It’s a bit like anywhere else now.”Others agree that the street has lost its uniqueness. Designer John Stephen, who set the trend for boutiques with blaring pop music and clothes on rails, recently described it as a “market place … I had friends who asked if they could work with me for nothing, just so they could mingle with everyone. The Who and The Beatles were habitues.Hari Bhagalia, manager of Gear, one of only two shops in the street to keep its name from that era, remembers the kudos of working there. “I came in 1968 and at that time working in Carnaby Street was the next best thing to being a pop star.”The Who sang on a parked lorry, Herman’s Hermits were around, also the Hollies, and the Bee Gees sang just across the road. When Time magazine announced in 1966 that London was “swinging” it was Carnaby Street that was the centre of attraction.The male boutique originated there; fashion designers such as John Stephen, who once owned nine shops, and Mary Quant led the way; and models, pop stars and emerging media figures thronged west Soho.
MICHAEL STREETER
For sale: a three-acre section of central London Main feature: a slice of British cultural history. Thirty years after it became synonymous with the Swinging Sixties and a mecca for the fashion-conscious, Carnaby Street is for sale.
The famous road and its surrounding area, which includes 93 buildings, are likely to attract bids of more than pounds 70m, a huge outlay palliated by the current annual rental income of pounds 5.8m.The street itself offers 250 yards of boutiques and shops between Oxford Street and Regent Street. She told close friends she was worried that a new union would upset her daughters But friends assume the upset is closer to home. She could have had it all – travelled the world with him and basked in the glory – if only she had been a little more discreet.”.
“What right does she have to be so upset?” said a close friend. “She treated him with so little respect when he got out of prison. When Graca’s daughter Jozina moved in with Mandela, Winnie was said to be distraught, certain it meant that Mandela and Machel were involved. Last week he opened his home to Peggy Sue Khumalo, the new Miss South Africa. The caption under the picture of the president kissing the beauty queen stated that the president had said he always liked to congratulate achievers personally.In Graca Machel he has found a woman who has been exceptional all her life. In her 20s, she studied at Lisbon University, a remarkable achievement for a Mozambican woman of her day. She had conviction and revolutionary spirit, and eventually fled Portugal after threats from Salazar’s secret police.
