ABSTRACT
The Camden Lock Market area of London appeared to occupy the same function in 1990s British culture as had Carnaby Street and the King’s Road in the 1960s. In Camden can be found a diverse range of products and services that are part-craft centre, part-alternative, part-trend-setting, part-retro. Additionally, several things caught my eye as I wandered this British cornucopia. The first, at 35 Middle Yard, was a shop – ‘Wilde Celts’ – which sold a range of Celtic-motif jewellery, music and artwork, as well as some Irish and Welsh greetings cards, a limited range of books and a heady mixture of Neo-Pagan and New Age products. People browsed there in the same way that they browsed stalls selling bootleg Oasis and Metallica videos, as well as shops selling other ‘genuine’ cultural goods from other ethnic groups such as Native American, Australian Aborigine and Indian. The second product I observed was along Camden High Street. High on a vendor’s stall was a black T-shirt, with a bright purple Celtic design, yet emblazoned at the top of the shirt was the name of 1990s grunge icons ‘Nirvana’. The shirt was obviously not a licensed piece of merchandise, but what interested me was why the bootlegger had seen fit to combine a Celtic design with ‘Nirvana’. As I walked away from the vendor, I saw other examples of Celtic artwork and tattoos offered, blended and combined with industrial and neo-tribal designs, and I began to question the close relationship between these somehow contrasting cultural images.
