Here’s an example of fate putting you where you should be: there was a girl at the airline who said, “When you go to London, you can stay at a boarding house on Sloane Street for $6.” I did, and I remember walking down King’s Road and at the time everything was grey — the sky, the buildings and the way people dressed. All of a sudden, I see this door — it’s got a kind of canvas cover and it’s painted with lots of colours. I was like, “What the hell?” And this sound was coming from it — it turned out it was The Beatles. This was really early and I felt the hair on my arms go up, and I went in like a moth to the flame. I was mesmerised. It was a shop called Dandies, and it was owned — I found out later — by the Stones. There was a big motorcycle inside, and the clothes were like, whoa! I’d never seen anything like them before.
I spent every weekend in London, and it was very much like I lived there full time — I was immersed. I would bring the clothes I found in London back to New York for my friends. So then, in 1967, I decided to open a shop. I found a little basement in a sort of townhouse in New York, I painted the floors, added snakeskin wallpaper and furniture from the Salvation Army, and started putting the clothes in there that I was buying in London.
