Granny Takes a Trip
Encyclopedia
Boutique
A boutique is a small shopping outlet, especially one that specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing and jewelry. The word is French for "shop", via Latin from Greek ἀποθήκη , "storehouse"....
opened in February 1966 at 488 Kings Road
Kings Road
King's Road or Kings Road, known popularly as The King's Road or The KR, is a major, well-known street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England...
, Chelsea, London
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
, by Nigel Waymouth
Nigel Waymouth
Nigel Waymouth is a designer and artist, a co-partner in the boutique, Granny Takes a Trip, and one of the two-man team, Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, which designed psychedelic posters in the 1960s. He has since had a solo career, including portrait painting.-Life and work:Nigel Waymouth was...
, his girlfriend Sheila Cohen and John Pearse. The shop, which was acquired by Freddie Hornik in 1969, remained open until the mid-70s and has been called the "first psychedelic
Psychedelic era
The Psychedelic era refers to the time of social, musical and artistic change influenced by psychedelic drugs, generally described as occurring during early 1960s to the mid 1970s. Some consider the psychedelic era to be more tightly limited to the years of 1965-1969...
boutique in Groovy London of the 1960s."
It was also the name of a Purple Gang
The Purple Gang (band)
The Purple Gang are a British rock band active intermittently since the 1960s.-History:Although they were associated with the London psychedelic scene, they originated in Stockport, then in Cheshire, as a jugband. The band adopted the name, The Purple Gang, when they changed their image to the...
song of the 1960s, which was named after the store and banned by the BBC.
The name has been appropriated by clothing stores around the world that are not connected with the original Granny Takes a Trip, including present-day vintage fashion stores in Hermosa Beach, California
Hermosa Beach, California
Hermosa Beach is a beachfront city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Its population was 19,506 at the 2010 census, up from 18,566 at the 2000 census....
, Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
and Sydney, Australia.
Opening
The boutique was the brainchild of two young Londoners, Nigel Waymouth and Sheila Cohen, who were looking for an outlet for Cohen’s ever-increasing collection of antique clothes. Waymouth, a free-lance journalist, came up with the name and was offered the premises at 488 Kings RoadKings Road
King's Road or Kings Road, known popularly as The King's Road or The KR, is a major, well-known street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both in west London, England...
, Chelsea, London
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
, a previously unfashionable part of the road known as the World’s End. In the summer of 1965, John Pearse, who had trained as a tailor on Savile Row
Savile Row
Savile Row is a shopping street in Mayfair, central London, famous for its traditional men's bespoke tailoring. The term "bespoke" is understood to have originated in Savile Row when cloth for a suit was said to "be spoken for" by individual customers...
, agreed to join them in the venture. The shop opened in early 1966.
By the spring of 1966 the shop had achieved worldwide renown, including a feature in an edition of Time Magazine “LONDON the Swinging City". They paved the way for many of the designer boutiques that followed, such as Mr. Freedom, Alkasura, Let It Rock, and later the more ambitious enterprises of Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls...
and Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...
and Paul Smith
Paul Smith (fashion designer)
Sir Paul Smith jr, RDI, is an English fashion designer, whose business and reputation is founded upon his menswear. He is both commercially successful and highly respected within the fashion industry....
. Over the next eight years the shop clothed London’s fashionable young men and women, including many major rock performers. A constant stream of people visited the shop, especially on Saturdays during the weekly King’s Road Parade.
Initially the ambience was a mixture of New Orleans bordello and futuristic fantasy. Marbled patterns papered the walls, with rails carrying an assortment of brightly-coloured clothes. Lace curtains draped the doorway of its single changeroom
Changeroom
A changing room, locker room, dressing room or changeroom is a room or area designated for changing one's clothes...
, and a beaded glass curtain hung over the entrance at the top of steps, which led on into the shop. In the back room, an Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
Wurlitzer
Wurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....
blasted out a selection of music.
The shop became known for its changing facade. In 1966 it featured successively giant portraits of Native American chiefs Low Dog and Kicking Bear
Kicking Bear
Kicking Bear , also called Matȟó Wanáȟtake, was an Oglala Lakota who became a band chief of the Minneconjou Lakota Sioux. He fought in several battles during the War for the Black Hills, including the Battle of Little Big Horn...
. In 1967 the entire front was painted with a giant pop-art face of Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
. That was later replaced by an actual 1948 Dodge saloon car which appeared to crash out from the window and onto the forecourt.
Acquisition by Freddie Hornik and opening of US outlets
By the end of the decade, the partnership had lost momentum. Nigel Waymouth had become involved in poster and album cover design work as one half of Hapshash & The Coloured Coat (which then evolved into a musical group), and John Pearse left for Italy to work with The Living Theatre Group.In late 1969 Cohen and Waymouth sold the business to London fashion entrepreneur Freddie Hornik, who had previously worked at Chelsea's Dandie Fashions. For a few months the previous year this had been The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
short-lived bespoke store Apple Tailoring.
Hornik brought in two New Yorkers, Gene Krell and Marty Breslau, and the team introduced a new, more dandified phase with rhinestone and applique'd velvet suits and stack-heeled boots sold to such performers as Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
.
In 1970 a branch was opened in New York by Krell and Breslau's friends John LiDonni and Richie Onigbene. With his partner Jenny Dugan-Chapman Hornik also opened a Granny Takes A Trip outlet in Los Angeles, where regular customers included Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, Keith Moon
Keith Moon
Keith John Moon was an English musician, best known for being the drummer of the English rock group The Who. He gained acclaim for his exuberant and innovative drumming style, and notoriety for his eccentric and often self-destructive behaviour, earning him the nickname "Moon the Loon". Moon...
and Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
.
The London shop closed in 1974 with the acquisition of the name by Byron Hector, who moved the premises along the King's Road. This was closed in 1979.
The New York store also closed in the mid-70s while in LA the business was acquired by English tailor Glen Palmer who moved location from Sunset Strip to Melrose Avenue
Melrose Avenue
Melrose Avenue is an internationally renowned shopping, dining and entertainment destination in Los Angeles that starts from Santa Monica Boulevard at the border between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood and ends at Lucille Avenue in Silver Lake...
in West Hollywood. This closed in the early 80s.
Hornik retired to south London. He died, aged 65, on February 19, 2009.
External links
- The Look blog Blog of the style text The Look.
- http://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/granny-takes-a-trip/ Granny Takes a Trip at the Vintage Fashion Guild.