Laurence Corner
On this site was the famous chic Army Surplus store, which sadly closed in 2007, 54 years after it first opened its doors.
This is the place that provided the outfits that inspired The Beatles for Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as well as being a haunt for the likes of Keith Moon, Boy George and Kate Moss & clothes designers including Jean Paul Gaultier, Katherine Hamnett and Vivienne Westwood.
Some of the Star Wars accessories were even sourced from here!
Squadron HQ is the new army surplus store which can be found at 121 Kentish Town Road.
Laurence Corner – Beatles shop is back where it belonged.
THE Beatles found their Sgt. Pepper jackets there, and Kate Moss, Jean-Paul Gaultier and the occasional foreign general have all rummaged through the store’s cluttered collection.
For more than 50 years Laurence Corner dressed the worlds of fashion and film – not forgetting armies of students – in its trademark brand of military surplus chic.
When its founder Victor Jamilly passed away in 2007, the Euston shop was forced to close and Camden lost a sartorial institution.
But not, it turns out, for long.
The original Laurence Corner’s fighting spirit has returned to the borough, at a new shop in Camden Lock’s East Yard.
Kim Jamilly, Victor’s daughter, who came out of retirement in Spain to relaunch the family business, said the initial response has been positive, with queues around the block on recent weekends.
“Actually retirement is quite boring,” she said. “I’m enjoying travelling around again sourcing stock.”
Ms Jamilly journeys all over the world to find items for the shop, searching for unused or “grade one” used stock from France, Russia and the US, though her most recent trip to a tiny village in the Ukraine was thwarted by the Icelandic ash cloud.
“We have stock from all over the world not just England,” she said. “Dress tunics have been selling best at the moment. Every guy looks funky in them and I can’t get enough girls’ RAF jackets – as soon as they arrive they are sold out.”
The first shop in Drummond Street provided costumes and props for films such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars, and the TV satire puppet Spitting Image, as well as setting a trend for military gear that has become a familiar sight from the high street to the catwalk.
Ms Jamilly said she hopes the second incarnation of Laurence Corner will follow in its predecessor’s substantial, army-issue footsteps.