Rodeo Drive is the most expensive shopping street in the United States, three palm-lined blocks in the heart of Beverly Hills, a city that has symbolized wealth and celebrity since the 1920s. Beverly Hills was incorporated as an independent city in 1914, just south of the Hollywood Hills, and immediately attracted the film industry's earliest stars: Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford built their estate Pickfair here in 1919, and Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin, and Rudolph Valentino soon followed. Rodeo Drive was a quiet residential street through the 1960s; in the 1970s luxury retailers began replacing the bungalows, and by the 1980s it had become the address of choice for every European luxury brand entering the American market.
The transformation of the three-block shopping district into a global landmark of conspicuous consumption was sealed by the 1990 film Pretty Woman, where Julia Roberts was refused service and then returned with a credit card. The palm-lined street with its perfect sidewalks and window displays has been the set for the American dream of luxury in countless films and television shows. Walk the three blocks from Wilshire to Santa Monica Boulevard; you are walking through a retail fantasy.