[FINEGOLD, Harry]. Stop the Shop: The Swinging Boutique.

(London): Stop the Shop, no date (c.1969). Promotional matchbook for the celebrated revolving boutique at 126 King’s Road, Chelsea. [London: c.1968–70.] Printed black and white matchbook, complete with original matches. Matchbook measures (closed) 10.7 by 8.5cm. The store opened in 1968 and was one of the most innotative on the Kings Road, embracing fashions shift from staid to groovy. Acknowledging that Chelsea was the place to be, and to be seen, the store featured a 20-foot rotating sales floor. Customers stepped onto a slowly revolving circular platform, while two smaller revolving display windows flanked the entrance. The concept created a living shop window: instead of displaying clothes on mannequins, the customers themselves became part of the display. The black interior was lit only by movable spotlights, some with colour effects, and the walls and floors were carpeted in charcoal grey Wilton. The small, carpeted changing rooms were rotating semi-cylinders and the facetted mirrors lining the entrance ramps gave the effect of customers leaving the shop splitting into multiple people walking away in different directions. These optical effects were designed by Garnett, Cloughley and Blakemore. The site was taken over by Italian fashion house ‘Fiorucci’ in 1975, establishing them in London, with the store sporting roller skating ramps. The matches are intact (one burnt) and feature with stylised female figures symbolic of the ‘swinging london’ scene and and the boutique name printed across the match stems. Matchbook cover rubbed at edges. A rare survival.