Byronesque and Machine-A link on Pistol TV show costume sale for The Vivienne Foundation

Pistol, the TV drama series about the Sex Pistols by director Danny Boyle aired earlier this decade and now the official Sex and Seditionaries costumes from show are the stars of an exclusive charity sale.

It comes with the return of the partnership between resale specialist and Machine-A, known as Machine-B, with the new project supporting The Vivienne Foundation via an exclusive sale of the costumes.

Part of the license deal that Vivienne Westwood agreed in 2021 with FX allowed the production company to reproduce her designs for the film but included the agreement that all of the costumes and clothing props would be donated to the foundation.
And that was undeniably a good move for vintage fashion lovers as the collection includes over 400 replicas of every design from the Sex and Seditionaries era including the Tit’s T’s, Anarchy shirts, muslin tops, bondage trousers, mohair knits and rubberwear.

The Pistol costumes “will be made available at accessible prices to allow younger ‘punks’ to own designs that are always otherwise priced out of reach”.

As mentioned, profits from the sale go directly to The Vivienne Foundation and in this case, the foundation is donating profits from this sale to the United Liberation Movement for West Papua and to the International Red Cross Committee supporting its work in Sudan.

To mark the sale of the “original replicas”, Byronesque has also produced a filmed interview with Westwood’s and Malcolm McLaren’s son Joe Corré, “addressing the complex and controversial business of authenticating Sex and Seditionaries items”.

He talks about the beginning of punk as well as Pirates and the rise of Vivienne Westwood the brand; discussing items from original Seditionaries to licensed designs by BOY, legitimate re-issues and rare pieces from throughout the rest of Westwood’s long career. Some of these items will also be available for sale. 

Throughout the interview, Corré “shares stories and details that only someone who was there at the time with Vivienne and Malcolm would know, casting doubt on self-appointed experts who weren’t”.

The sales comes with a campaign created by Insurgent and Byronesque called ‘Demand the Impossible’ that “reminds the world that resistance still has a path. Shot by Alessandro Simonetti, known for his raw documentation of global subcultures, the imagery captures defiance as something real, not recreated”.

Steven Ma, creative director of Machine-A, said that “at Machine-B, our ongoing partnership with Byronesque has allowed us to work on projects that connect culture, history and purpose in a truly unique way. Collaborating with the Vivienne Foundation on this initiative has been incredibly inspiring. The idea that you can own an authentic piece of fashion history, the official licensed costumes created for The Pistols at such accessible prices, while directly supporting Vivienne’s legacy and the causes she believed in so passionately, feels both important and creates a conversational point of view amongst audiences that always seek authenticity and emotional connection while supporting conscious shopping.”

And Byronesque’s Gill Linton added: “Overpriced copies of Sex and Seditionaires, whether by chancers or designer brands, has made the market for original items a complex mess. I’m more interested in supporting a modern version of what it means to be punk and to offer these affordable original replicas to a generation who have the intellect and ideas to create change — and who are part of Machine-A’s community. Rather than those intent on infighting about the provenance of a shirt they didn’t make. It is why the film we made with Joe Corré matters.”