New York Times
May 4th, 2006

Mr. Rotten's Rocky Debut

EVERYTHING about John Lydon's oafish behavior at the Metropolitan Museum's preview gala for its "AngloMania" exhibition on Monday night suggested that Mr. Lydon, the former lead singer of the Sex Pistols known as Johnny Rotten, was itching for a good fight. Mr. Lydon, who is 50, wobbled around the edges of the party, responding to anyone who ventured an introduction with unpleasantness that bordered on the wrong side of rude.

"Johnny, how are you?" asked the artist Julian Schnabel.
"Oh, Julian Snob," Mr. Rotten sniffed.

Ta-ta. Mr. Rotten seemed alternately desperate for attention and disdainful of the many compliments that came his way. The "AngloMania" exhibition at the Costume Institute includes a generous display of Sex Pistols memorabilia, much of it from the late-1970's Seditionaries collections designed by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, with whom he has held a long-running feud.

Mr. Rotten said that every designer at the event had given him a nod or a wink. "Even Vivienne, as much as she wouldn't admit it," he said. "I'm Johnny Rotten, and nobody here knows me."

Mr. Rotten, however, has chosen this moment to brand himself a designer. Mr. Rotten, who now lives in Los Angeles, was wearing one of his own designs. It appeared to be mismatched pajamas with plaid bottoms, a Sex Pistols logo vest and a purple zip-front cardigan with the Union Jack on the back. Imagine Dries van Noten licensing a leisure-wear collection to Joe Boxer.

He has been developing samples for the collection on his own, he said, and has approached several retailers about selling them, without success. The design Mr. Rotten wore, and others bountifully covered with a Sex Pistols logo, as he described them, suggest an attempt to recapture a moment of glory that took place three decades ago. During the Met dinner, he offered the cardigan to Anna Wintour, who quickly handed it off to a museum officer.

"I can't get why no one wants to buy it," Mr. Rotten said.

Well, good luck with that.

Thank you very much, he said, but not in those exact words.