The iconic ‘Gay Cowboy’ t-shirt image by Tom of Finland and ripped off by Vivienne Westwood (pictured below) isn’t one you’d expect to see over breakfast in an international hotel in Hong Kong. Especially not as worn by a father with two kids in tow.

 

I couldn’t think of a way to get him to pose for the unlikeliest of photographs without making him realise what he was doing, but trust me it was right there by the cornflakes.

The original (lifted from the work of the famous Gay porn artist Touko Laaksonen aka Tom of Finland) was part of Westwood’s range at Seditionaries the legendary Kings Road shop that she and Malcolm McLaren owned, and which is where the Sex Pistols met. To give you an idea here’s the storefront -

 

It was pretty much too frightening to go into, sold a mixture of fetish gear, bondage clothes and scabrous t-shirts. It also had a very great pre-punk juke box (which someone did a superb compilation of HERE).

These days Seditionaries originals (those that remain) are hugely collectable and sell for thousands (an original is worth around 5000 pounds). In those days wearing the Tom Of Finland t-shirt would get you spat on in the street by pensioners, beaten up, or quite literally, arrested.

Nowadays it’s iconic, but apparently suitable for the breakfast bar. Who knows, maybe we’ll see someone wearing this at a Sizzler soon -

-TH