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 The King's Road When is a street not just a street? When its name conjures up an age. The King's Road had it all — Twiggy , Mick Jagger, Terence Stamp and Michael Caine hung out there, and its shops and styles defined what TIME called "Swinging London." The King's Road is still the epicenter of trendiness, and this year's models are wearing '60s styles all over again. In its heyday, the King's Road and its impossibly hip surrounding neighborhood, Chelsea, were populated by the self-exiled trust-fund progeny of Mayfair and Belgravia. It was, TIME said, a place where "models and ad-agency execs can afford quaint private houses with black-painted doors and tidy flower boxes." The arty set established businesses to sell clothes, furniture and food. Today those "quaint" homes sell for over $2 million, boutiques like Top Gear and Countdown have been replaced by the Gap and Next, and restaurants like La Reve and Casserole have been pushed aside by Starbucks and McDonald's. It's easy to bemoan those changes, but they don't make the King's Road any less popular with young people today. The King’s Road is only the King’s Road if it is evolving. Make that, swinging
— Lauren Goldstein |
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Europe Then & Now, a TIME photographic exhibition based on this issue, opens Aug. 18, 2003, in the Olivier Exhibition Foyer of the National Theatre, London. |
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E-mail your letter to the editor
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London
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Twiggy
Actor, singer and fashion model
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Posted Sunday, August 10, 2003; 16.11BST
I go to the King's Road and I do see changes. There are shops I miss and new ones I'm glad to have. As a kid when we went to different towns, there would be different shops. And now they are all the same.
It must be very frustrating for young designers. The fun of shopping in the '60s was there were so many places that did unique things. My favorite shop, Granny Takes a Trip, was at World’s End of the King's Road. They did the most wonderful clothes. But one time I went away and when I came back, it was gone. I don’t know what happened.
The '60s opened the doors to the working classes. I came right out of left field. I was the first working-class model. I was part of the working-class revolution, though I didn't know it at the time. It was suddenly fashionable to be working class.
I enjoyed the '60s, but I am not as nostalgic as some. I worked hard — you can't just hang out and be successful — and it was great, but I enjoy my life and I'm much prouder of what I've done over the last 30 years — most recently, starring in a play and releasing my new CD.
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Time Capsule
In a decade dominated by youth, London has burst into bloom.
It swings; it is the scene. This spring, as never before in modern times, London is switched on. Ancient elegance and new opulence are all tangled up in a dazzling blur of op and pop. The city is alive with birds (girls) and beatles, buzzing with minicars and telly stars, pulsing with half a dozen separate veins of excitement. The guards now change at Buckingham Palace to a Lennon and McCartney tune, and Prince Charles is firmly in the longhair set. In Harold Wilson, Downing Street sports a Yorkshire accent, a working-class attitude and a tolerance toward the young that includes pop singer “Screaming” Lord Sutch, who ran against him on the Teen-Age Party ticket in the last election. Mary Quant, who designs those clothes, Vidal Sassoon, the man with the magic comb and the Rolling Stones, whose music is most In right now, reign as a new breed of royalty. Disks by the thousands spin in a widening orbit of discothèques, and elegant saloons have become gambling parlors. In a once sedate world of faded splendor, everything new, uninhibited and kinky is blooming at the top of London life.
— April 15, 1966
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