page_title: Rodeo Drive
section_title: Origin of a new image
hierarchical_section_title: Rodeo Drive / History / Origin of a new image
caption_attribution_description: English: window shopping in Beverly Hills, California, USA, Vector W8 on Rodeo Drive
context_page_description: Rodeo Drive is a two-mile-long street, in Beverly Hills, California, with its southern segment in the City of Los Angeles. Its southern terminus is at Beverwil Drive, and its northern terminus is at its intersection with Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The name is most commonly used metonymically to refer to the three-block stretch of the street north of Wilshire Boulevard and south of Little Santa Monica Boulevard, which is known for its luxury goods stores.}
context_section_description: In 1967 Fred Hayman, "the father of Rodeo Drive," opened Giorgio Beverly Hills, the street's first high-end boutique. In 1968 Aldo Gucci opened a store on Rodeo, which catalyzed the process by which the street took on its present form. Van Cleef & Arpels opened in 1969, followed by a Vidal Sassoon salon in 1970. The Polo Store, the brand's first freestanding store, opened in 1971.
  According to erstwhile co-chair of the "Rodeo Drive Committee" Richard Carroll, the transformation of Rodeo Drive into an international center of fashionable shopping was sparked in 1971 with the opening of a new wing of the Beverly Wilshire. In 1980 Carroll noted that before then "There was nothing at all of an international nature on the street. Rodeo was purely local in flavor." In 1977 the Rodeo Drive Committee "launched a publicity campaign designed to make everyone around the world think of Rodeo Drive as the shopping street of the rich and famous." The RDC wanted to make Rodeo Drive an economic engine for Beverly Hills and spread the image of a "culturally elite lifestyle."
  In 1976, Bijan Pakzad opened a showroom on Rodeo, which helped to solidify "Rodeo Drive's reputation as a luxury shopping destination."  Pakzad touted his Rodeo Drive store as "the most expensive in the world," but, as Women's Wear Daily notes in relation to the claim, "he was known for hyperbole." By 1978 the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce was boasting that Rodeo Drive was "the essence of the best of all the shopping centers of the world" and by 1980 the city of Beverly Hills estimated that the Rodeo Drive shopping district accounted for as much as 25% of its sales tax revenues.  The building at 332 N. Rodeo was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
caption: A Vector W8 parked in front of the Gucci store
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