Helen Wellington-Lloyd, better known in Punk circles as Helen Of Troy, was originally a native of South Africa. She was born on the 1st Jan 1954 with a condition called Achondroplasia, which causes dwarfism. Helen was a friend of Malcolm McClaren’s, having met him at Goldsmith’s Art School in London in 1968, and was still a close confidant during the time Punk was busy fizzing into being on the Kings Road in 1976. In an interview with boredteenagers.com Helen’s friend Terry Piper also gives her credit for coming up with some of the ideas that continue to be associated with that early Punk Rock look “She came up with the ideas of safety pins, tartan trousers, tartan skirts, chains and many more for the punk image and got no credit for her designs, but that’s the industry”. It has also be said that she created the first Sex Pistols “blackmail” logo for early gig posters. Helen seems like some kind of one woman tornado of Punk Rock ideas.
As well as her appearance in the post Pistols feature film “The Great Rock and Roll Swindle”, she also appeared in Derek Jarman’s “Jubilee” and “The Tempest”. While no doubt busy with her acting and art interests, it also seems that she might have been nurturing a few little rock and roll aspirations of her own. Her clubbing friend and musician Terry Piper from the Southend band FU2 explains,
“She asked me could she sing a couple of songs with my band FU2. Helen was my friend and I know she could not sing well, but she was a showman and I knew she could pull it of visually so I wrote a few songs for her and we made a couple of videos together”.
In September 2001, Helen auctioned off her Sex Pistols collection at Sotheby’s.
With all respect to the writer, the blog post is clearly not well researched. It is clear the writer has no background knowledge of the punk scene roots and the ‘safety-pin’ origin in punk aesthetic. Many credited literature provide clear sources for the origins of the aesthetic, dating back New York and 10 years before that-in Detroit, Seattle and even San Francisco. And the safety pins…..I have two words: Richard Hell.
Hi Annemarie, thank you for your comment. Because of our location we tend to tell the story of punk from a teenager in the UK perspective. Back in 77 we had no idea of the roots of the evolving fashions, they were all new to us.