Damien Hirst in punk swindle

An attempt by Damien Hirst to acquire a slice of punk rock history has ended with him being seriously ripped off. Some time ago, the artist, a life-long fan of the Sex Pistols, paid £80,000 for a large collection of Vivienne Westwood designed T-shirts (pictured) which he believed dated back to the late 1970s when the iconic fashion designer sold her wares from a small boutique at the end of the King's Road called Sex and then later Seditionaries. Hirst has now discovered that they are fakes.

But help is at hand from Westwood’s King’s Road partner, Malcolm McLaren, the one-time Sex Pistols manager. McLaren believes others, including a major auction house and the New York Museum of Modern Art, may also have been duped. He tells the Times that he is now working with the Metropolitan Police to bring the counterfeiters to justice. "[Hirst had] bags and bags, big black bags, of them. Clearly they weren’t the fabrics we used 35 years ago and the stitching was different."

McLaren, 62, says that Hirst came to him after some young fashion students told him he might have been sold copies instead of the real thing. Hirst says he is bound by a court order not to talk about the situation, but McLaren, clearly relishing the whole business, adds: "A number of people have come forward to confess that they made them."