Exploring Carnaby Street

Hello me dears! Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was extremely...COLD! but really great. I took a trip down to london to spend some quality time with my sis and decided we need to explore more of London, that is other than oxford street, Liecester square and Piccadilly circus which seem to be our usual hang out. So where did we end up going? Carnaby Street! He he he, ok ok so its like 5 mins from Oxford Street, not very adventurous but i'm taking baby steps.

I had vowed to NEVER to go to Carnaby. Let me explain. I had this class called 'Spaces of Retail & Consumption' and the lecturer kept drumming on and on about how wonderful it was and how it revolutionised the concept of 'the street' as a space of retail consumption. Urg! It was so hard to stay awake during those lectures and had an agonising three hour exam writing an essay on this. By some miracle i didnt fall asleep and i did really well. Ok im starting to digressing now

There was a men's public toilet under that sign post and whenever someone came out they had this look of absolute horror...its a public toilet! What did they expect.

Carnaby consists of twelve pedestrianised streets with 168 fashion and lifesyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques. It became popular in the swinging sixties as being a frequent hangout for the 'Mod style' followers (love for music, tailor-made clothes, dancing and motorscooters...er right!) and designer Mary Quant's (most famous for the mini skirt) boutique was located in the street. It also had underground music bars with bands like The beatles, Small Faces and Rolling Stones working, shopping and socialising in the area. Basically the place was cool!

Anna Lou of London


Black Acrylic cuff with vintage style Embellishment and Black diamante bow brooch

Now? Not so much. I think the magic is long gone y'all. It was a little boring. Maybe it was all the hype i heard for years that left me dissapointed. Some of the vintage stores were interesting but seemed extremely low on stock, its a little better on accessories with boutiques like Anna Lou of London, Claire Aristides Jewellery and there's a sweet beadcraft shop as well. There is also a really cool T-shirt shop called 'super superficial' in one of the mini malls in the area. All the T-shirts are unique and original and created by a collection of talented artists. Its great if you want something you won't see every Tom, Dick or Harry (or in this case Sarah, Jane and Mary...lol!) wearing. And for a change there was a really nice and polite Japanese sales guy...i appreciate people with manners.

Everything else is more 'been there, done that' or maybe we just gave up too soon but the the atmosphere was definately not all that. We busted the place and ended up going to Leicester Square for some vegetarian chinese...he he he, it was actually fantastic and i like tofu anyway. This was not before i was completely insulted by this bloodly sales guy who was trying to sell some photo studio time to us. My sister was smart enough to walk fast and not even look back meanwhile i was stupidly trying to be nice and politely say i am not interested as i walked past. This idiot then runs and jumps in front of me, shouts at me for being rude and walking away when he's trying to talk to me. Dude! are you mad! I was so shocked that this Loser was all up in my face. Luckily my sis just came back and dragged me out of the situation. I am still pretty pissed off expecially because I didnt totally blast the guy and kick his ass (according to my sis, he would probably have kicked me right back). Seriously, these people should be banned from the streets. Unfortunately i don't have his name or the name of the company so i can't snitch to his boss.

Let me know what you thought if you've ever been.

Enjoy the week!!