Which British designer founded the punk-linked boutique SEX with Malcolm McLaren?

Vivienne Westwood founded the punk-linked boutique SEX with Malcolm McLaren.

The shop operated at 430 King’s Road in London and became a crucial meeting point for the visual culture that developed around British punk. Westwood designed clothing while McLaren helped shape the shop’s music, business, and confrontational cultural direction. SEX specialised in provocative, fetish-inspired garments, graphic T-shirts, leather, rubber, and bondage-influenced pieces.

The boutique opened under the name SEX in 1974 and traded under that name until 1976. It was part of a sequence of changing identities at the same address, including Let It Rock, Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, and later Seditionaries and World’s End.

The shop’s influence extended beyond fashion. Future Sex Pistols figures encountered its scene there, and its clothing helped define punk’s anti-establishment image. The common mistake is to treat Westwood as the sole owner or McLaren as merely a customer: the boutique was a joint Westwood–McLaren project, though Westwood was its key fashion designer.