Originally started in the late 50s and beloved of beatniks, teddy boys and mods alike, worn by the Kinks, the Stones, and Desmond Dekker and ubiquitous at the Ad Lib in Leicester Square. Its famous/infamous round collar with small pinhole was a handsome welcome for the personal stylist.

Going into the seventies there was a lull as the collars along with the flares got bigger and bigger. When original mods Malcolm, Roger and Stephane got wind of dead stock Wemblex in a warehouse in Portsmouth, Roger and Steph were down there in record time.

Unfortunately the shirts they got were very quickly co-opted by car washes and window cleaners as they were small sizes and a funny collared version. Later on in 1975 they got wind again that there were more Wemblex available; they got there to find a hip looking rock and roll expert who never stopped talking, with ginger hair and funny clothes, had taken them all to the pair's chagrin.

Roger Burton, wheeler dealer, archivist and super mod, and Stephane Raynor of Acme Attractions, one of London's hipper stores (Jeanette Lee and Don Letts worked there — nuff said), second only to Malcolm and his partner Vivienne Westwood's Let It Rock / Sex boutique down the World's End ends. Yes that was deliberate.

When Malcolm found the prototype of the first anarchy shirt painted by Vivienne down the back of a radiator, she thought he was going to be mad at her, but to her surprise he said it was brilliant — this is it! The bloody piece, you're a genius. Bugger Einstein. He's a moron in comparison. Now let's go sell some shirts. Lucky they had boxes of mint Wemblex on standby to paint, cos otherwise John Collier and Double 2 would just never have worked.

Sources for the story above: Mr. McLaren and Mr. Roger Burton — both heroes, both deceased.