The Kings Road SW3 in Chelsea London as a shopping destination has always offered a slightly alternative vibe. Geographically, it feels separate from the rest of London. To get there in 1977 you really had to want to. It was served by just Sloane Square tube station and to walk the length of it is around 2 miles. It began with the affluent Belgravia, Sloane Square, Peter Jones and the Duke of York’s barracks but finished with a council estate in a district called World’s End (and pub of the same name). World’s End was so called because it was the last place for refreshment on leaving London back when the place was fields. Further than that the river Thames acts like a physical and psychological barrier.
An edge is also provided by the fact of the streets closeness to Chelsea football club’s ground and on match days hundreds of fans (football hooligans) would swell the streets numbers.
Fashion has always been in the Kings Road. In 1955 Mary Quant opened her shop Bazaar at 138a King’s Road and revolutionised post war and post-rationing fashion to cater for the emerging teenagers and youth. In sixties/seventies the Worlds End became the less salubrious hippy end with Gandalf’s Garden nearby and Granny Takes A Trip at 433.
Trevor Myle’s Paradise Garage at 430 took both shop design and the clothes sold further. It had no window and was a fluorescent painted corrugated iron shop front with his Mustang car covered in tiger stripe on the pavement. He sold Americana including second hand straight legged Levi 501’s (it was the time of flares), short-sleeved bowling shirts and baseball jackets. At this time there was a large untapped market in sourcing original rock n roll clothes and artifacts from both the US and UK.
It was at 430 that Vivienne Westwood and partner Malcolm McLaren first opened in the back of Paradise Garage then through circumstances took it over and renamed it Let It Rock. Their target was the Teddy Boys who were the first rebellious teenagers with their own specific dress sense. As the pair found the teddy boy’s music and fashion were within very prescribed limits and ultra-conservative, they moved on and started designing their own clothes that had a more seditious and confrontational intent. Their shop changed with each developing iteration of their style. Too Fast to Live brought biker leather and studs and a whiff of homoeroticism. SEX sold rubber, leather fetish wear and more of their own punk designs till they changed to Seditionaries in December 1976. Running parallel and mutually influencing each other is the band Sex Pistols which together with the clothes will define UK Punk Rock.
Inspired by Let It Rock, Acme Attractions got first a stall and then the basement in Antiquarius market at number 135. They catered primarily to soul boys who would often be found dancing at clubs like the Lacey Lady and Crackers. The mohairs, peg trousers and plastic sandals worn by them are interchangeable with early pre-punk fans as the ‘in’ style.
Acme, driven by the changing face of youth culture, as in punk, become BOY In March 1977 and moves to 130 King’s Road. Other punk commercial enterprises set up as well and the street becomes THE destination point on a Saturday.
At eighteen years old we were familiar with Chelsea’s Kings Road region and would regularly visit the pubs, clubs and boutiques and then return North charged by our experience…. We were from Britain’s grim North and had little money to buy a mohair jumper or an overpriced ripped T shirt from Boy or Sex. But would return home and make our own clothing using stencils, paint, and razor blades. Why Control
John Harlow (The Photons & Moors Murderers) We used to go to Kensington Market, Johnsons and them sort of places and then onto the King’s Road on a Saturday. We’d go down to the Chelsea Drug Store and then to Acmes to spend the afternoon in there. We used to prefer shops like Acme – it was always more welcome. Acme with Don Letts and Jeanette Lee who went onto Rough Trade and PIL. Don was great; he always had something about him. If you stayed there for half an hour or an hour you’d meet people and find out where they were going or what party or gig to go to; all word of mouth stuff.
Then we’d go to Antiquarius and finally find ourselves at Vivienne’s. You were always more welcome at Acme than SEX. In SEX you felt you’d overstayed your welcome if you weren’t buying anything or part of the inner circle but we couldn’t afford the clothes in there. My brother was a bit of a tea leaf and he’d go into the dressing room and come out with 3 pairs of trousers and 5 t shirts. He was only skinny but would come out looking like the Michelin man! We would distract Vivienne and she would say John! stop fucking around with the gimp mask and buy it! Punk77 Interview
The Punk promenade was simple. In spite of its length, the King’s Road is served by only one tube station, Sloane Square. That would be the starting point, With BOY nearly a mile down the road. There were benches outside the Duke Of York’s headquarters, where it was possible to sit and frighten passers-by. It was another mile to World’s End, with Shades in the Antique Market, for lurid sunglasses and fifties jackets.
Shopping at Smutz – Jock McDonald towards the end.
Just before Seditionaries on the Sloane Square side, Beaufort Market had shed its antiques trade to become a rabbit -warren of tiny stalls. Upstairs there was Nigel Pennicks’s Smutz, with its rips, chains and crudity a faded copy of Boy, while downstairs were Caroline Walker selling fifties suits, Dave Fortune from Robot selling winkle pickers and a bizarre stall run by a teenage girl, sporting op-art clothes and prominent teeth braces, with the name of Poly Styrene. Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming
It becomes the place to meet each other, check out and swap fashions. The quote below is about Boy but describes the King’s Road at the time.
Steph Raynor [It was] a place where kids went to get away from home, a space that spoke to them, where they could express themselves, a hedonistic mind fuck, a space and time to meet others, compete with them, dress like them, the kids could hardly wait for the weekend to be back there, be who they really wanted to be. All About The Boy
It also becomes the flashpoint for repeated violent clashes between teenage subcultures. 1977 becomes the summer of the Teddy Boys versus punks with frequent fights and skirmishes down the Kings Road as gangs maraud. Teddy boys were not happy of punks appropriation of brothel creepers and lurex socks and in some cases the sacrilege of wearing or even ripping and safety pinning a teddy boy drape jacket.
Add in to that the proximity to Chelsea football grounds and the media-driven publicity for ‘supposed’ punk violence attracted football hooligans as well. Both BOY and Seditionaries witness gangs trying to kick their windows in or steaming the shop robbing clothes.
By 1979 though things had started to change. Leases on stalls in Beaufort Market finished and landlords took the opportunity to close it down. Jock McDonald who’d led the Roxy Club protest when that closed organised a demonstration with The Clash playing on the market’s rooftop that quickly turned into a police confrontation.
Seditionaries carried on into the 1980’s before Vivienne renamed the shop once more.
The Kings Road still retained the place to go for punk then alternative youth such as goths etc but never in the numbers as in 1977/78 and then retailing empires and chains along with rising rents, gentrification and the money-obsessed eighties slowly ate at the character of the street to homogenise it. Its next big invasion was the despicable moneyed Sloane Rangers.
Walking down the King’s Road I see so many faces They come from many places They come down for the day They walk around together And try and look trendy I think it’s a shame That they all look the same
TV Personalities – Part Time Punks
TalkPunk
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