“In England in the early 1980s there was a lot of interest in the Vietnam war which had been heightened by ‘Apocalypse Now’ and was typified by The Clash ‘Combat Rock’ album and the “look” they had… wearing “tiger stripe” specialist cammo.
I also used to work part time in a shop selling military memorabilia including a lot of that stuff so kind of got fascinated by it all... plus it looked so cool... I mean nobody was cooler looking than The Clash and I should know having supported them quite a bit when I was in Theatre of Hate.
At that time I picked up this British 1960’s helicopter pilot flight jacket which was the same as the one worn by Kirk Brandon (from TOH) that can be seen it lots of their photo shoots.
I was still obsessed with that look a couple of years later and even wore this jacket in the first Death Cult photo shoot with Ian which we actually did outside the Vietnamese Embassy in London!”
Billy - September 2019
This is featured in
THE BILLY DUFFY COLLECTION
Auction on 25th October 2019