Back in the sixties, or so I'm told, Carnaby Street was the centre of all that was hip in Swinging London and was quite possibly The Coolest Place On This Planet®. Back then, you were nobody unless you rode a scooter (except, of course, if you were a rocker, in which case you wouldn't be seen within ten miles of a Vespa), wore clothes which you knew your mother wouldn't approve of, and worshipped the new found ideas of youthful creativity and being generally "groovy". Of course, that's all in the past, and nowadays the only scooter you're likely to see is one of those little metal things being ridden by a rather ashamed yuppy, so why am I doing a review of Carnaby Street? Surely a place like this is now as dead as a Lambretta after a nasty encounter with a postal van(see Quadrophenia). Well apparently not, as a recent visit to London has shown.......and a quick warning, this is an excessively long opinion, so I apologise in advance...feel free to skip past anything that looks boring, won't you.....

Well, Carnaby Street is situated "up West" in the Soho (W1) area of London. Now you'll probably associate Soho with the more unsavoury and rather seedy side of London (I did) but it actually incorporates the majority of the city's commercial district. Carnaby itself runs parallel to Regent Street, home of just about every shop you can imagine, and probably the place most people go if shopping in London. Well, Carnaby Street may be much, much smaller than Regent Street, but it is a completely different place which is probably overlooked by most shoppers. To get there you can either use the tube and get off at Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus. From there just walk down Regent Street until you see the psychedelic signs to Carnaby. Follow them and you will soon be in the street. Alternatively you can get a bus, and hop off near Regent Street...Carnaby is not difficult to find.

....and then, of course, we move into the sixties. Several clothing stores had set themselves up by the end of the fifties, and these were to become a sign of things to come. Designers start to gather around this area, first selling mens clothes, then starting on women's, until a fashion explosion in 1964. The street becomes centre of mod culture and you can't move for Lambrettas. Within a few years the whole place is awash with flower power, hipsters, kaftans and, of course, jeans, the must have fashion item....the cool vibe continues into the seventies, although by the start of the eighties the whole place is smelling distinctly naff, as its power has gone to its head and the street is overrun with "I Love London" t-shirts and miniature red phone boxes, until designers in the nineties decide the Carnaby area is not so bad after all......

CARNABY TODAY

Well, this is the important bit, isn't it, especially for you ladies, although men are well catered for here too and there are far more men's fashion shops than you'd find in an ordinary high street. I'd recommend that you walk from one end of the street to the other, as I did, before you go into any shops. This way you'll know exactly what's there so you can go into the best and most interesting shops and not spend all your time in a place you could find in the local High Street. So what is here? Well the majority of shops are either clothes or shoe shops, but the variety is immense, and there are also shops selling gifts, cosmetics, food and just about everything else you'll ever need.

The first shop you'll come to, if you approach from Piccadilly, will be The Face, which is on the corner. It is a trendy, mod-revivalist shop, which sells all manner of modish clothes from pin stripe suits to panel caps. It also sells a range of t-shirts emblazoned with the names of top mod/punk/ska bands like The Who, The Jam and Madness, alongside a whole host of little mod badges and lapel pins. Its customers include Paul Weller himself, and Oasis, so it must be good.

For shoes, you can try the Size? Store, which houses just about every pair of trainers you could ever want, alongside cool Japanese thingies, music listening posts and vinyl decks (no DJ when I went though). Or perhaps you could try Koko, a more retro footwear shop, where you can buy a pair of brand spanking new Doc Martens right off the back of a scooter, or maybe indulge yourself in a pair of 8 inch platforms sporting a rather natty union jack (just don't try walking in them...ambulances can take forever in a busy place like London). There are dozens of other clothes and shoe stores, so you'll have to check them out for yourself....

Yep, there are plenty of "other" shops in Carnaby Street, although you get the feeling that some of them just don't belong here. Boots, for example, seems more suited to a more mainstream street and doesn't feel quite right in such a trendy place (no offence to anyone who works in Boots). Try Lush instead, a more unusual cosmetic store who make all their own stuff on site which comes in big Kendal mint cake style slabs, though probably isn't too tasty to eat. Another shop that seems out of place is called Twyning's (I think) tea shop, which I'm sure would be far more at home in a quaint little village...or is tea the new coffee?

AND FINALLY....