OF ALL the characters who emerged from punk, Malcolm McLaren was one of the most enigmatic.

Born in 1946 he grew up in north London in a difficult family environment, where he was raised by his grandmother Rose. She exerted a big influence, providing him with his lifelong mantra: “To be bad is good, because to be good is simply boring.”

Paul Gorman's fascinating and detailed book outlines McLaren's shapeshifting radical ways of working. Ten years since his death from cancer, he sheds new light on the achievements and life of a cultural iconoclast and architect of punk, whose championing of street cultures including hip-hop and voguing reverberates to this day.
 
McLaren's early career managing New York Dolls, setting up the fashion label Sex with Vivienne Westwood and their shop on the King's Road in Chelsea, sets the scene for creation of The Sex Pistols.