London — The song is over but the memory fumphas on. Almost ten years after "Swinging London" happened, the city's Fashion Image has become a parody of itself. In the early sixties (oh god, it's beginning to sound like a broken record but it's such history now) Mary Quant, Biba et all made cheap little micro-mini dresses for English dolly girls, Twiggy was hot, and the King's Road boutiques grew into multimillion dollar empires. Now Mary — who designs everything from bras called "booby trap"" to "health" cosmetics, has put together a retrospective of the past decade for the British Museum, no less. This exhibit will feature miniskirts, Vidal Sasoon 'hairdos, white plastic go-go boots, and Beatles and Stones records... right alongside the Egyptology and the Leonardo Da Vinci sketches that are housed in that hallowed institution. That really just about says it all — but there's more.

Carnaby Street was, of course, For Tourists Only within two minutes of its inception. The closing of traffic on that street as Well as painting the sidewalk psychedelic colors only heightened the tacky effect. Chelsea's King's Road is now emotionally and physically closer to New York's Queens Boulevard than anything else with all of its Jeans Wests and Real American Hamburger joints. But by far, the biggest indication of how Boutiques Became Big Business and how empty it all can be can be seen in the new Biba.