Imagine the punch of the New York Dolls’s studio debut against the bland backdrop of post-peace-and-love 1973: Sylvain Sylvain, David Johansen, Johnny Thunders, Arthur Kane, and Jerry Nolan, five streetwise kids from the outer boroughs in lip liner, scarves, and lamé, soft pack of Lucky Strikes and a can of Schlitz at their platformed feet. They weren’t either/or. They were and.
They just about broke my brain, even as a jaded, post-millennial preteen; for me, that record was and is rock nirvana. And lo, when I discovered some time back via social media that founding member Sylvain Sylvain was selling clothes of his own design, well—nirvana twofold. But more on that in a moment.
At once tough and preening, the New York Dolls bridged the androgyny of glam with what, in their wake, would become punk. While mainstream success in the States eluded the band, it would be impossible to overstate the extent of their influence, both musically and aesthetically. From their earliest days playing the Mercer Arts Center and storming the arty, Velvet Underground–dominated Max’s Kansas City, the Dolls were darlings of downtown style, tarted-up toughs in boas and heels. The U.K., already hungry for more of America’s earliest inklings of what would become punk, naturally ate them up. They played at Biba’s London flagship, and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were both supporters from the band’s earliest days; McLaren in particular found their raw power intoxicating and became their de facto champion. Their wardrobes were a mishmash of old and new, pieces culled from thrift shops, picked up at bastions of counterculture like Granny Takes a Trip and Jumping Jack Flash, or borrowed from their many girlfriends.
Central to that singular flair was Sylvain Sylvain, founding member, songwriter, guitarist, and a man for whom clothing is second nature. Born Sylvain Mizrahi in Cairo, he grew up handy with a needle and thread in a family that took to tailoring out of pragmatic necessity. After fleeing Egypt in the face of anti-Semitism, and a brief stint in Paris, the Mizrahis landed in New York City. At his Queens school, Sylvain met Billy Murcia, who would become his close friend and the Dolls’s first drummer until his untimely death while on tour in 1972. The pair founded Truth and Soul, a knitwear brand seen through the lens of the Summer of Love; the line would be sold in trendy shops like Paraphernalia and Betsey Johnson’s Betsey Bunky Nini. As the New York Dolls’s profile rose, Truth and Soul fell by the wayside. But Sylvain, recently decamped to Nashville, Tennessee, and prolific as ever, never stopped making clothes.
Now he’s reviving Truth and Soul, turning out the hats that are his signature in leather and leopard print, among other styles. “I gotta make something every day, whatever it is,” Sylvain says, “whether it’s making clothes or putting out songs.” One look at pieces like his razor-sharp motorcycle jackets—after a pattern from the ’50s and crafted from supple rawhide with a blood red bridal satin lining—and the personal quality is immediately apparent. Gorgeous made-to-order garments live on the same creative continuum as any of the Dolls’s iconic songs that Sylvain is behind, from “Trash” to “Frankenstein.” Or as Sylvain puts it: “It’s all rock ’n’ roll.”
Recently, I caught up with Sylvain by phone from Nashville. Below, in his words, the intertwining stories of the Dolls and Truth and Soul, from Egypt to Queens, from Woodstock to Max’s Kansas City—with plenty of lamé along the way.
Growing up around “a lot” of clothes:
“I was born in the early ’50s, and being the ethnic Jews that we were, my father was denied work. I remember at a very young age seeing my uncle Victor and my father take over the living room in our penthouse in Cairo. They took it on themselves to [learn] how to cut and sew shirts. And I learned right along with them. My mother would sew on the Singer sewing machine that was hand-cranked, and I would turn the crank! I was 6 years old and I knew how to put on buttons already. I think that served me my whole life—you gotta be pragmatic [with] whatever you have.”
How he met future bandmate and codesigner Billy Murcia:
“It was junior high school in Queens. His older brother came up to me and goes, ‘Who do you think you are, man? You’re gonna fight my brother at 3:00, man! See you outside!’ And then it’s Billy, and I said, ‘Oh, man, I know this kid.’ He was an immigrant just like I was. So we kind of had a little spit shine, punky thing, kicking up a lot of dust. We basically put our hands together and walked home, and we became best friends after that. We did everything together.”
On forming a garage band in an actual garage:
“[Billy and I] got our first guitars and our first snare drums. And then we started rockin’ and rollin’, practicing in the garage of the building where I lived.”
The birth of Truth and Soul, circa 1968:
“We had our first shop in Woodstock at #2 Tinker Street on the main drag there. We were upstairs, and we went as far as the Woodstock festival, and we closed shop and we moved back down to New York, where we lived anyway. In ’68 and ’69, we used to sell on 53rd Street at Betsey Bunky Nini. Betsey Johnson went nuts for our stuff.”
On the brand’s bohemian knits:
“Me and Billy were true, true hippies—love and not war—but we were still entertainers and we were still pragmatic. What are you going to make out of nothing, basically. We’d found this guy, and he would buy closeout [yarns] from factories when they finished their production, and we’d go down there and pick out this one and this one and this one. We needed three plies to make one thickness to make the sweater, and a lot of times we didn’t have all black. So we’d have pink, purple, and black and put them all together—bam. It came out like salt and pepper.”
A chance meeting with Malcolm McLaren:
“Back then, they used to have the trade shows, called boutique shows, which were held in hotels. This particular one was at the McAlpin Hotel on 34th Street. All the companies would have rooms, and the buyers would be going up and down the hallways. Truth and Soul had a room there, and at the very end of the whole hallway, there was this kind of rockabilly shop. That was Let It Rock, and there was this cool guy hanging out, kind of looking like Jerry Lee Lewis, with a baby blue rockabilly blazer and black velvet collar and his winklepickers and these long sideburns. He said, ‘Hey, mate! Come on in here, man, you’re cool!’ And he turns out to be Malcolm McLaren.
“I said, ‘Hey, man, my band the Dolls are playing downtown—come and check us out.’ It started just like that. [Malcolm and Vivienne Westwood’s] love for the Dolls, and their influence went into that and we started inventing places to play, like Max’s Kansas City, which really didn’t belong to us at all. That belonged to the Velvet Underground, and they weren’t dressing up—they were for real, if you understand my drift!”
Enter the lamé:
“I never saw [the Dolls’s] look as dressing feminine. Like the stretch lamé pants came from [scene fixture] Cyrinda Foxe. She had this gold lamé capri with a zipper in the back, a Marilyn Monroe kind of thing. We used to trade like crazy. I would wind up on top with any trade, from Johnny Thunders to anybody. I took those pants, and I took them apart.”
Getting dressed with the New York Dolls:
“In the Dolls, it was really a little bit like The Little Rascals:
‘Hey, man, we’re bored! What the fuck are we going to do?’
‘Well, let’s put on a show! What do you got?’
‘My mother’s got these weird lamé pants.’
‘My older brother left this old motorcycle jacket that’s been in the closet.’
‘Where are you going to get the makeup?’
‘My girlfriend’s bag! She shops at Biba in London every other day.’
“Once we got started and once we got going, we became the darlings of it all.”
How the band’s seminal glam-punk look was born . . .
“We never had that roundtable meeting—‘you’re gonna wear this and you’re gonna wear that.’ Johnny, man, forget it. He was a natural. In school, forget it. He had his ways of making money and getting his clothes. Of course we were crazy about T. Rex and Marc Bolan. One day we saw [Bolan] wearing these gray suede Mary Janes, and the next day I see Johnny and he’s got a pair almost like them! These guys had natural stuff, and New York and the times and the lack of funds but no lack of creativity—just putting that all together. There was a Salvation Army, I think Johnny discovered it, [around] 10th Avenue. When you walked between the clothes, the floor would squeak, and that’s where he got that black leather jacket that he’s wearing on the BBC when we’re doing ‘Jet Boy.’ ”
. . . And the reactions it got on the New York City streets:
“You took your life in your hands just walking to the gig. One day me and Arthur decided to go to the supermarket from our loft at 119 Chrystie Street. It would take you hours to get dressed just to go down to the supermarket! [laughs] ‘What are you going to wear, Arthur?’ Finally, we’re all in zebra and leopard and everything mixed together like peasants, but with glitter and platforms and makeup. Anyway, here we are at the supermarket, we got our chicken that we’re going to roast, and we’re standing at the checkout counter, at the Big Apple supermarket near Little Italy today. Meanwhile, I hear a couple of Mafioso-looking cats behind us. They’re looking, and one yelled out to the other guy, ‘Man, the things you see when you ain’t got a rifle.’ ”
On getting shut down by Lou Reed:
“They certainly didn’t open up their arms for us at Max’s Kansas City when the Dolls played there, because that was like the Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol territory, basically. They were really drag queens and we weren’t. We were just kind of playing around! Lou Reed actually had us canceled. In 1972, we went on tour in England and we became superstars there overnight. We had a few dates with Lou Reed to open up for him. We went up to Liverpool, to some kind of boxing arena. And when we got there he just canceled us, because he knew us from New York and he didn’t really appreciate us. Things were different when we came back to New York. We’d sell out Max’s two shows a night, six days in a row.”
A legacy outside the mainstream:
“Our records didn’t have commercial success. Of course—America was not going to accept the New York Dolls! We found commercial success in England and in France, all over Europe. In the U.S. they’re listening to stadium rock and opera rock. If it doesn’t drive you nuts, crazy, want to dance naked—forget it, it doesn’t do it!”
For more information on Truth and Soul or to place an order, email newyorkdollsfanclub@gmail.com, or visit the brand’s Facebook page.