LONDON—Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren is helping the Metropolitan Police investigate a fake punk clothing scandal, the Times (London) reports. McLaren and his then partner Vivienne Westwood made trademark punk outfits — Sex and Seditionaries clothes — by hand in the mid-1970s, many of which fell apart after a few wearings, McLaren says. Artist Damien Hirst recently approached him after spending more than £80,000 ($158,900) on supposedly authentic clothes from the era, but McLaren identified them as fakes.

"[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," he said. The artist is prohibited to talk about the situation by court order, but McLaren says Hirst approached him after a number of young fashion students who had been making copies of the punk clothes told Hirst that he might have been sold copies rather than originals. McLaren thinks a major auction house and MoMA may have been sold fake pieces as well.