{"id":16631,"date":"2026-03-27T21:05:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=16631"},"modified":"2026-04-03T13:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T12:20:34","slug":"acme-boy-by-phil-strongman-review-by-jay-strongman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/acme-boy-by-phil-strongman-review-by-jay-strongman\/","title":{"rendered":"Acme Boy By Phil Strongman interview by Jay Strongman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Dave Parkinson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 Interview with Phil Strongman by Jay Strongman on Phil\u2019s new book \u2018ACME BOY – The Birth Of Punk & Anti-Fashion\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

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When I first took my kid brother Phil down to Chelsea’s Acme Attractions in the King\u2019s Road, in the late summer of 1975, I had no idea that he’d be designing clothes for them a year later.  Nor that I would be, for a time, the manager of the follow-up shop BOY (now the brand known as BOY LONDON). In ’75 Phil was still in school and I had just left school and, for both of us, Acme was part of a semi-secret society – a society that only started to go overground in the last half of 1976 as the Sex Pistols, Banshees and The Clash exploded across the front pages of the music press… and then the national press.  Although Acme’s future customers were to include everyone from Bob Marley to Nick Lowe – to Joe Strummer to Sid Vicious to Peter O’Toole – within a couple of years it was half-forgotten, and by the 1980s some would say it was a totally faded memory, even in its former King’s Road location.  So, on a strangely clear line to London, I asked Phil a few questions about how, and why, he’d finally written an in-depth book about Acme and the early days of BOY.    <\/p>\n

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01. Why a book about Acme Attractions and BOY?<\/h3>\n

Well, there’s been quite a few books about Westwood and McLaren and their shop at 430 King’s Road, Chelsea, how it helped launch the punk look and the Sex Pistols etc. But if SEX \/ Seditionaries was the Big One – The Beatles, if you like – then Acme Attractions was the alternative – the Rolling Stones, say – the big rivals to SEX for over two years.  Acme was part of that story and connected with helping push other musical bands of some influence – Chelsea, Generation X, Billy Idol, The Damned, Throbbing Gristle etc… and there’d been no Acme book. I know Don Letts and Jeannette Lee did an Acme booklet some six or seven years ago but it is just that; a booklet – or pamphlet. It’s only 28 or 30 pages, and that includes photos.  A lot had to be missed out to fit it into such a small format.  And then there’s the start of BOY which was quite interesting.  Bizarre things happened – it’s not every design\/fashion book that features bootlegging, new musical genres and tank attacks.<\/p>\n

02. But why write it now?<\/h3>\n

Ninety-nine percent of it was actually written well over a year ago – getting books published is still a super-slow business – but the main prompt was John Krivine agreeing to do a series of interviews.  He was the founder of Acme, the co-founder of BOY, and he and the late Steph Raynor were the guys who first employed me there as a teenage designer.  So I then ended up in a hotel at the edge of a desert, talking with John for hours and finding out loads of things I hadn’t known before. And, of course, this year is the 50th anniversary of the birth of UK Punk and both Acme and Boy were important parts of that scene.  <\/p>\n

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Photo: Sheila Rock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

03. What’s the difference between street fashion then and now?<\/h3>\n

Then, and right up til the late 1990s, trendies and art students customized their clothes, added stuff, painted things, dyed them.  Now they just copy a look they’ve seen online.  Back then, it was different – when you and I first went looking for Acme it took hours to find it.  It was literally underground, you had to make an effort to track it down – and it led to big changes. Whenever I see a fashion exhibition about the changes since the year 2000 it all looks the same to me… although people do say, ‘Oh no no, those trainers in 2003 were this colour white – and in 2009 they were off-colour cream white…’  You need a magnifying glass to see the difference.  Who knows? Who cares?<\/p>\n

04. Manager Don Letts – who’s now at BBC Radio 6 – and assistant Jeannette Lee – now the Rough Trade CEO – were the stars of Acme, and early BOY, did you get along with them?<\/h3>\n

Yeah, I think so. They were a little older – I was sixteen when I first went in – but we got on. Jeannette called me Phil the Mod because I had all these R&B, Bluebeat and Soul singles – and because I was always chatting to Steph about mod, he’d been a leading light in the 1960s and seen all the groups, bought all the clothes and was an ace Face. I also had a couple of Vespa scooters and the one you helped me repaint Miami Blue, I sold to Acme for fifty quid and a couple of peg pants. So I took the engine out and they installed it in the middle of the shop.<\/p>\n