King’s Road

A street in London. This road is a perfect example of how London can change, while still remaining original and attractive. The name of this long urban street, which runs soutwest from Sloane Square, comes King Charles II, who had it built, according to the popular legend, to reach his lover Nell Gwynne more quickly (though more likely there was a shorter route through Hampton Court). The street remained closed to traffic until 1830, when it was opened to the public. The current fame of King’s Road dates back to the 1960s, when it became the stage for new trends. Swinging London exhibited new clothes and haircuts there, as well as new musical tastes and a degree of daring summed up by the miniskirt designed by Mary Quant. In the mid-1970s, Vivienne Westwood and her former boyfriend Malcom Mclaren opened the shop Sex (at number 430), where they prepared the advent of punk (the shop is still there: now it is called World’s End after the name of the surrounding area, and has a clock that runs backwards). Nowadays you can still find punks there with a sense for making money from the foreign tourists, from whom they ask a pound to be photographed. On Saturday afternoons in particular, it is easy to step into past fashions and trends, which makes King’s Road a place of extraordinary interest for the history of recent fashions. Although its economy is generated by shopping, the street has never given itself up to the vulgarity suffered by another icon of the 1960s: Carnaby Street. Nowadays King’s Road has shops, antiques and lots of coffeehouses, some outdoor, indicating the further Mediterranean transformation of London. For this reason the street remains popular with both habitués and occasional visitors. To distinguish the former from the latter it is sufficient to take note of a linguistic whim: only the locals use the article “the”: the King’s Road.