When he left school McLaren studied at St Martin’s School of Art and Croydon College of Art (where he met Jamie Reid), and became interested in the European radical art movement the Situationists. As a student, he was arrested for attempting to set light to an American flag outside the US embassy during a demonstration against the Vietnam War. 

In October 1971, McLaren took over part of a retail premises in King’s Road, Chelsea which began by selling records and refashioned end-of-line clothing with his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood. Some of their clothing appeared in The Rocky Horror Show and three years later they renamed the outlet SEX to reflect a growing preoccupation with fetish wear.

In 1975 he briefly went to America to become the manager of the pre-Punk band The New York Dolls organising their tours before they broke up soon after. Given this experience he helped set up a new band with SEX customers Paul Cook and Steve Jones and his shop assistant Glen Matlock. Another customer, John Lydon, was recruited and dubbed Jonny Rotten. They called the band the Sex Pistols and in 1977 McClaren replaced Matlock with Sid Vicious and released their first album. Later he was accused of mismanagement and refusing to pay band members. In the court case the group won and were awarded the rights to the band name, artwork and master tapes.

His relationship with Westwood ended in 1980 and in 1983 he collaborated with Trevor Horn producing Duck Rock an album which mixed up influences from Africa and the Americas, including hip hop. He continued to manage bands, write and perform, mostly in the USA, but ended up in court again after blatantly plagiarising songs from African artists without giving them royalty payments. It was settled out of court.

In 1984, McLaren turned away from music in favour of theatrical and film production and latterly began making visual art again. He lived in Paris and New York and eventually died in hospital in Switzerland in 2010. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery in a coffin sprayed with the slogan “Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die”, to the strains of the Sid Vicious version of My Way.

See the 12 Minutes of footage of the infamous Pistols boat trip down the Thames in June 1977 with McLaren stirring it up, during the Queens Silver Jubilee here. And check out all the artwork by Jamie Reid for the Sex Pistols here.