Malcolm Garrett/ Reproduction

I don't think it's my age - after all, I was only 22 when I bought my first CD - but there was always something more engrossing about a vinyl album sleeve. Maybe a question of scale? I don't know. There was just something about the old album sleeves that would have me poring over them for hours, taking in who played what and where it was recorded and even who did the artwork.

And there were a number of albums I owned where the artwork was by "assorted iMaGes", notably Simple Minds' 'Sons and Fascination'/'Sister Feelings Call'*. It was a long time later that I realised the odd capitalisation was due to the work being done by Malcolm Garrett.

These days - many, many years later - I follow his @beingmalcolmgarrett Instagram account and also picked up on the account for his exhibition in Manchester, @collectingmalcolmgarrett, which I've been aching to get along to, and, today, finally, I did**. And, happily, the Minx came with me.

If you are of a certain age - old enough to remember 'Joe 90', perhaps, or a fan of Vivienne Westwood - then this exhibition would certainly appeal to you: old TV21 stories on vinyl, all the James Bond paperbacks, punk clothes, and various action figures. (The Minx actually went out a few times in a borrowed VW bodice just like one of the items in the exhibition.)

And, most breathtaking for me, the actual shoes used for the cover of The Human League's 'Reproduction'. Blimey, the hours I spent staring at that album cover (and that of its successor, 'Travelogue'). The *actual* shoes.

I wish there had been more of MG's album and single covers there, in fact. I'd definitely go to a collection of those. There were a few; Duran Duran's 'A View To A Kill', next to the James Bond books, and also a couple to show the lineage from Kraftwerk's 'Autobahn' and 'Ralf Und Florian'. 

If you're in Manchester, it's an absorbing half-hour, although I wish there was more. And I also wish I could talk to the younger me and tell him that one day there would only be a pane of glass between me and those shoes. 

*Just writing these titles gives me a small thrill.

** I'm sorry about me and commas.

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-13.9 kgs
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Reading: 'Rivers of London'