Granny Takes a Trip: The psychedelic Boutique that dressed Rock Royalty

Hello dolls, 🌼 and welcome to Grand Takes a Trip! In 1966, at 488 King’s Road in Chelsea’s World’s End, a boutique opened with a name that sounded as though it had wandered out of a psychedelic children’s book: Granny Takes a Trip. Inside were antique clothes, velvet suits, Edwardian jackets, military coats, lace and floral shirts; outside, its shopfront became almost as famous as the clothes, eventually featuring the front half of a 1948 Dodge saloon appearing to crash through the façade. The boutique was founded by Sheila Cohen, Nigel Waymouth and John Pearse. Sheila, Nigel’s partner at the time, had collected the vintage and antique clothing that became Granny’s starting point. Nigel came up with the name, John Pearse, a young tailor trained in traditional menswear, gave the fantasy its cut, altering and creating clothes that were strange, romantic and beautifully wearable. Granny opened at a fascinating turning point in British fashion. Mary Quant’s Bazaar had already helped make the King’s Road a centre of young style, while Swinging London had been defined by Mod fashion, short skirts, narrow suits, Vidal Sassoon haircuts, David Bailey photographs, Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy. But by 1965 and 1966, the look was loosening into something new that was old: velvet jackets, antique waistcoats, frilled shirts, military braid, Victoriana, Edwardian tailoring and the Peacock Revolution in menswear. Granny treated the past not as something to preserve behind glass, but as som