Rodeo Drive

Rodeo Drive is a two-mile-long street in Beverly Hills, California, including a section in Los Angeles. Its southern terminus is at Beverwil Drive, while its northern terminus is at Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

According to Richard Carroll, a former co-chair of the "Rodeo Drive Committee," the construction of a new wing of the Beverly Wilshire in 1971 started the transition of Rodeo Drive into a worldwide center of elegant shopping. The Rodeo Drive Committee initiated a public relations campaign in 1977 to make everyone in the world think of Rodeo Drive as a shopping street for the rich and famous. The RDC's goal was to turn Rodeo Drive into an economic engine for Beverly Hills while also spreading the idea of a culturally elite lifestyle.

Bijan Pakzad built a showroom on Rodeo Drive in 1976, contributing to Rodeo Drive's status as a luxury shopping destination. Pakzad advertised his Rodeo Drive boutique as the most costly in the world, but as Women's Wear Daily points out, he was infamous for exaggerating. By 1978, the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce boasted that Rodeo Drive embodied the greatest of all shopping districts in the world, and by 1980, the city of Beverly Hills estimated that the Rodeo Drive shopping district accounted for up to 25% of its sales tax earnings.

Location: Beverly Hills, California