Malcom McClaran talks about his life and a documentary on Syd Barret

Malcom McClaren talks about his life and a documentary on Syd Barret

Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (1946 – 2010) was an Englishimpresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, who combined these activities in an inventive and provocative way. He promoted and managed the bands New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols.

Brought up unconventionally by his grandmother after his father, Peter, left the family home, McLaren attended a number of British art colleges and adopted the stance of the social rebel in the style of French revolutionaries the Situationists. McLaren realised that a new protest style was needed for the 1970s and involved himself in the punk movement, for which he supplied fashions from the Chelsea boutique SEX, which he operated with girlfriend Vivienne Westwood. After a period advising the New York Dolls in the U.S., McLaren managed the Sex Pistols, for which he recruited the nihilistic frontman Johnny Rotten.