Punks in Wellington Square, Chelsea

Two 'Punks' in Wellington Square, Chelsea, 23 February 1985.

The British Punk movement, which started as early as 1974, represented a strongly anarchic and anti-establishment form of youth culture. Instrumental in its origins were Malcolm McClaren and his then girlfriend Vivienne Westwood who ran the shop Sex (later renamed Seditionaries) at 430 Kings Road, Chelsea. By the early 1980s punk had diversified and one particularly hard-core strand, known as ‘street punk’, became highly visible. Street punks generally had an outlandish appearance, with multi-coloured hair, mohawks, spike-encrusted leather vests and clothing with political slogans or the names of punk bands. The look was designed to be as confrontational as possible.