Then it’s Mary Quant, hiding so she can overhear what passers-by will say about her upside-down mannequins in the window. It’s the girls in purple catsuits, flying down the road on mopeds to hand-deliver someone their Cherry Red soda. It’s Vivienne Westwood, sending her brethren out under battleship skies in “rubberwear for the office.” It’s the New Wave, the new royals of the road, jostling for pavement space with the miniskirts and punks and tourists and police. “We wanted people to stop and look,” Mary wrote. “We wanted to shock people.”

Fast forward 100 years and it’s the musicians’ turn. Look left and there’s Mick Jagger, swinging by the shop for some milk. And isn’t that the Pistols, loitering with intent outside SEX? But we can’t talk about the road’s creative legacy without thanking the Royal Court, whose production of new play Look Back in Anger – putting the story of a working man front and centre for once – helps usher in a golden age of realist drama.

Mary and Vivienne helped define the looks of their times, but they needed the heroes to pull it off: the actors, models and rock stars to bring their threads to life. Picture John Lennon in one of Mary’s 15-guinea hats. Or Johnny Rotten donning one of Vivienne’s tartan two-piece suits with matching tie. Just down the road, John and Yoko launch Plastic Ono’s first single, “Give Peace a Chance”, at Chelsea Old Town Hall. The Stones make their home here and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” even namechecks the road’s very own Chelsea Drugstore.

The king’s long gone but the road’s still the road, ready for a new generation of reinventors with eyes on the bold and beautiful and beyond. Time to let the next set of bright young things walk the walk, open some shops, show our 20th century heroes what’s up. Time to save the planet, time to think about the things we use and where it all comes from. The future’s here. A new frontier. What’s the first move in uncharted lands? That’s it: build a road.