Revolution on Carnaby Street

"You'll pay for the gear on display to appear on the scene... It's no good being mean... They'll have your every bean." - Smashing Time, "Carnaby Street"


The 40's was a pretty grim time for Britain. With the war coming to an end, people found that the standards they had once known had been torn down. Rationing continued into the 50's. The public soldiered on, rebuilding the damage the war had brought. Everything was destroyed, and anything was possible. 


The post-war baby boom gave birth to a new generation of young people. When rationing did eventually end in 1954, the market became bountiful again with imported clothes from America. During this time, the rock and roll wave had already hit, welcoming Elvis Presley, Bill Haley & His Comets, and Jerry Lee Lewis to the British soundwaves. It was strange to the young people at the time to experience clothes that fitted properly and didn't itch, and they welcomed the new music.


The fashion at that time for young people was much like that of their parents. While women enjoyed some freedom in their colour palette, men almost always wore a black or gray suit, white shirt and dark shoes. Even a small deviation from this was unacceptable - a black shirt meant you were a ne'er do well, a pink shirt meant you were a homosexual. The attitudes at the time were still as monotone as the uniform.


Britian would have to find it's own image. In 1956, a British skiffle and rock n' roll group called "The Quarrymen" were formed, which in 1960 would eventually evolve into the Beatles. They did not identify at first as a pop group, but as "bohemian," a style that was complemented by art schools, coffee houses and jazz clubs. A small subset developed within this "scene," and new, slightly more casual fashions began to emerge. An underground movement had already set something in motion, a "peacock generation" was beginning to emerge as trends could deviate from the norm more and more.


As the modernist subculture was becoming more prevalent, young people became increasingly interested in fashion. Italian suits and R&B bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Kinks seemed to go well together. It wasn't long until this idea was sold to the masses, as new boutiques where you could buy clothes off the shelf emerged on a small street in the soho district - Carnaby street. Many young people saw this as "giving two fingers to the establishment." They were selling an image, and a revolution was set in motion.


The Marquee club in London was the epicentre for this evolution. Liberation came in waves, the pill became available for women, meaning increased independence, and the twist became a popular dance craze. It became more acceptable to go out dancing and showing off, for men and women, and clothes were increasingly important. The song "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" by the Kinks was all about the modernist subculture and the change in attitude in young people towards clothes.


Carnaby street became truly popular when musicians began going there for their clothes, after Time magazine coined the term "swinging London" in 1966. People would flock to this small street, not just to shop, but for an experience. It became a past time simply to absorb the atmosphere, crowds would arrive just to catch a glimpse of bands such as "The Walker Brothers" outfitting themselves in the latest trends from shops such as "Lord John" and "Lady Jane," who manufactured every garment themselves to supply demand. The fashion followed the music trends and the whims of the musicians, and it wasn't unusual for a trend to only last around 2 weeks at a time, but this hardly mattered, since this generation of teens and young adults were the most affluent for many years. Robert Orbach, owner of one of the most successful Carnaby street boutiques, "I was Lord Kichner's Valet," described it as "Turning on a tap, but instead of water it was money."


What the Beatles were wearing, the people wanted. When they got out of their suits the flower power movement truly started. Fashions became wilder and wilder, long red jackets based on military uniform, complete with medals and good metrit stripes began to be manufactured and sold. In one of Jimi Hendrix's most famous portraits he is seen wearing one bought from Carnaby Street. The scene was insatiable, and there seemed to be no glass ceiling. TV, magazines and the press all perpetuated the image of swinging London, and it seemed less like a subculture and more like mainstream culture at times. 


Meanwhile, Carnaby street became more and more outrageous. Money was pouring in, and shops would attempt more and more shocking publicity stunts to excite the crowds outside, and hopefully encourage them to spend even more. Nearly nude models danced and changed in the windows, bands would play in the streets, to the point that traffic couldn't move up and down smoothly because of the sheer volume of people. 
It wasn't long before Carnaby, bursting at the seams with enterprise, moved to America, as the proprietors of the most affluent shops in London attempted to replicate the phenomenon in New York, exporting the fashions that Britian was going crazy for. This was the height of Carnaby streets popularity, and the many subcultures that were born here were contending for what would be popular, and what would the public be buying next.


"What goes up must come down," laments Henry Moss, owner of "Pussy Galore" and "Lady Jane" in the documentary "Carnaby Street Undressed," which chronicles the rise and fall of the titular street, it's subcultures, fashions and music. It is certainly possible for something to become "too big," and collapse under it's own weight. I will be discussing what ended Carnaby street's reign as the most fashionable place in Britian in my next post.