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Birdcage, 24 Bridlesmith Gate (c.1968)
We’ve all heard of Carnaby Street, which achieved world fame for its mid-sixties association with trendy fashion boutiques and remains a tourist trap to this day. Maybe less renowned is Bridlesmith Gate, which in 1965 became home to Birdcage, an ex-tailor’s workshop transformed into a women’s clothes shop by Nottingham native, Janet Campbell.
Campbell cut her professional teeth in the burgeoning rag trade of Swinging London before heading home to open Birdcage, a youth-oriented boutique that made many of its own clothes in a back room to keep up with the fast-changing trends of the time. Her efforts seem to have been both an instant success and a catalyst for local fashion in general, inspiring a host of imitators.
Although it was the first to bring King’s Road and Carnaby Street style to the city, the best-remembered legacy of Birdcage is probably its role in the formative years of a certain Paul Smith. When Campbell opened a men’s section above the women’s boutique in 1966, it was none other than Smith she put in charge of it. Four years later, he left to set up his own shop on Byard Lane and the rest, as they say, is history.
But while Paul Smith’s debut has been internationally renowned, and that first shop was faithfully reconstructed for a Design Museum exhibition in 2013, Campbell’s Birdcage hasn’t been quite so clearly remembered. Which seems odd, as the shop quickly developed a very distinctive identity, notably with a succession of stylish hand-drawn graphics by Ian Longdon, as seen in these two 1968 adverts.
The shop traded successfully into the early nineties, but it’s likely that the triple whammy of resurgent chain stores, branded sportswear and upmarket designer ‘bling’ during the eighties meant the idiosyncratic boutique ethos of shops like Birdcage gradually lost its niche. Perhaps it’s telling that its nearest Nottingham equivalents in 2016 are nearly all vintage, selling old instead of new clothes, but quite what that tells us, I'm not entirely sure.
More historical Nottingham adverts on LeftLion
Street Tales from the Nottingham Hidden History Team
Tales of Old Nottingham Eccentrics from The Dilettante Society
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