Golden age of British boutiques evoked by Christie’s Pop Culture sale
//From the catalogue for next week's auction//
The spirit of great British boutique culture is summoned by a couple of lots in next week’s Pop Culture sale at Christie’s.
One is a previously unpublished June 1967 photograph of Jim Hendrix not in Carnaby Street as captioned, but outside the tobacconist Finlay’s, which was in Foubert’s Place. It’s evident from the carrier bag in his famous left hand that the guitarist had just visited I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, which was next door to Finlay’s and the place where he bought the Hussar’s jacket worn in this photograph and at Monterey Pop that same month.
//Hendrix in Sam Pig In Love shirt from Kleptomania on the cover of Rave, July 1967//
The clothes-hound Hendrix haunted the area. As well as Kitchener’s he was partial to Kleptomania, the shop at 10 Kingly Street operated by Charlie Simpson and the subject of my recent book Mr Freedom, the late Tommy Roberts. Around this time Hendrix acquired from Kleptomania the white lace-frilled shirt he wore in performance at London’s Savile Theatre and in a photoshoot for teen fashion magazine Rave. This was designed by Paul Reeves under the label guise Sam Pig In Love.
//Sanchez's Polaroids//
//Mr Freedom satin cushion cover by Jane Wentworth//
//From Design, February 1971. (c) vads.ac.uk//
Item 157 in the auction is a collection of Polaroids taken at guitarist Ronnie Wood’s London house The Wick in 1972 by the notorious Rolling Stones acolyte “Spanish” Tony Sanchez; among them is a shot of a satin cushion cover with a platform-soled shoe designed by Jane Wentworth (then Jane Wealleans).
This cushion was stocked with a number of other Wentworth designs by Roberts at his second version of the Mr Freedom boutique, an ambitious mini-department store in Kensington designed by Wentworth’s husband at the time, Jon Wealleans.
Download the Pop Culture catalogue here.
Read all about Kleptomania, Mr Freedom and other adventures in fashion, music and retailing in Mr Freedom -Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero.