In October 1971, Malcolm McLaren and a friend from art school, Patrick Casey, opened a stall in the back of what was then the Paradise Garage boutique at 430 King's Road[3] in London's Chelsea district.

[6] Features of garments retailed under Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die included chains, leather, and sleeveless t-shirts adorned with provocative statements,[5] reflecting Westwood's politically-informed design inspirations.

With the boutique’s name paying homage to James Dean, the signage featured a black background with white lettering spelling out the shop’s new name around a large skull and crossbones, a new era of youth subculture was echoed.

Other notable patrons included occasional assistant Chrissie Hynde,[15] Adam Ant, Marco Pirroni, Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin and the rest of the Bromley Contingent.

The store's designs confronted social and sexual taboos, and included T-shirts bearing images of the Cambridge Rapist's face hood,[16] semi-naked cowboys[8] from a 1969 illustration by the US artist Jim French,[17] trompe-l'œil bare breasts[18] by Rhode Island School of Design students Janusz and Laura Gottwald in the late 1960s,[17] and pornographic texts from the book School for Wives ("I groaned with pain...in a soft corrosion")[19][20][21] by the beat author Alexander Trocchi.

[35] As Seditionaries: Clothes for Heroes, the boutique adopted brutalist interior and exterior styling: large murals depicting imagery of bomb damage, harshly bright lighting, and cavities perforating the ceiling created by McLaren,[7] surrounded Westwood's innovative garments now considered punk signatures.

The building was designed by McLaren and Westwood and realised by Roger Burton, aided by Jeremy Blackburn and Tony Devers, to resemble a mixture of the Olde Curiosity Shoppe and an 18th-century galleon.