Stop 14: Worlds End - Daydreaming on the King’s Road

Let It Rock, Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die, SEX and Seditionaries are all names of the shop at 430 King's Road Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood had since 1971 before settling on Worlds End in 1979 which continues to this day. Worlds End is the name that the area started to be called in the 17th century for it’s distance from the centre of London. The Worlds End shop was designed by the architect David Connor and features a tilted floor that necessitated an installation of a flat section behind the counter for the shop staff who started to suffer back pains from standing on the wonky floor. Another, more known feature is the 13 hour clock that ticks rapidly backwards, a whimsical and dizzying image that subverts our expectations, yet despite its disorientating effect it still manages to tell the right time more than twice a day. These things were probably informed in part by McLaren’s social revolutionary tendencies that were inspired by Situationist International philosophy which played a pivotal role in the May 1968 movement in Paris.