Documenting the LLM Style
Very little was documented in the early years of The London Leatherman or of the fetish clientele it catered for in the late 60s and early 70s. This was down to the fetish scene, especially the gay fetish scene being underground and kept out of the public eye until well after The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 was passed.
Apart from the mail order catalogues, The London Leatherman rarely advertised, he avoided conventional publicity and magazine editorial, even into the 90s, Ken’s work was always word-of-mouth. It helped that he was charismatic and a very popular guy with many movie stars, pop stars and London socialites as clients and friends. He understood the importance of his own anonymity as well as customer discretion ‘I have a kind of doctor relationship with my clients. I treat my business with confidentiality’ he was quoted as saying in 1975.
You can see The London Leatherman designs worn by stars on TV shows like Top Of The Pops, as costume in theatre productions such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and in music magazines from these early years. But, it was when the visionary and entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren discovered The London Leatherman and introduced it to his own clientele and to the artists he managed, that discretion was compromised.
In 1976 Maclaren dressed his band the Sex Pistols in The London Leatherman clothing and accessories paired with his and Vivienne Westwood’s own designs from their shop SEX and customers with no care for discretion started coming to the shop. Ken never expected young adults and teenagers to be interested in The London Leatherman, but they turned up not necessarily seeing Ken’s designs as fetish wear but simply wanting to buy what they’d seen their punk rock idols wearing.
Two people that Malcolm introduced to The London Leatherman were Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen.
Sid & Nancy in 1978 walking along Queenstown Road, Battersea after visiting The London Leatherman shop. Sid’s holding a The London Leatherman shopping bag. Photographer unknown
Mick Jones (left) wearing his The London Leatherman cuff, Nancy wearing The London Leatherman pyramid stud cuff, a LW3 belt and both Sid & Nancy are wearing a The London Leatherman Centurion stud spike wristband Photo: Ebet Roberts, NYC 1978
