Granny Takes a Trip

At the very beginning of the Sixties, the World’s End area of Chelsea, London, was perceived as unloved and unfashionable. Thanks in no small part to the team behind Granny Takes a Trip, by the end of the decade the area would become a thriving community of fashion boutiques, frequented by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles. Other notable examples included Hung On You and Dandie Fashions (which for a few months was known as Apple Tailoring, and run by The Beatles).

Granny Takes a Trip opened in 1965, owned and run by John Pearse, Nigel Waymouth, and his girlfriend Sheila Cohen. Initially the shop was intended as a way to offload some of Sheila Cohen’s collection of antique clothing, but John Pearse also provided tailoring services (he had trained on Savile Row).

The name Granny Takes a Trip served as an explanation of the style of the clothing: it sold antique pieces, particularly of an Art Nouveau provenance, which also fitted the LSD-heavy counterculture of the time. In addition to antique clothing, they also sold one-of-a-kind pieces, often in material bought from Liberty or sourced from other vintage markets.

This aesthetic came to be known as peacock or dandy, subtly distinct from hippies and beatniks (which would later come to cause some tension between the original three owners). It was heavily influenced by fin-de-siècle icons such as Oscar Wilde. The shop was also, unusually for the time, totally unisex. Many of its customers were also what would now be termed LGBTQ+, but at the time were generally simply referred to as homosexual.

Velvet, silk, flowery prints, flowing fabrics and lace were all prominent features of the clothes at Granny Takes a Trip. The shop was responsible for many iconic fashion statements from leading cultural figures of the decade. At least three members of The Beatles – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison – had Morris print jackets from there, which were coveted by fans of their music and of their fashion alike. However, according to Pearse, they never took the opportunity to sell reproductions of famous pieces. “People would come in and say, ‘Oh, can I have a shirt like Lennon had?’ ‘Well, no you can’t, we’re not making them anymore.’”^[1] The purpose of Granny Takes a Trip was never to be a commercial success.

In addition to the clothes, the shop itself was a sight to behold. The exterior changed frequently, which murals that covered the entire façade at times. Notable examples were portraits of Native American chieftains Low Dog and Kicking Bear, which gave way to a pop-art image of Jean Harlow. This reached a culmination when John Pearse left the country in 1968; he sawed his 1948 Dodge Charger in half and welded the front to the shop’s front, giving the impression it had crashed through from the inside. Even this changed frequently – the whole front, car and all, was variously painted bright yellow and bright purple.