Kensington Market as a location of punk and alternative clothing really came into being post mid-1979 as a number of stalls moved when Beaufort Market closed Kensington Market and it was an obvious next stop. Later it would be Camden and the Electric Ballroom and Stables.
The location itself was a prettyrun-down, three story ex-department store at 49-53 High Street Kensington.
1979 was a changing time for punk fashion. McLaren & Westwood, who had made a staggering amount of revolutionary and innovative street couture were exiting punk. Punk itself was becoming harder and faster and fragmenting into multiple variations – hardcore, anarcho etc and the fashions the same. What was odd though was demand hadn’t abated for the Westwood designs or zipped trousers and jackets probably mostly driven by the influx of tourists so BOY took over production of those designs and sold them (and had a unit in Kensington Market) and other companies like Artificial Eye set up and produced similar and copied designs plus ones of their own.
Inside Kensington Market – date and photo credit unknown
Prior to this, its fame seemed to be that Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor originally had a stall there and there was a pervading sense of hippy throwbacks. But the constant there from 1968 attracting lots of members of bands through various name changes was the famous Johnson & Johnson outlet which was rooted in rock n roll, vintage and retro clothing. They would launch around 1979 a new label creating a whole range of rock n roll clothes called La Rocka!
By the time I (Punk77) went there around 1983 as a goth, it had changed into a subculture multiverse along with up and coming designers sewing the next big fashion trend.
Below is lifted from one of those sites created at some place in time and floating on the internet like a webpage Marie Celeste by someone called Dave. It was obviously written as the market was under threat. Sadly like so many places, Kensington Market is long gone and Camden Market redeveloped into a behemoth but at least is still vibrant and alive.
I hope this gives Dave’s article a new lease of life.
I first became involved in Kensington Market at the end of the Seventies. When Beaufort Market, the melting pot for a myriad of Punk designers closed, it marked the end of the Punk party in King’s Road. At the time, Kensington Market was in decline. Many of the stalls were empty and the place stunk of patchouli. Consequently, stalls were empty and rents were cheap; the designer posse of King’s Road relocated to Kensington Market and rebirth took place.
For the following 15 years, Kensington Market was at the forefront of every British fashion style movement – many would claim that some of those self-same movements were born out of Kensington Market and the clubs, bands and parties that were the nighttime continuation of the daytime Market. Kensington Market was always slightly seedy and “ramshackle”; sometimes, it could even be downright dangerous, however, the designers’ personalities, would-be stars and dispossessed and disenfranchised that the small building attracted, captured the imagination of the entire world.
Dave Throughout the 80’s, people from all over the world came to Kensington Market for a spirit and a Zeitgeist that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Why?
If you were a designer just out of college or just a kid with an idea that wanted to give it a try, Kensington Market was the place. You didn’t need a shop lease or bags of money – if you could scrape together one month’s rent you were there and in the game and in the centre of London, open 6 days a week. If Kensington Market closes this will be our single greatest loss.
The opportunity for people “to give it a go” and run with their dreams will be gone. If this sounds corny then don’t read on – I don’t care. I was there and I saw it. It would be easy for me to say (like many of the people interviewed in the Evening Standard) that Kensington Market has had its day, but that would be a lie.If fashion or music changes and I don’t like it, it doesn’t make it any relevant.
British Youth Culture doesn’t have to die with the end of my own youth. I still remember dancing to Tamla Mowtown with 400 skinheads; I still remember the excitement when Bob Marley came to my town and I still remember saving my pocket money to buy a shirt like David Bowie, which I had to change into, after I had left the house, which I thought I looked great in.
For this reason and for all the kids from across the world that came to Kensington Market pursuing the same freedoms, I hope the Market stays open.
Above left Martin Degville was a clothes designer and had his own shop in Kensington Market with a girl called Yana called YAYA. Tony James, Magenta Devine and Neal X would come in on a Saturday to buy clothes and hang out and casually mentioned they were looking for a singer for their band that would become Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Yana would become one of the band’s ultra vixens.
When I go to Paris or New York or in fact any foreign city, I go there to experience diversity of culture and people. I make no secret of my contempt for the corporate Americanisation (globalisation) which confronts me. I don’t want to see people in logoed sportswear in McDonalds/Burger King/Gap/Tower Records etc, drinking Coca-Cola. Does Kensington High Street really need another shopping development to make it indistinguishable from every other High Street? Just maybe we could live without it. The developers cite the upgrading of their portfolio as the reason for the redevelopment.
On behalf of British Youth Culture, Kensington Market and all the ghosts who walked there – fuck you very much.
This is a list of the fashion names that started/traded in Kensington Market; apologies for any that I have forgotten.
Johnsons, Red or Dead, Sign of the Times, Boy, Rachel Auburn, Artificial Eye, UK Today, Spirit, Western Styling, Ad Hoc, Pure Sex, European Sun, Redneck, Caroline Walker, Wilde Ones, Strip, Classic Clothing, Thunder Pussey, Squat-rock, Kim West, The Regal, Sweet Charity, Alphabet, Exotique, Rancho Deluxe, Outlaw, Hollow Hills, Fetich or Die, Ya-Ya, Rock Lobster, Children of Vision, Xtremes, PW Forte, Flying Records, John Crancher, Review, Red Balls on Fire, Sex & Glamour, XXX, Wendy’s, Flying down to Rio, Planet Alice, Rock-a-cha, LA 1, Synthetic Milk, American Retro …
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