From the Sex Pistols to the Soho club scene, we unpick the iconoclastic London figure’s anarchic legacy
Junya Watanabe turned out a medley of punkish staples this weekend as part of his AW21 collection – an already chaotic concept, which the Japanese designer took even further by diffusing pieces with his trademark splices, patchworking, and hybridisation. Nylon bombers collapsed into dresses, silk scarves extended from grotty t-shirts, and denim was splayed into pleated skirting, forging a line-up of looks that rebelled against categorisation altogether.
It was a pugnacious offering indebted to the iconoclastic characters seen on the frontline of the punk movement of the 70s and beyond, but it was the beauty department that turned out the most palpable referencing of all. With models making their way down the catwalk with severely cropped cuts and formidable finned-out hair, many of Watanabe’s new season troupe embodied Soo Catwoman – who, in the mid-1970s, became the legendary face of subterranean London punk.
Although Watanabe was born and bred in Japan, he’s a proven Anglophile. His first collection was made from ripped-up sofa fabric, old curtains, and men’s tweed coats that he’d found at flea markets on a trip to London, and it’s not the first time he’s seemingly referenced Catwoman, either. As part of his AW17 show, a string of models stomped down the runway in leather, tartan, and warped Union Jacks that twisted around their bodies, clompy creepers and hefty Doc Martens on their feet. Catwoman’s influence was evident throughout, in his cast’s heavily daubed make-up and technicolour hair.
Soo Catwoman’s scene days may have been short-lived – she informally left punk in 1978 to become a mother of two and now lives in Twickenham, where she prefers to spend her days “watching a movie and ordering pizzas” – but her image still looms large in the memory of punk and British subculture. From the Sex Pistols to the Soho club scene, we take a brief look at her anarchic impact below.
SHE WAS PUNK, BEFORE PUNK WENT MAINSTREAM
Having experimented with a pointed, pink-striped fringe in 1972, Soo Catwoman began to slick up the sides of her hair in homage to the Bride of Frankenstein. Then, in 1976, fed up with having to style her hair every morning, she walked into a barbershop in Ealing and demanded that he shave the middle of her head – and so, her iconic cat-eared skinhead was born.
Thanks to her outré look, Soo (never Sue) was approached at the age of 21 to join Club Louise, a Soho nightclub. There, she found herself at the epicentre of London’s burgeoning punk scene, brushing shoulders with Sid Vicious and John Lydon of The Sex Pistols and became the muse of cult photographer, Bob Gruen.
"Way back in 1976 I found myself in the middle of a scene that became known as 'punk' (I never liked the label that much personally, but that’s another story). They were a crowd of people who hung out at the same places and looked rather different to the norm of the time,” she says in a Myspace post. “It took style, skill, and bravery to look like a cat,” said Sex Pistols frontman Lydon in punk documentary The Filth and The Fury.
SHE SHARED A FLAT WITH SID VICIOUS
Soo is often mistakenly referred to as part of the Bromley Collective (a ferocious group of Sex Pistols fans including Debbie Juvenile, Siouxsie Sioux, and Simon Barker). In reality, she lived in a flatshare with the band’s lead, Sid Vicious, so was only tangentially connected to the collective that’s considered key to the curation of the punk aesthetic.
Reflecting on the look on Myspace, Soo notes how “it still seems strange to (her) that what happened back then could bring about so many changes in hair, music, and fashion. It seems quite funny that what started out as anti-fashion became a fashion in itself. I’m sure for many people around at the time, none of them (despite their claims) could have known the impact the whole thing would have, and still be having so many years on.”
A 70s COVERGIRL
From Society Today, to Anarchy in the UK, to various Invaders EPs, Soo became the official face of punk. Lensed by Gruen, Ian Dickinson, and Ray Stevenson, her face was printed on t-shirts, posters, and flyers – and it soon got picked up by the press, who used Soo as the example of anarchic youth.
Soo’s daughter, Dion October, notes that Soo’s iconic image “endures when others have fallen away, because it comes from the heart. Her rebellion was not one of anarchy, violence or profanity, hers was a silent, visual statement of personal freedom and individual expression”.
AN UNWITTING FASHION MUSE
From Chanel, to Obey, to Mugler, the fashion industry has rolled out various incarnations of Soo Catwoman over the years. It’s testament, of course, to Soo’s iconic image but it’s not always been welcomed by the punk legend herself. “It seems that my face and image, my ‘art’ as some have called it, has been hijacked. I think it would have been polite to be consulted but I am aware that not everyone has manners and consideration” she said in a 2009 interview.
SOON TO BE PLAYED BY IRIS LAW
Iris Law has been cast to play Soo Catwoman in Danny Boyle’s upcoming drama based on the Sex Pistols. Hopefully Boyle does a better job at portraying Soo than Malcom MacLaren did in The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, in which a 14-year-old actor stars naked (with underwear digitally rendered in post-production) in the role of Soo. October says that the film, understandably, “has caused myself and my family a lot of grief over the years”.