Public Image Limited Back-Zip Shirt

"The Christian religion made them blind / They hide and pray to / The God of a bitch spelt backwards is dog" — the lyrics from "Religion I," the spoken-word denunciation that opened side two of Public Image Ltd's December 1978 debut, run hand-lettered across the back panel of this Mark Gray-painted zip-neck pullover, set into a peach-and-red painted field with a yellow cross at its center. The front carries four hand-drawn portraits arranged across quadrants: John Lydon at upper left marked "PiL IN CONTROL" and "The Victim of the Lies"; another band member in bowler hat and shades at upper right marked "Electric Dread"; a second Lydon portrait facing sideways at lower left marked "Cowboy Song" and "PiL Lowlife"; and the PiL logo at lower right marked "Religion Attack," with a green burst declaring "PiL are the FUTURE" at the composition's center. The back adds two more portraits captioned "I WILL SURVIVE!" and "I WISH I COULD DIE!" flanking the religion text. Gray painted every element by hand with a brush and fabric paint directly onto the base shirt — his standard method, since he never had access to a silkscreen. The zip-neck silhouette reads closer to stagewear than casual dress, and the range of song references (drawing from both First Issue and Metal Box, which was released in December 1979) places the shirt in the later stretch of Gray's PiL working period.

Gray began making shirts for the band in summer 1978 after one of the girls at Glitterbest, the Sex Pistols' management office, suggested he mail one of his pieces to Lydon at Gunter Grove. He produced approximately thirty PiL shirts over the next two years, primarily worn by Lydon and Keith Levene, with one appearing on the cover of the 1981 Flowers of Romance single. He was sixteen when he started, previously working with Vivienne Westwood at Seditionaries before collaborating with PiL. At the time, he was working directly out of Lydon's Chelsea flat during the height of PiL's most experimental years, watching the band record First Issue and Metal Box in real time.

The consignor acquired this shirt alongside its companion PiL piece in 1988 through a London flatmate, whose hospital porter friend — a former Vivienne Westwood model — had held both shirts and initially incorrectly sold them as Westwood pieces. This is one of a very small number of confirmed Mark Gray PiL shirts still in circulation.