Just Like the King's Road, Only Nearer: Scotland's Boutique Bonanza, 1965–1970

Abstract

The fashion entrepreneurs of so-called ‘Swinging London’ — John Stephen on Carnaby Street or Mary Quant on the King's Road, for example — fundamentally changed British fashion in the 1960s: from old to young, dull to vibrant and, crucially, from shop to boutique. But while the impact of ‘Swinging London’ is well recorded in the historiography of English fashion and retail, less is known about its effects further afield. This article considers the impact of ‘Swinging London’ boutique culture in Scotland between 1965 and 1970. Taking the example of the Glasgow fashion design and manufacturing business Marion Donaldson as its main case study, it draws on a variety of oral history, archival and media evidence to trace the dissemination of boutique fashion culture in Scotland across multiple retail contexts. From the urban centres of Glasgow and Edinburgh to the towns and regions beyond, it offers new analyses of the opportunities boutique retailing afforded Marion Donaldson and the Scottish fashion industry more generally, and thus provides new insight into the impact of the so-called ‘boutique boom’ of the 1960s on Scottish fashion and enterprise culture.