Bizarre Bazaar

I was up in Kensington High St a couple of days ago, and a little prowl around the shops brought to mind everything I've read lately about the future of retail and the ultimate retail experience. This, of course, combines the best of on- and offline, stimulates all the senses, is tailored to the individual and generally leaves the shopper - or experiencer, if there is such a word, with a breathtaking feeling of wow!

While there are without doubt some impressive stores in the area, the impression they leave is not particularly lasting, as they all seem interchangeable. Everyone is playing with the same building blocks.

And I thought back, more decades than I care to remember, to my ultimate retail experience from my teens.

Kensington Market: the impression is still there. I can still smell the musty second-hand velvets and afghan coats, the joss sticks and "herbal cigarettes". Genuinely diverse, inspiring and authentic (three words that are banded around so much today they've become meaningless), surprising and sometimes even a little frightening (thunderbolt and lightning: yes, Queen had a stall there, too.)

As the ad said, "a fairyland of treasures and fashions."

Kensington Market was not planned, or designed. Nor was it any way curated - its magic was in the higgledy piggledy mish-mash (or hish-hash). It probably contravened even the limited health and safety regulations of the time. And seamlessness or consistency were the antithesis of this marvellously fabulous place and its endless labyrinthine nooks and crannies.

Kensington Market didn't really live to see the 21st century, so I had to content myself with T K Maxx, across the road, in a building which may have been Hyper Hyper in the 1980s, and possibly Biba before that.

I longed for a whiff of patchouli oil.