "I'm wearing leather."
And then he said, "OK, OK, OK,

"what about a jump suit?"

And he came up with the idea of the
jump suit but the leather is mine.

Suzi's leather look was a tribute to
her American rock'n'roll roots

but Mickie Most might have been
inspired by '60s It girl

Marianne Faithful, sleek in leather

in the cult movie
Girl On A Motorcycle.

But Suzi didn't just go to a greasy
biker shop for one of her jumpsuits.

They were made by
a true master of leather.

Far from the infectious stomp
of Can The Can, in a bucolic chateau

in Normandy, Brenda Knight
carries on the work of her husband

and business partner, the man who
crafted Suzi's look - Nigel Preston.

This is very, very similar to
Suzi Quatro's leather jumpsuits.

It's a skinny, dark brown gloving
leather, um, kind of biker

and fabulous pants,
really, really great.

I think it was
a marvellous combination.

Suzi and Nigel worked really
well together

because her music is very raunchy,
very strong.

MUSIC: 48 Crash by Suzi Quatro

Nigel manipulated leather, making it
a lavish, luxuriant material.

The way that we stand
out as designers is by using

the very softest gloving leather,

meaning it moulds and moves
to the body.

People go, "Ah, is it leather?

"It feels like silk."

# Well, you got the hands of a man

# And the face of a little boy blue,
ooh

# And when you stand, you're so grand

# There's a case just for looking at
you... #

She loves to move on the stage

and these clothes were very strong,
very sexy, very overt, and they

clung to her body as she moved, so
it probably felt and looked amazing.

I thought the jumpsuit was great,
cos you could just leap all over

the stage, which is what I do,
and everything stays in one place.

Suzi was, literally, completely
comfortable in her look.

She owned it.

# You got the kind of a mind of a
juvenile Romeo, oh... #

'When I zip up the suit, that's me.

'I become her, I mean,
like I say, I have an ego room,'

you know, because I like to go out
and shut the door.

It's the same kind of thing,
you zip up the suit,

you start to change into the public
side of me, which is Suzi Quatro.

# You're so young

# But like a teenage tearaway

# Soon you'll be torn... #

The leather jumpsuit was the garb
of a stage persona, Suzi Quatro,

electrifying rock'n'roll heroine.

For her, the whole look was
empowering.

But, as she discovered, it was also
the provocative stuff of fantasy.

This picture here,
I actually nearly didn't go on stage

that night because it's an artistic
drawing of me with big boobs and

I got very, very upset and I went
to the promoter and I said,

"How dare you do that,
I'm not going on stage."

And when I walked out I'm sure

I heard the audience go, "Oh,"
because it's like, I'm not like that.

Anyway...

Suzi was treading the fine line
encountered by many women

on stage and in life -
am I dressing for me or for them?

Girls, will you please turn...

And lovely, there you are,
all round.

And we must preserve...

RATTLING

The proceedings have been temporarily
suspended.

In 1970, the many millions
watching Bob Hope's classy

presentation of Miss World had
their enjoyment disrupted

by flour chucking protestors.

Their message?

Women aren't sex objects.

And although Suzi Quatro was
a pin up in a leather catsuit,

she still believes she was making
a fundamentally feminist statement.

I gave women a place in rock'n'roll,
an acceptable place in rock'n'roll.

All my life I wanted to be somebody
and here I am!

MUSIC: The Wild One by Suzi Quatro

I know what I've got, and there ain't
nobody going to take it away from me.

So let me tell you what I am!

# I'm a red-hot fox,
I can take the knocks

# I'm a hammer from hell,
honey, can't you tell

# I'm the wild one... #

'It gave women real balls.'

That's what it was all about, you
know - stand up there and be counted.

That, that was my message.
It's still the same message now.

# You can't hold me down,
I'm the wild one

# Yes, I'm the wild one

# Well, it ain't no use

# Turn me loose

# More, more, I can't keep score. #

But it was in an altogether
more innocent setting

that a leather-clad Suzi strode
into the life of one young woman.

In the mid-'70s there was
a programme called Happy Days

and my favourite was the Fonz

and I absolutely loved it

and then this girl came on
all dressed in leather,

and it was Suzi Quatro.

Hubba-hubba-hubba!

Happy Days was every British
kid's window on a romantic

vision of American teenage life.

He's so glad to see me.

And biker-jacketed Suzi appeared as
the aptly named Leather Truscadero.

What's this music con you're into?
It ain't no con.

When I first discovered Suzi Quatro,
I started growing my hair long.

I have what I call
the Suzi Quatro shake

and I literally just wash it,
shake it and it's more or less done,

there's no fussing.

The feeling of empowerment

when you didn't have to wear
thick make-up, long eyelashes,

short miniskirts, you could wear

something comfortable and still look
good in it, and it was so wonderful.

Rocker girls, by dressing
the same as the men,

continue the struggle
for equality that the middle-aged

and middle class have
apparently given up.

MUSIC: Motorbikin' by Chris Spedding

But it was all very well
wanting to look like Suzi Q -

affording it was another matter.

# Moving on the Queen's highway

# Looking like
a streak of lightning... #

My first pair of leathers
I found in C&A's

but they weren't real leathers,
they were satin, black satin.

Real leather is
a very expensive thing to buy.

I think it's because of what it is,

it's very hard to find
in ordinary places.

# It takes your breath away,
but I like it... #

Frances eventually got
the leather look.

And that rock chick style

has entered the bloodstream
of women's fashion.

MUSIC: Satellite by The Kills

# Lost her behind the station

# Lost her behind the moon

# Operator, operator, dial her back

# Operator, put me through... #

And of course it's still just right
for musicians with a bit of edge.

I suppose when I was a kid

I liked the look of bands
that looked like gangs.

There's a feel about gangs where
it's quite a sort of masculine...

You feel like tough or
invincible or something.

I don't know,
it's kind of like a shield.

None of this is conscious, none
of this is like... Just attractive.

"No, I won't wear that because
it's woollen, it's not tough."

It's not really that,

trying to trace back why
you're wearing motorcycle boots.

I don't think
that's conscious either.

I just think you like certain things
and they all come together,

the sound and look. I have
no desire to look like a roadie.

When I'm on stage,
I'm on stage, you know,

you're supposed to look incredible.

That's supposed to be inspiring,

it's not supposed to be
anything else but that.

The Kills are following in
a venerable tradition

of draping rock'n'roll in leather,

and since Suzi Quatro,
it's a style women have aspired to

and sometimes perfected.

Whilst many young women in the 1970s

were fighting to shake off
the restrictions of the past,

for some young men,
life was altogether better.

MUSIC: Dreamer by Supertramp

# Dreamer,
you know you are a dreamer

# Can you put your hands
on your head? Oh, no! #

For the bright young fellows
of middle-class Britain,

this was a golden era.

They were the boys of peacetime
and educational opportunity

and could look forward
to a life of prosperity.

But many sought escape
from the benign boredom

of their indulged lives
in the mind-expanding musical

and stylistic fantasies
of progressive rock.

CHEERING

This is King Arthur and
the Myths and Legends of
the Knights of the Round Table.

It brings back wonderful memories.
It was absolutely fantastic.

Three nights we did
at the Wembley Empire Pool.

In May 1975, 30,000 people came to
see prog rock maestro Rick Wakeman

unveil the latest concept to emerge
from his fertile imagination -

a musical version of
the Arthurian legend on ice.

The BBC beamed
this extravaganza into our homes.

I put the orchestra on it, I put
the two choirs on it and the band,

and the skaters skated round us

so wherever you were,
people could see something.

I shipped everybody in
from Eastern Europe.

Ice skating was not popular at all

so everybody thought
I was barking on every front, really.

For the stage look
to go with his spectacular journey

into a misty, mythic British past...

..Rick channelled his inner Merlin.

There was a review in America

that said that I looked
like a demented spider

with the legs and arms
going everywhere

because I had pedals
up here and arms out,

so I became very aware of this, I was
getting in really weird positions

to try and reach stuff
and touch stuff.

Then, one day, Rick saw
a DJ perform wearing a cape.

And then it hit me -

that's the way to stop
looking like a demented spider

because any movements, the cape
just moves and everything's great.

So it became a natural thing.

I basically had a cape made
from 1972 onwards

for every tour that was done.

The Arthur Cape was velvet.

It had a huge
embossed sword on the back,

which was absolutely beautiful.

I think that was filmed
just before the cape fell off.

It took about three months to make,

cost a lot of money,
they all cost a lot of money,

but at that time,
it didn't really matter

because it was such an important
part of what you were doing.

I'd been working a lot with the likes
of Marc Bolan and David Bowie

and in their glam rock era,
I just thought, "Hold on a minute,

"they look really good and it makes
them into different characters."

MUSIC: Hang On To Yourself
by David Bowie

Rick longed for the sheer
visual impact of Bowie,

and the look that would carry
his audience with him

on his wondrous musical journeys.

It was an urge that took
Rick and his prog rock peers

like Emerson, Lake and Palmer,

and Genesis, into some
seriously fantastical stage looks.

To achieve his on-stage
transformations, Rick has for years

gone to a very special costume shop.

You're now looking
at a little old man,

but 40-odd years ago,

that's what I used to look like.

That's the band I was in
when I was a teenager.

Probably nearly 50 years ago,
thinking about it.

But quite a few celebrities
for you to look at.

From his headquarters
in a shed in Rotherham,

Neil Crossland creates not fashion
garments but showbiz costumes.

I don't serve public,
I'm purely and simply showbiz.

Rick Wakeman is in the company
of some illustrious names.

You've Freddie Starr, Simon Cowell.

Steps, JLS, Girls Aloud...

And there's Rick.

I think that was one of
the first jackets I made him,

the snakeskin one.

That one was full-length,
down to his ankles.

And he looked fabulous in it.

This is Rick's file -
I've just dug it out. But...

All I do, I am not an artist,
but I just scribble drawings up,

put the pieces of cloth
that it's going to be,

like a snakeskin one
or a polka dot one.

That's the last cape I did him
in the gold glitter.

It looks good under the spotlights.

Despite their style partnership,
Neil wasn't a '70s prog devotee

I am the wrong age.

My music was back
in the '50s and '60s.

And I stopped virtually listening
to music in 1967

when the Beatles went weird,
it put me off a bit.

But for a lot of people,

the Beatles weren't quite
weird enough.

They wanted prog rock to deliver
musically complex epic fantasy.

And Rick plunged into the past
for his inspiration -

musically and sartorially.

Most of the time, it's historical

because most of the great stories
and myths and legends are historical

and it's tailor made, you know,
to paint pictures to it.

Prog rock is painting pictures.

I'm a great history buff,
myths and legends buff,

always have been.

I'm in a livery company,
Worshipful Company of Glovers,

I'm a freemason,

I'm a knight templar,
which is fantastic.

Prog's arcane intellectual leanings
and musical dexterity

won it a loyal, if geeky,
following -

the clever boys of middle-class
Britain.

You'd be walking around school
with an album cover under your arm

and that would be saying
a lot about who you were,

what music you liked -
a kind of social identity, really.

# Once I had a dream
Nothing else to do

# Sat and played my mind
in time with all of you... #

Prog identified us as a particular
group or tribe in itself.

The other sort of music
that people liked,

the sort of tinkly
two-minute 45-second singles,

it was a lot of froth,
as far as we were concerned.

So when you had King Crimson
coming on

and doing
21st Century Schizoid Man -

"Cat's foot, iron claw,
neurosurgeon, scream for more..."

# Neurosurgeon, scream for more

# At paranoia's poison door... #

"21st Century Schizoid man."

# 21st Century Schizoid man... #

It's not exactly "Obladi Oblada",
is it?

Indeed not.

Jonathan Smart spent his youth

gallivanting about the Sussex
countryside with his pals,

nicknamed the Blossom Crew.

We were really enjoying ourselves,

being incredibly silly,
skipping around,

very pretentious as well,

waving Tolstoy in front
of the camera.

The spirit of prog
may have been a bit pretentious,

but style-wise, a prog rock crowd
was pretty predictable.

Every time you go to a gig,

you have a cursory look
at the audience,

but you know what
it's going to be like

and they're almost, to a man,

going to be between 16 and 20

and the young, white, affluent kids
of the particular town you're in.

They're all going to have long hair,

they're all going to be wearing
slightly tattier clothes

than they need to wear.

We would be wearing
these outrageous loons,

flares, for example.

Army surplus was absolutely
de rigueur,

so everyone had to have
a army surplus great coat.

I had an ex-Polish airman's
flying jacket.

In the school playgrounds
and university campuses of Britain,

platoons of prog rock fans shuffled
their scruffy way to lectures -

a vision in flared denim,
cheesecloth shirts

and coats made for old soldiers.

It wasn't a look destined to last.

We've been picked to go
on University Challenge tonight.

To the station!

The sound and style of prog
faded away

and rock music followers
found a different kind of remedy

to the tyranny of the ordinary.

A dizzy brew of showmanship,
theatrical pomp

and personal liberation.

It was November 1974

and Queen were at the height
of their Sheer Heart Attack Tour.

# Yes, you made me live again... #

You could be very big
in a theatre like that.

You're very close to your audience.

The sound and the lights
and the smoke and the bombs

and whatever and the costumes
and the music

was quite an onslaught.

This was the tour that would launch
Freddie Mercury and Brian May

as rock gods.

They had the big vocal,
the big guitar

and the big hair.

And on this tour,
they treated thousands

to a big new look to match.

# Don't worry, baby
I'm safe and sound

# Down in the dungeon
Just peaches and me... #

I was quite stiff in the early days,
you know,

but the costumes helped me to feel

that I had a, sort of,
physical part to play in the show

as well as the musical part.

Freddie Mercury called this fabulous
stage costume "the eagle suit"

and it had flown
from the imagination

of a brilliant British designer.

Though she wasn't
the most obvious choice.

They phoned me up one day

and said that they would like for me
to design some things for them.

I had done some jersey tops
for Mark Bolan

but apart from that,
I hadn't done anything for men.

SHE LAUGHS

I hadn't seen anything
of what they did,

I didn't know anything
about what they played.

Young Zandra Rhodes
was at the forefront

of the London fashion scene
in the '70s,

but she was actually
a womenswear designer.

When Freddy and Brian came
I gave them free rein.

In the beginning,
Zandra would just kind of dress us.

We went in and talked
and said "We want to be dramatic,

"we want things which emphasise
our movement on stage",

and she just kind of did it for us.

So this is the original piece
that Freddy tried on.

It looks very original.
It's come out of a packing case.

This was actually the top
of a wedding dress idea

that then got put on the front
of Vogue magazine

on Princess Anne.

I was experimenting
with pleated satin

and how the circles would look
when they flowed around.

The final pieces
for Freddy and Brian

were made of flowing white satin.

It's quite heavy
but when you're in a garment,

and it's balanced on your body,
I think...when you're moving,

you want something that's got
a certain amount of weight to it.

It was the start
of a long creative relationship,

with Zandra giving Queen
a visual flamboyance

to enhance their extravagant rock.

I think she what she gave us
was very important

because it helped us define
a very dramatic style.

Parallel to us, there were people
doing glam rock,

but glam rock was really
something slightly different.

Glam rock was sticking
together lots of gaudy colours

and it was a lot of fun,

whereas we're heading much more
towards theatre

than kind of just dressing up
to look flash.

Designer and artists
had come together

to create vividly attired
theatrical personas

the band could inhabit on stage.

The clothes were so important
to Brian

that he kept as many as he could

and they are now neatly catalogued
in his attic at home.

A lot of this is either
on or off-stage uniform for Queen,

if you like, costume.

This one I had a bit of input to.

I said I'd like a gold one
and a different kind of shape,

a more bird-like shape to this,

but the fabric is, of course,
all Zandra's own.

I'm glad that we still have this one
because it's my favourite, really.

This is a later Zandra creation -

getting a bit more fancy, in a way,
and a bit more frilly.

You know, she's such a creative joy
to be around, Zandra,

and she still is.

# She keeps Moet et Chardon

# In her pretty cabinet

# "Let them eat cake", she says

# Just like Marie Antoinette

# A built-in remedy

# For Khrushchev and Kennedy

# At any time, an invitation

# You can't decline... #

In many ways, for Queen to go to
a women's designer like Zandra

for their clothes
made perfect sense.

# She's a killer queen

# Gunpowder, gelatine

# Dynamite with a laser beam

# Guaranteed to blow your mind... #

Playing fast and loose
with gender identity

was de rigueur for rock stars
of the era.

Freddie Mercury in particular

embraced the sexual ambiguity
of the moment.

In 1974, he told Melody Maker,

"I play on the bisexual thing
because it's fun -

"even to talk about being gay
used to be unheard of.

"But gone are those days."

# I want you to be a woman... #

In those days, it wasn't clear
that Freddie was gay anyway,

but nobody cared -
that was the nice thing.

Freddie really represents freedom
to a lot of people.

At that time,
that was a fairly new concept.

I'm kind of proud that
we represented that to many people.

Indeed, for those inspired by Queen,
gay or not,

even a small town in Wales

could be the stage
for stylistic adventures.

The first time I saw them,

they were singing
Seven Seas of Rhye.

We were singing it in school

and we thought, "Oh, the album
will be coming out now,

"we'll, er...we'll go to town
and we'll buy it."

And we'd seen photographs
of Freddie Mercury

with his black nail varnish,

so we thought, "Oh, we'll do that."

And we had a few funny looks
as we went into town on the bus,

but, erm...it was just, you know,

had to do it,
had to make an event of it.

Sadly for Andrew, there wasn't much
glam gear in the shops of Glamorgan.

So he had to scour
the bottom of the market

for clothes that added
a little sparkle to daily life.

We'd go to charity shops -

there weren't so many of them
around in those days

but you managed to pick up something
with a bit of glitter on it.

You'd buy things
that were bright yellow

or bright purple with a flare.

So it was just a way of,
not so much standing out,

but copying your idol.

I've got to admit
that I went a little bit too far

and...had a curly perm
to look like Brian.

And I've got a photograph.

But Andrew wasn't alone.
Queen were and are loved.

Apparently one in three British
families own a copy

of their greatest hits

Getting together in a concert where

I would suggest 80% of people
were either wearing glitter,

make up, wigs,
made it more of a community spirit.

SONG: Bohemian Rhapsody
by Queen

You turn up there and the place is
filled to the rafters.

And you just imagine, "Oh, right,
then, there could be people

"living in a village 20 miles away
who you don't know,

"but they are as unique as you are
where they're from."

Queen were enthralling, and their
theatrical, costumed

stage presence kick-started a style
of rock performance that has

rippled down to today.

SONG: It Could Have Been Me
by The Struts

# Wanna feel pride and shame

# I don't wanna take my time

# Don't wanna waste one line... #

Luke Spiller, frontman of the
Struts, has enlisted the woman

who made Queen dazzle.

I was enjoying that.
Cool. I like this one.

For the Isle of Wight festival,
he wants a bird-like,

theatrical costume to shimmer
under the stage lights.

..and you've got several different
looks. I mean, satin would look good.

It's good with the light on it,
the satin.

It's got a wonderful sheen

that I think would catch
the light as you're moving.

And that's what I want to achieve,
really. Something like whoosh!

I'd hand paint all the gold so it
would be just little tiny lights

of gold and we could always glue more
glitter on if you want something.

Yeah, that'd be good. The more
glitter the better, really.

That's what I thought after I'd
been speaking to you.

It's not all about Queen, but you
know, admittedly it's a big part.

You know, working with Zandra, and
that's what I explained,

I wanted something which was
reminiscent from that era,

to create something which is
slightly new and exciting.

A month later, it's ready,

and Luke prepares to show the Isle
of Wight his Zandra-designed outfit.

Ta-da!

Looks good, right?

I can see by the smile on your face
that you like it.

Yeah, so as you can see, she's hand
painted all of these on,

which are great.

And it's obviously been
pleated as well,

so it gives it that
kind of like winged effect.

This one kind of finishes like that,

so it's more of a... More of a Zorro
kind of effect, you know.

I'm a showman at the end of the day,
and that's what I love to do.

It's not in me to just sit there
and just sing the songs.

Who likes my outfit, by the way?
Do you like it?

This was made by Zandra Rhodes,

I want to dedicate this next song
to her.

It's not like, "Oh, what am
I going to wear

"to make this kind of statement?"
I'm choosing things to wear

to enhance the performance.

There is just nothing like that
feeling of actually

being in tune with the people
you're making music with

and also in tune with the audience
and interacting with an audience.

I think there's a certain mystique
about a group, you know,

you feel that you're a part of the
world that they're creating,

and that can be comforting
in a world which is harsh.

You know, you identify with someone
who is spinning

some kind of magical web.

# Nothing really matters

# Anyone can see... #

Queen's kind of magic was to capture
a sense of joyful

personal liberation.

But they were also unwittingly
responsible for

another moment when music and
fashion came together

to shocking, energising effect.

In December 1976, the producers of
a London tea-time chat show

couldn't get the rights to
broadcast a Queen video,

so they asked the record company to
book another band

for the slot instead.

I remember that day very, very, very
strongly.

I phoned up Malcolm McLaren and
I said, "Malcolm, we've got on TV."

He said, "Great, Top Of The Pops?"
I said, "No." "Supersonic?"

I said, "No." "Well, what the hell
is it, Eric?"

I said, "It's Bill Grundy's
Today Show tonight.

"They'll be doing it tonight."
"I don't bloody want to do that."

I said, "Do me a favour, we've got
to do it.

"It will be the greatest plug."
I was bullshitting, really.

"It will be the greatest plug
the boys are going to have.

"This is a monster, monster plug,
sensational,

"it's going to be marvellous."

They are punk rockers. They're
a group called the Sex Pistols.

We didn't dress up for it

because we didn't know we was going
to do the TV show.

We was actually rehearsing
for the Anarchy tour at that time,

and erm...

and we just, you know,
come as you are.

Well, suppose they turn
other people on.

That's just their tough shit.

It's what?
Nothing, a rude word.

What was the rude word?

Shit. Was it really? Good heavens.

You've frightened me to death.
Oh, all right. What a clever boy.

What a fucking rotter.

The exploding expletives might made
a few people choke

on their fish fingers,
but that wasn't the only shocker.

A cry went round the country.
What are they wearing?

Steve's got a pair of leather
trousers and a tits T-shirt.

Siouxsie always had her
own kind of look.

I always wanted to meet you.

Did you really?
Yeah.

John's got his mohair sweater on.

I've got me red trousers on again.

We'll meet afterwards, shall we?

You dirty sod.

You dirty old man.
Go on. You dirty fucker.

Well, that's it for tonight.

It was like lighting a blue
touch paper.

The shock waves and the ripples
started spreading out very quickly

because it was
all in the national press.

SONG: Pretty Vacant by
The Sex Pistols

# There's no point in asking,
you'll get no reply

# Oh, just remember I don't decide

# I got no reason, it's all too much

# You'll always find us... #

The Pistols were more than just
a spiky new music thing.

# We're so pretty

# Oh, so pretty... #

They were also a style statement,
an effervescent extension

of the avant-garde fashion of
Vivienne Westwood

and Malcolm McLaren.

We were formed
in Malcolm McLaren's shop.

Not by him,
but aided and abetted by him.

And...I got myself a job there,

you know, working at Malcolm's,
which really stuck out

like a sore thumb. It was a total
antithesis of what was going on

in the tail end of
glam rock Britain.

Afghan coats and great coats
and things.

McLaren and Westwood had
a shop on the Kings Road

they called Seditionaries.

The shelves had rows of patent
stiletto ankle boots, rubber skirts,

and T-shirts mixing swastikas
and sexually explicit images

with slogans shouting, "Destroy,"

"Chaos," and even
"Cambridge Rapist."

Vivienne, a fashion and art
graduate,

was influenced by everything
from shortbread tin Highland tartan

to sadomasochistic bondage gear.

The trousers all come with a little
loincloth on the back..

Everybody wants to know what that's
for. It's just a loincloth,

it's just a gesture.

You could always point out that
maybe it's got some connection

with the fact that this zip goes
right round the back up the arse

as well. I don't know,
I really don't know!

For anyone tantalised by the magical
mix of clothes and music,

Westwood and McLaren were
visionaries.

Punk was very, very stylish.

If you think about it, really what
Malcolm and Vivienne did with

the Sex Pistols was pretty
extraordinary.

What Malcolm and Vivienne did
was high style,

way above everything else that's
going on.

The look was what we sort of picked

and chose from Malcolm's to
suit our personality.

We weren't clothes horses,

it just happened to be where we
started out from.

# I am an antichrist

# I am an anarchist..."

You all look kind of similar in a
band, it's a bit like an army

wearing its colours. You know,
it's a declaration of intent.

# I wanna be anarchy... #

I got me anarchy shirt.

I haven't got it any more
cos I used it to wash the car.

Dunno if it's punk to wash
it with the car,

or punk to not have a
car in the first place.

I mean Malcolm always quipped that
he'd form a band to sell trousers,

and unless you're in a band that
have got the right trousers on

it don't work.
So it's a joke, but it's true

People think of it, I think,
as being street fashion -

ripped clothes with safety pins.

Yes, of course, but nobody had seen
a lot of that before.

# Ever fallen in love with someone?

# Ever fallen in love?

# In love with someone? #

It didn't take long for punk to
become a frequent presence

on telly and on the streets -

hungrily devoured by young people

fed up and frustrated
by '70s Britain.

Mid-70s Britain was a dump.

There was a real air of despondency.

And a song like God Save The Queen,

although the song's exactly the
same,

it was actually originally
called No Future.

It just seemed like there
was no future.

# There is no future

# In England's dreaming... #

But to crack the punk aesthetic,

you needed to be more than
disillusioned -

you needed to be daring.

Kids who didn't live in London,

who weren't hip to what was going on
down here

because they just weren't here,
they saw it

and it, kind of, fitted in
with the fact

that they was looking for something.
All round the country,

bands were being formed overnight.

# I belong to the blank generation

# And I can take it
or leave it each time

# Well, I belong to the generation

# But I can take it
or leave it each time... #

I used to read the
New Musical Express every week

from when I was about 12, 13.

They'd have photographs
of the earliest punks

wearing really outrageous clothes
and talking about the music.

So it was just very, very exciting.

No wonder!

There wasn't much else going
on in Louise's part of the world.

SONG: Nessun Dorma

My parents played opera, so you
couldn't have a bigger contrast.

When they put music on,
it would be things like Puccini

and stuff like that.

I lived in a quite a middle class
suburb of Edinburgh

and I hated it.
There was nothing there.

It was just all detached houses
with nice leafy gardens.

# Identity... #

For Louise, that punk moment
was an escape

from her suburban incarceration -

even if King's Road style
was out of her reach.

Only really wealthy middle class
punks who had parents with money

would actually be able to afford
anything from Seditionaries.

There was that whole kind of ethos
of do it yourself,

so I would be going to the charity
shops

and spending my very meagre
pocket money

on things like grandad shirts
that I would paint and customise.

This was a shirt that
I bought from Oxfam or somewhere,

and probably only paid about
50p for it.

And then I stencilled
slogans all over it.

So it says "Absolute filth."

Some of it was lyrics.

It says here "I am a cliche,"

which is from one of
the X-Ray Spex songs.

And, "God the save Queen,
she ain't no human being."

That was from the Sex Pistols.

Then we've got,
"love comes in spurts," there,

which was from Richard Hell
and the Voidoids.

So there was a few
bits of lyrics on there.

# When you look in the mirror

# Do you see yourself?

# Do you see yourself
on the TV screen?

# Do you see yourself
in the magazine?

# When you see yourself
does it make you scream...? #

For all its
street scruff reputation,

punk shared some of the spirit
of Freddie Mercury in a catsuit

or Rick Wakeman's in a cape.

The Punk look was also
a fabulous performance.

There was a real theatricality
about how we all dressed.

I would spend hours getting ready.

If I was going to go to a gig,
I would probably spend about

half and hour just on my hair,
making it spiky.

But it didn't last long.

The Grundy appearance sent punk
stellar,

but it also spelled
the beginning of the end.

I think by 1978/79, it had definitely
become a uniform.

In the back of the music papers,
you'd get all these adverts

for bondage trousers and punk
T-shirts and things like that,

so then you could just buy the look

rather than actually making
your own look.

Not a bad cut.

I got this for free
and I quite like it.

It's a nice lightweight suit.

I mean, why do you expect me to be
walking around

in bondage trousers
at the age of 57?

Cos it ain't going to happen.

Well, that's a shame.

But what's undeniable is
that punk has woven its way

into the fabric
of our fashion heritage.

Victoria Line, platform number five.
Two stops.

I got to admit today, it's...

I'm not happy with it,
it's not the best.

Matthew, I'll be down
in a minute or so, OK?

Big gate at the end there, love.

Greg Cousens is London Underground's
legendary punk rock

customer services assistant.

That one there,
you've got an open journey.

His bosses had no objections
when he decided to gel up his hair

and dye it red a few years ago.

His Mohican, even on bad hair days,

brings him a lot of love
at Oxford Circus Tube station.

Passengers disembarking, do so as
quick as you can.

It seems almost as if I have become
almost a bit

of a tourist attraction
on the station.

'It's just become a
bit of an ice breaker, you know?

'People will come up and say,
"Love your hair."'

And when he goes out with his mates,

Greg ditches the underground
uniform for quite another.

Got the old bondage trousers,
band T-shirts, leather jacket,

big boots, all the rest of it
kicking about at home

if I wanted to sort of dress up to
go out.

I don't want every customer services
assistant to look like me,

because if everybody looked like me,

I would probably have to change it
and do something else

to be a bit different.

For Greg, punk has allowed him
to be assertively individual

whilst dressed in a uniform.

MUSIC: Oh, Bondage, Up Yours!
by X-Ray Spex

For us, his mohican has become
a symbol of British culture itself -

a message to the world
that our country

is more than
royals and rubbish weather.

But that's not the whole story.

Do what you want,
be different -

the punk ethos flowed into the
best of British fashion and design.

Music, actually, is the thing that
drives me more than anything.

Punk gave you the freedom to do
whatever you wanted to do.

That's where I felt that I started
to be able to express myself.

It was like a light switched on.

It was like,
"Yes, of course you can do this."

Pam Hogg, inspired by the energy
of punk

launched her first fashion
collection in 1981.

I just found these this morning,

and I can't believe it,
it's just like...

It's so innocently made, because I
didn't know how to make anything,

so I was just making it up as I went
along.

To fasten things I used these rivets

and the sleeve
is the shape of an arm!

Look at that.

SHE LAUGHS

This is like punk because it's got
the riveting

and it's got an edge to it.

The biggest gift you've got is your
individuality.

Use it!

# Personality changes
behind our own smile

Pam found her musical soul mate
in a woman

who had been one of the year zero
punk gang -

A true style original -
Siouxsie Sioux.

I remember the first time I
met her,

she called me over and
started chatting to me,

and I'm standing looking going,
"This is Sioxsie Sioux!"

I think she just thought
"Kindred spirit!"

# Dear Prudence

# Won't you come out to play...? #

And she was.

Their long collaboration started
just as Siouxsie

was leading punk style to more
mysterious,

and altogether darker places.

# The sun is up

# The sky is blue

# It's beautiful

# And so are you

# Dear Prudence... #

You had the survivors, the sort of
Goth contingent -

Siouxsie and The Cure.

# Look around, round, round
Round, round... #

It was like a black stallion
standing up there.

It wasn't a guy, it was a woman.

Oh, my God, she looked incredible!

And she came on with this,
when she's singing away.

It was her. It wasn't anybody else.

Love at first sight,
you know what I mean?

# When you think your toys
have gone berserk

# It's an illusion... #

Who wasn't inspired by
Siouxsie Sioux?

The way she did her eyes.

She loves her cats!
SHE LAUGHS

# You have no choice... #

Wow, I mean, I remember when I'd see
something like the Banshees on TV,

it would, you know you'd be agog,
because you'd see them very rarely.

There was your nan sat there,
obviously horrified

at what she was seeing.

"It's the end of the world!"

# Following the footsteps
of a rag doll

# We are entranced... #

Captivated by visions of Siouxsie,

Johnny Melton left his
East Anglian village

and starting hanging out at the
Batcave -

a Soho club full of
eyeliner-wearing curiosities.

On his first night there,
he was recruited as the keyboardist

in a band called Specimen,

mainly on the basis of his hair.

I was like, "Well, I can't
really play anything."

They were like,
"Oh, it's OK you've got cool hair."

So, yeah, I was in.

What am I doing in this picture?

Well, I'm kind of, I'm
kind of hanging over a piece of wood

with my tail cheekily poking
over the top.

It was just wanting to go
somewhere theatrical with a look.

It's not really a sexual look
at all, is it?

You wouldn't go out and think you're
going to get laid

dressed as a cat or something.

We were kind of more prone
pull a pout than cast a spell.

For the Batcave brood,

for Siouxsie and for her
design collaborator Pam Hogg,

it was about
startling visual drama -

about keeping the shock and awe
spirit of punk alive.

I think Siouxsie had
fantastic style.

All that Pam Hogg stuff that she
wears -

I'm a big fan of Pam's.
I think she's one of our treasures.

A really, really unique designer.

These descents into the dark side of
style

spawned a whole new tribe -
legions of the undead,

who still wander the streets of
towns cities across the world -

Goths.

She doesn't want to be a Goth.

She is not a Goth, in her mind,
she is not a Goth.

But these Goth kids,
they idolise her.

But she's individual.

The '70s saw the pop and rock go
theatrical -

an extravagant, outlandish image
move centre stage.

MUSIC: Public Image
by Public Image Limited

And how we followed them!

And the designers who crafted these
looks of the stars,

started to become as vital as the
musicians who displayed them.

The embrace between British fashion
and British music

was becoming ever more passionate.

Next week...

..the rise of the stylist...

..the video...

and the brand...

give us ever more shocking looks.

# Behind the image
Was ignorance and fear

# You hide behind his public machine

# You still follow
the same old scheme

# Public image

# Public image

# Goodbye. #