Star-spangled Mayfair 

Mayfair’s streets are the quintessentially English backdrop, but did you know the area has an enduring connection to the United States that began in the late 18th century?
 
Today, Mayfair attracts the cream of American fashion designers, from Abercrombie & Fitch to Donna Karan. Internationally renowned New York designer Marc Jacobs has been part of the fashion crowd on Mount Street since 2007, when the opening of his store heralded a transformation of the street from traditional British luxury into a chic fashion thoroughfare featuring designers from all over the world.

And new to Mayfair is iconic American design house Ralph Lauren, whose New Bond Street store blends Art Deco architecture with the opulence of an English gentleman’s club, inspired by the luxury ocean liners of the 1920s. The store sells a range of casual wear, sportswear and eveningwear, as well as fragrances and sumptuous homeware.

But Mayfair’s kinship with all things across the pond goes deeper than high fashion.

Grosvenor Square has earned the moniker of ‘Little America’ due to its long military and political history with the US. At 9 Grosvenor Square, on the corner of Brook and Duke Streets, eagle-eyed Yankophiles can spot the bronze plaque commemorating John Adams, the second American president and the first US Ambassador to Great Britain, who lived at the house in Mayfair from 1785 to 1788. Since then, Grosvenor Square has remained the traditional home of the official US presence in London. 

Grosvenor Square has been the home of the US Embassy since 1938, and will be until the new embassy, situated across the river in Vauxhall, opens in 2017. The current building’s gilded aluminium eagle, with its 35-foot wingspan, enjoys views over the west side of the square.

During the Second World War, General Eisenhower’s Supreme Allied Expeditionary Forces took up the north side of the square, lending the square its temporary nickname of ‘Eisenhowerplatz’. The General’s base at 20 Grosvenor Square, from which the Normandy landings were planned, was the headquarters of the US Naval Forces in Europe until 2009.

Over time, the Franklin Roosevelt memorial (pictured), a memorial to the American Eagle Squadron pilots of the Second World War and, most recently, a statue of Ronald Reagan have become honoured tenants of Grosvenor Square. On Bond Street, statues of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sit locked in conversation on a bench as a tribute to the special relationship between Britain and the US and 50 years of peace. And in 2003, Grosvenor Square became home to the September 11 Memorial Garden.

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Marc Jacobs, 24-25 Mount Street, London W1K 2RR
020 7399 1690
www.marcjacobs.com

Ralph Lauren, 1 New Bond Street, London W1S 3RL
020 7535 4600
www.ralphlauren.co.uk