1906 The Foyles open Charing Cross Road store where they garner attention by selling books by weight.
Even after the recent closures, there are still more than 300 branches; whether any of them resemble that first Old Brompton Road store is a different matter.
It has closed the Kings Road store in London and moved its Stansted Airport store to Gatwick as the airport is being redeveloped.
By 1974 the Fulham Road store had been converted to the upmarket Conran Shop – while simplified, affordable Habitats mushroomed across the country and beyond, everywhere from New York and Toronto to Paris.
The Octavia Foundation are holding a pop up show and sale at their Brompton Road store, and pieces for sale will include some by Alexander McQueen, Betty Jackson and Clements Ribero.
Returning to the UK "like Marco Polo, or Walter Raleigh" as he put it, McLaren renamed the King's Road store SEX, and began selling sado-masochistic gear and designing his own range of T-shirts with subversive slogans.
The retailer claimed "the closeness and friendliness of relations" was underlined when Walker welcomed then Icelandic prime minister, Halldór Ásgrimsson, on an official visit to Iceland's Fulham Road store in south-west London in 2006.
Staff at a Tesco supermarket reported that they were marooned in their Warwick Road store as water in the car park reached the car-roof level and that there was an electricity blackout.
"There hasn't been a men's wear week here for as long as anyone can remember," said Christopher Bailey, the Burberry designer, who gave a party at the company's Brompton Road store, though he will still show his men's wear in Milan.
In fact, unless airplane windows are involved, it's probably a struggle to describe how they map out roads, stores and homes to form neighborhoods.
