Kensington High Street

Because on this day, September sixteenth, nineteen sixty-nine, Biba hit the high street, literally.

On that day, Barbara Hulanicki moved Biba into a vast new home on Kensington High Street.

Not just a shop, the trendiest store in swinging London, still a living memory, a difference maker.

London shopping would never be the same again.

Girls who didn't want to dress like their mothers.

Girls who wanted clothes that were young, slinky, daring, slightly theatrical, and above all, affordable.

That same year, Barbara and Fitz opened their first shop in Abingdon Road, just off Kensington High Street.

It was tiny.

It takes [clears throat] the intervention of, of, of, uh, of Toby Young and the Free Speech Union to cut the natural instincts of the judges, who of course are profoundly influenced by Bingham's views, to cut them down.

Now, what does this, how does this connect with the second half of what you raised? How does it connect with the traps, um, uh, on, uh, Portsmouth, uh, the traps, uh, outside, for heaven's sake, in Kensington High Street.

I mean, dear-

Oh, yeah

And I remember seeing Aswad at a very interesting venue, the Commonwealth Institute, which is no longer there.

on Kensington High Street in a very kind of posh neighborhood.

And it was this very strange place on two floors that had all these exhibitions of all the former colonies, including Jamaica and the other English-speaking Caribbean islands.

And in the middle of the two floors was this circular stage.

"Are we over?" But instead, he asked me whether we might live together, to which I said yes.

By January in 1971, we'd moved into a tiny flat on Victoria Road, close to Kensington High Street.

It was really just one room with space for a bed, a small table, and two chairs.

Freddie had left Ealing Art College in 1969 with a diploma in graphic art and design.

And then I'd say, well, there's two ways you can get to us.

We are like a stone's throw from Kensington High Street.

Look for the ivy.

Keep walking past the ivy.

And again, to carry on the Trump analogy, Trump once boasted that he could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and he wouldn't have to pay a price for it.

Could Farage walk down Kensington High Street, shoot somebody and get away with it?

Not Kensington High Street? No.

Middlesbrough? You don't know, do you? No, no.

No, I don't think so.

So one Princess Diana overlap.

When I left university, one of the first jobs I had was working at Tower Records in Kensington High Street, which was right next to Kensington Palace.

So if you were going to buy a CD or anything, then that was your local record shop.

And I remember Princess Diana coming into the shop.

And I think about this a lot as someone who, who, who studies and talks a lot about technology.

This moment that really struck me, and I was really impressed, my then 17-year-old son said, "I'm going to meet someone for coffee on Kensington High Street.

Do you know a place?" And I said, "No, just ask AI." And he said, "I don't use AI for simple tasks."

Mm-hmm.