Carnaby Street: what is there now, and when it is worth going

Carnaby Street, W1F, runs parallel to Regent Street through Soho, between Great Marlborough Street and Beak Street, a few minutes from Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. It is pedestrianised and about three hundred metres long, so it takes ten minutes to walk, but the shopping is only the daytime half of it, and the courts and lanes around it are what most people leave too early.

What it was

In the 1960s this was the centre of Mod culture and the boutique explosion that got called Swinging London. The independent shops that made its name are long gone, and it has been a managed retail estate for decades.

Knowing that in advance changes the visit for the better. Go expecting a pleasant pedestrian street with a famous name rather than a piece of preserved history, and it delivers.

What is there now

The estate takes in the surrounding courts and lanes as well as the street, and it is owned by Shaftesbury Capital, whose own Carnaby site carries the shop-by-shop detail. Mainstream and mid-market fashion runs along the street itself, and the line-up changes constantly, so any list dates fast. When we checked on 9 September 2026, Sephora had opened a concept store at 5-7 Carnaby Street, with K-Way, KOOKAI, EDIKTED, Eastpak and TALA also recently arrived, alongside long-standing names from Dr. Martens and Birkenstock to MUJI, Ray-Ban, Swatch and The North Face.

The surrounding lanes, Newburgh Street and Foubert’s Place among them, hold the smaller independents and are the bit that most resembles what people came for. Liberty, on the corner of Great Marlborough Street, is a different proposition entirely: one of the last of the great British department stores.

Kingly Court, which is the evening

Kingly Court, halfway down and entered from Kingly Street, is three floors of restaurants and bars around an open courtyard, covered enough to work in bad weather, and it is the reason to still be here at eight o’clock. The mix is deliberately international.

Cahoots Underground is at 13 Kingly Court, built as a disused tube station, with live music and cocktails on Friday and Saturday evenings from 7pm. Its sister, Cahoots Ticket Hall, is a few steps away at 5 Kingly Street. Between them they are the answer to what Carnaby does after dark.

The one time it is genuinely worth a trip

The Christmas lights. Carnaby installs a themed display each November, and it is consistently the most inventive of the London Christmas lights, more so than Oxford Street and Regent Street, because it changes theme completely each year rather than reusing a scheme. It is an installation rather than a string of bulbs, and it goes up before most of the West End.

It is free and needs no ticket. It is busiest straight after work, so a later weekday evening from mid-November is the best time. Our Christmas lights guide covers the switch-on dates and the rest of the West End displays.

Practical

Nearest stations are Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus, both about five minutes. It is pedestrianised, flat and step-free.

Saturday afternoon is the worst time to come, for the same reason as every other central shopping street. Weekday mornings are quiet, and evenings are better than either because Kingly Court is what actually works here.

What to combine it with

You are in Soho, so the rest of the evening is on the doorstep: what is on in Soho, the theatre five minutes away, and the comedy rooms and late kitchens that make this the densest square mile of evening in the country.

Inca on Argyll Street and the London Palladium are both a minute away, and Burger and Beyond on Old Compton Street is five. Pre-theatre dinner covers eating to a curtain-up deadline, and after dark lists what is still running when the shutters come down.