encounters

on becoming a sohoite

March 1, 2026

While reading about Soho with the curiosity of a tourist, I fell down a small internet rabbit hole and discovered the legend of the Seven Noses – small, life-sized casts of artist Rick Buckley’s own nose, attached to buildings around London in 1997 as a protest against the growing army of surveillance cameras.

Apparently more than 30 noses were installed across the city. Only a handful remain today, hidden in plain sight. Legend has it that if you find all seven, you’ll gain great wealth – and better still, become a true Sohoite.

So, with great enthusiasm, we set off on a hunt.
When an hour of searching yielded nothing, I ducked into Wacky, a barber shop on St Anne’s Street with a full-on 90s vibe – video cassettes stacked on shelves, old posters on the walls. Surely the locals would know something about these mysterious noses.

“Hey, do you know where I can spot the Seven Noses?”

“Noses?”

The man in the barber’s chair had a magnificent handlebar moustache and had lived in Soho his entire life.

“No. Never heard of them.”

“If you find them, let us know,” quipped his barber.

Nose-hunting, it turns out, is for wannabe Sohoites.

The real ones walk straight past them.