Kingly Court photo credit: Valerie Siebert

It was once a name synonymous with the swinging sixties era of London. Carnaby Street in its heyday was a Mecca of cutting edge fashion designers as well as a smorgasbord of celebrity sightings; from The Beatles, to Twiggy to the Shrimpton sisters. The area is currently celebrating 50 years of fashion with festivities and a 3D timeline exhibit.

These days, Carnaby Street itself is generally a tourist attraction with rent so high that only chain stores can afford the main drag locales and all the independent designers and boutiques are shoved into the side-streets.

“Carnaby Street is dead. It should be knocked down”

That is what Steve Howard, a retired Met Police security officer, and self-proclaimed “Jurassic Mod” has to say about the 50th anniversary of one of London’s most famous fashion destinations.

As a fixture on Carnaby Street since the swinging 60s, Howard, 62, has seen first-hand the toll that time has taken.

“I’m part of the furniture I suppose” he muses.

Howard first ventured into the fashion center that is Carnaby in 1962 at the age of 14. He had a keen interest in the burgeoning, clean, fast-paced and stylish mod movement and describes its nerve centre as having been very different place from the frozen-in-time tourist hot spot it is today.

“It was very hustle-bustle in those days, on the move all of the time. You could come down on the Monday and look in the shop windows, and you would see pinks and greens and yellows, but then you came down on the Tuesday and there would be blues and reds in its place, everything would change day to day – very fast moving.”

50 years on, the shops on Carnaby Street are no longer all high-end boutiques and those that are rarely update their styles from the tourist-pleasing, mod-stereotyping displays of loud boating blazers atop Vespa scooters. With stores like Boots, Diesel and Wrangler among its population, there is little left for the staunch, puritan mods of yesterday.

Newburgh Street Photo Credit: Valerie Siebert

However, all has not been lost it seems, as streets running parallel to Carnaby are the new homes of independent designer shopping. While on the opposite side of Carnaby lies Kingly Court, a market-style shopping center with vintage clothing shops and cozy cafes.

So, how do you shop Carnaby without falling prey to the stereotypes or uninspiring mass-produced power brands?

Well, first let’s head east of the main street into the Newburgh Quarter. Newburgh Street and its area, known as the Newburgh Quarter, houses unique boutiques like Joie as well as classic mod brands like Fred Perry. You can also check out some younger brands like Beatrix Ong shoes (described as “shoes comfortable enough to wear during the day and special enough for them to carry on through to the evening”), YourEyesLie (brainchild of graphic designer Benjamin Yarwood and fashion designer Alisa Longsuwan whose collections are exclusive to this particular location) or Peckham Rye (a modern twist on the tailored perfection that was 60s clean-cut mod style – quintessentially British).

If stepping ahead of the trends is not your bag and you rather prefer a taste of nostalgia, you need to head west, through the arched passage alongside the Ben Sherman store on Carnaby Street into Kingly Court.

Kingly court is split into three levels of shops which wrap round to encompass an open-air cafe and restaurant. It’s here that you will find vintage-shops, second-hand treasures and retro-inspired designer-wear; no chain stores, all one-off deals.

If what you want is previously owned, one-of-a-kind authentic vintage, than there is no where better than stores Strombolli’s Circus, Marshmallow Mountain and Sam Greenberg. However, if you want new outfits with a retro-feel then look no further than Black Pearl – a corner shop on the second level of the court which could easily have clothed the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page (whose namesake brand is carried) had they been gracing the covers of magazines today.

One walk around these hot-spots will give you comfort in knowing that, although the Carnaby Street of ’62 that Steve Howard remembers is dead and gone, the spirit is still alive in the area. So, if you fancy yourself a pro-shopper that never falls for the mediocre, mundane or overdone, make sure you shop Carnaby – just not the street.

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