Mnasidika San Francisco 1965 T-Shirt

In the mid-60s, young people flocked to San Francisco's Haight and Ashbury neighborhood, attracted by the area's cheap rent. In 1965, the first hippie boutique opened at 1510 Haight Street in the Doolan-Larson Building. The storefront here was owned by a 24-year-old young woman named Peggy Caserta who named her place Mnasidika, a reference to the first known lesbians in written history (see The Songs of Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs). Among her friends and customers were counterculture artists and musicians, most of whom would go on to be big names, but all bought their jeans, tees, and other fashion essentials from her little neighborhood storefront. Mnasidika closed after the Summer of Love in 1968, but the space as it was remains today.