13 Aug '07 - 425 W - + 1 - 5 Marilyn, Colin Wild and Carnaby Street
One of the last remnants (in the 1980s) of the heady days of Carnaby Street (which was at its peak in the ‘60s) was a showbiz tailor by the name of Colin Wild. I can’t recall how I first heard of him. All I know is that I wanted a certain special something to wear to The Blitz that evening and my wardrobe was bare. Someone told me that if I wanted an outfit made in a hurry, Wild was the man to do it.
He had a shop – well, it was more a sort of upstairs/downstairs set of rooms, really - at the end of Carnaby Street. I went and told him what I wanted (‘a sort of ballet dancer’s shirt, white but shimmery, big puff sleeves and a laced-up collar’) – he said ‘Come back in an hour’, I did and there it was. While I was there I met the TV comedian Russ Abbot who was also being kitted up for something to wear that evening (but not at The Blitz – or, anyway, I didn’t see him there 
).
I was reminded of Colin Wild when I was browsing through the carbon copies of some of my old interviews earlier today. Right at the top of the bundle is an interview with Marilyn which I did for ‘My Guy’ (OK, so it’s not The Times but, heck, a chap has to live, you know..) and purports to be Marilyn’s first hand account of ‘A Day In My Life’. Here’s a quick snippet...
“This morning I got up at 11 o’clock, which is quite early for me... the first thing I do after dragging myself out of bed is to go into the bathroom to try to make myself more presentable. that usually means scraping off the remains off yesterday’s makeup and putting on today’s.
“After lunch I went to see Colin Wild, who is quite a famous tailor who makes lots of things for people in show business. The last time I visited him I left a jacket that I wanted him to copy for me, but now I want to wear the jacket so I called in to pick it up.”
There’s a lot more to that interview which I may get around to putting online soon. In the meantime, here’s a site with the history of Colin Wild and The Carnaby Cavern.
And here is a fab video f Marilyn singing Calling Your Name...
