Maison de Bang Bang sits down the road from a giant Screwfix, and next door to Edible London, a food poverty non-profit, in Tottenham. Downstairs, piles of T-shirts are being sorted to post out to customers. Upstairs in the light filled studio hang giant billowing textiles and (faux) Chanel-branded catwalk pieces, a mannequin adorned with a part-dress, part-weighty armour made from silver whistles, “the whistleblower”; shelves groan with books, from JG Ballard to Martin Margiela; rails packed with colourful, ebullient fashion show looks.
In the corner, with a strip of cardboard covered in notes as his to-do list, is its proprietor, Jon Wright, 38, AKA Jonny Sportsbanger. Sportsbanger isn’t really one thing or another. It’s a fashion label, provocative art project, host of raves, and music label (Heras, named after the security fence firm often found at festivals, a play on opening the gates for all). For 10 years, Wright has toyed with, bootlegged and mimicked popular culture as much as he has ended up defining it, flirting with respectability, carving out a social purpose and expertly antagonising the powers that be.
“I like to think it’s not a brand, a non brand brand,” laughs the affable Wright, talking about the 10 years of Sportsbanger which are punkishly documented in his new book. The tome is among the paraphernalia on his desk, underneath a scarf he’s designed for the ICA, sales of which will go towards future exhibitions and learning programmes. He’s also in conversation with a major London store to be his first stockist. “We told them we want to be the cheapest thing in there to which they responded, ‘We’ve never heard that’.”
The book, the process of which he describes quite torturously yet with immense pride now it’s done, charts everything from his brilliantly sharp bootlegs — from Ralph Lauren and Hilfiger spoofs to Team Nigella, and EastEnders’ Pam St Clement’s face on the back of a T-shirt — to his fashion shows and the cease and desist letters he received from the Government for printing the NHS logo combined with the Nike tick, alongside interviews and essays with figures from the Sportsbanger world, including Jeremy Deller and Jaime Winstone.
“I’m massively proud of that T-shirt and what it did,” says Wright of that NHS “under the counter” T-shirt first issued in 2015 which raised funds for the BMA strike fund and RCN foundation. “Years later, and after the pandemic, you think things are gonna change but it really hasn’t. It was good to get a load of people talking about it.” It is personal too. “It is a connection to my mum,” he explains. “Rather than just a few old photos, there’s a purpose.” On reflecting through his work, he found the threads which connect it all together. “I realised I was telling my life through T-shirts. The bootlegging and the raving, the NHS, it’s basically just been therapy.”
Born in Colchester, Wright’s parents divorced when he was four. His mother, a mental health nurse, died from leukaemia when he was 15. Around 10, he was “coming to mad warehouses with my dad, to get a load of hookie-gear from Whitechapel. Bootlegs. He used to sell those at a market, and then his mate had a store in Farnborough and the whole warehouse was just knock- offs. I didn’t realise what we were doing at the time, it was only when his mate went to prison years later I realised it was all fakes from Portugal.”
After school he started a HND in music production in Eastbourne. “That was my higher education. But the reason I did that was just get out of Colchester, even though it’s 45 minutes away [from London], it’s f*****g hard to get out of. I think it was voted the most miserable place to live in a poll recently. Although it’s close, it’s quite removed.” He moved to London, getting his first job in a music distribution warehouse in Bermondsey. He was working at Vibe bar in Brick Lane when inspiration for his first bootleg (Free Tulisa) struck. His work has always had a substance to it. The T-shirts — from “Fuck Boris” to “Solidarity With Striking Workers” — are there for intent.
In the pandemic T-shirt sales funded supplying daily food deliveries across London. He also set up a food bank for a local school. Then there were the Covid letters. He suggested to his followers that they deface or draw on the stay-at-home letter delivered to each house from the Government. The idea snowballed, and he had hundreds of kids sending their artwork. In return he sent out pirate-bootleg (black) Blue Peter badges and certificates. “It formed part of their homeschooling. Parents were saying thank you so much, we haven’t been able to talk to our child about what’s going on about the NHS, about welfare, about lockdown. The act of defacing this letter has been something they enjoyed and we got to speak about it.” The project was later exhibited at the Foundling Museum, and documented in his first book.
If spotted, fans shout “Banger” at him. “I’ve had stories from people that I know in some far-flung country. They’ve seen someone in a T-shirt. They spend the night together, had the best time ever and now they’re friends. It brings people together from different worlds. It’s not it’s not bloke-sy [or] lads-y, it’s not skater-y. It’s got a bit of attitude, but it’s not toxic. People from five-year-olds to 85-year-olds are wearing our stuff. There’s a common theme — a bit like duty of care, which comes from the rave. The “PLUR”, peace, love, unity and respect, which is a bit of a cliché. It’s like going to a smoking area: “You alright, mate?” That doesn’t stop when you’re not in a rave.”
The book captures the rage and frustration anyone engaged in politics, or perhaps just from life in this country, has felt over the past decade. The Sportsbanger story is punctuated with the doctors’, teacher and train strikes, the pandemic, and, of course, the Tories. “It’s 10 years [documenting] the steady decline of a country. I don’t know where the opposition is in any of this. I don’t know who’s offering any sort of alternative... or future for essentially a generation that’s been ripped apart,” offers Wright. “The opportunities aren’t there. I don’t think we’re going to feel the brunt of it for a while.”
His rent has just gone up £100, the studio bills rising, too. A well-timed Barbie bootleg, “Banger” in hot pink script, was this summer’s saviour. “We hadn’t done a really good bootleg for a while. It just flew. We were so thankful because we were really in the trenches at that point.” Although he’s created a cult appeal, Sportsbanger is contrary to any arch exclusivity which other labels revel in. After switching to an organic cotton for the T-shirts he agonised over a £5 price rise.
Fans eventually congratulated him for putting up the prices to cover his costs. “People want to be involved in something, [there’s] that hype thing of have you got enough money and are you cool enough? We like to do things with a bit of joy. It’s not po-faced. Anyone can have this. You don’t have to queue up for it. The only thing you should ever queue for is a rave.”
He happily exists on the fashion industry sidelines, describing the T-shirts as “singles”, the fashion shows as “albums”. “We would have done [a show] this year. We just didn’t have any money. We’ve never gone through that route of being on any [official] schedule. [The British Fashion Council] did [ask] once, and I said no. I’ve seen a lot of people go through that system and are gone. There’s a rug that gets pulled out. I’m very happy that we’ve operated on the fringes. Ten years, cool, we’re still here. And it’s only getting more exciting.”
What next? “The big plan is Bangtasia,” he smiles. “That is a dream, and a combination of everything we’ve done.”
