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Long before Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's SEX, before even Mary Quant, right, and her minis, the King's Road was rebellious, if not aloof.
Charles II had built it as his private road, linking Hampton Court and Whitehall; during the Regency period it was home to the exotic Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens; in Victorian times dandies queened around the area.
But it was in the 1960s and 70s that the King's Road became famous throughout the world. Swiftly overtaking Carnaby Street as the symbol of Swinging London, boutiques like Hung On you and Granny Takes A Trip attracted everyone from Jean Shrimpton to Christine Keeler by way of John Lennon. The Rolling Stones lived at one end, Michael Caine at the other.
In writing King’s Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £18.99),
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| henry sutton is disappointed by an overly anecdotal history of the hyper hip King’s Road |
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Max Decharne appears to have forsaken his indie band The Flaming Stars for the British Library. Everyone who's anyone who's strolled from Sloane Square to World's End makes an appearance. Which would be fine except there is too much anecdote and too little analysis.
Still, Decharne has picked a diverting subject and highlights the King's Road's extraordinary influence on fashion and music.
By 1975, though, when the Sex Pistols emerged from McLaren's shop, the street had imploded. Only two years later Elvis Costello was singing I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea, and the party was over.
Now the place is lined with Boots and Starbucks. If it is nothing else, King’s Road is a lament for the days when not every high street was characterless and homogenised. 
FIRST
POSTED NOVEMBER 3
 Last week: Anthony Burgess
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