Boasting a selection of modish pieces that were

It's always interesting to note the Proustian resonances that shops can have on our consumer consciousness. Whether your first trip to the mall away from the beady eye of your parents or your first salon appointment on the Rue Cambon, shopping stays in the memory as much as a taste or a smell. The places we haunted as teenagers invariably now closed down or revamped  are as fixed in our memories as the music of the time.

Which is why it's no surprise that many a seasoned shopper has a nostalgic glint in their eye at the news of a relaunch of the much-loved British high-street name Chelsea Girl. Defunct since it morphed into River Island in 1988, from 1965 Chelsea Girl offered Mary Quant at manageable prices, and was one of the first stores across the country to provide affordable and trend-led pieces to a young audience desperate for them.

"I loved Chelsea Girl as a youth," says Katie Grand, editor of Love magazine. "There was a huge one in Birmingham and it was one of my favourite places to hang out."

Boasting a selection of modish pieces that were, in the Sixties, relatively difficult to find outside the capital or at pocket money-friendly prices, Chelsea Girl so named for the capital's fashionable epicentre, the King's Road was a saviour for the style-savvy teenager. "C&A was the big clothing store we all went to as a family," fashion commentator Caryn Franklin remembers, "but Chelsea Girl was where I headed to declare my independence." And it remained so well into the Seventies and Eighties.

"It was the nearest thing that passed as a happening boutique in Hounslow when I was in my early teens," Franklin adds. "The thing I remember most was that it was pitch-black in there and hard to see anything you were buying, but that together with the glamorously disinterested shop assistants and Slade soundtrack was proof of absolute credibility for me."