P.C. Hooftstraat

This guide to P.C. Hooftstraat in Amsterdam traces the street back to its namesake, Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, sent off by his merchant father in 1598 to learn trade in France and Italy and returning home a poet instead, one of the Dutch Golden Age's most celebrated writers, who gathered artists at his castle and never ran a shop. It follows the street itself from a quiet run of bakers and butchers into the address lined with Chanel, Gucci and Hermes, tracing when and why the luxury retailers arrived from the declining Kalverstraat.