Laurence Corner – Beatles shop is back where it belonged

Published: 24 June 2010
by SIMON WROE

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.