Spitalfields Antiques Market 2
Continuing this occasional series, I am delighted to introduce four more traders from the antiques market held each Thursday in Spitalfields. With all kinds of drapes and flags hung up, antique carpets spread out, rails filled with old clothes and lines of stalls piled with antiques, bric-a-brac and curios spreading onto the floor, it is a breathtaking spectacle. And, since most of the traders are also collectors and are naturally curious to see what everyone else has for sale, they all go prowling around and the whole event spontaneously ignites into a great big party.
This debonair gentlemen with the intrinsically cool attitude goes by the name of Tem. As a photographer and theatre designer, he comes upon all kinds of interesting props that he uses in his work and sells them afterwards on his stall. Specialising in nineteen thirties and forties items, Tem cherishes a vintage pair of sunglasses with mirror-reflective lenses and gold-plated frames in mint condition with their original case, a movie star accessory that can be yours for the right price.
This friendly bearded fellow in the Guernsey is Steve Sorrell who has been buying and selling furniture from his home in West Sussex for thirty years, originally dealing in Art Deco, now he sells anything quirky. Steve became passionate when I asked him about the market, clearly relishing the social event as the highlight of his week, he broke into a big smile, waving his arms and declared with magnanimous enthusiasm “It’s the best antique market in London, without a doubt. There’s a great buzz here and it just keeps getting better and better!”
This flirty lady modelling her pink silk bag is Annie Curtis Jones who has enjoyed a distinguished career as a costume designer for films for over thirty years. A popular and highly respected figure among the traders, Annie confided, “I love the market, I like to bring different stuff every week. I come here when I’m not working on a project and you meet all sorts of remarkable people.” Recently Annie has been making cushions and bags using her vast collection of antique silk scarves. Every one is unique and they are exclusive to Paul Smith and Liberty but you can buy them direct from Annie at her stall.
This guy showing off his spiffy jacket is Jeremy Freedman, photographer, market trader and all round charismatic entrepreneur. Jeremy trawled the charity shops of the Lake District while he was there on assignment last month to top up his stock of “tut and tat, schmutter and antiques.” I was more interested in an early edition of Babar than the vintage soda syphon, complete with a stack of refill canisters that Jeremy wanted to sell me, but when he described it as “a Summer of soda” it suddenly became an enticing proposition.
All photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Alex Preston, novelist & banker
Alex Preston is a natural writer who speaks in wonderful long sentences with all the profusion of his adverbs, adjectives and subclauses in their correct places, and as a result I found myself struggling to keep pace with his easy eloquence as I scribbled frantically in my scruffy little notebook during our conversation over coffee at St John. In his choice of dual professions, Alex presents something of Jekyll & Hyde identity because while our bankers are the pariahs of the age, our novelists have always been one of the glories of the nation. Consequently, I was thankful to be having a conversation with Alex Preston the novelist.
There are many noble precedents, including Kenneth Grahame author of “The Wind in the Willows” who was secretary to the Bank Of England and T.S.Eliot who worked for Lloyds Bank, while Alex also cites Wallace Stevens who was President of the Hertford Life Insurance Company and Franz Kafka who dealt in insurance too, though I am not sure that the life of Kafka, in spite of the brilliance of his vision, is one that many would choose to emulate.
Alex is enjoying a productive Spring with his first novel This Bleeding City published last month and his second baby born on the night of the publisher’s launch party. He looked sprightly in an extremely well-cut suit as he arrived at St John and I was flattered that someone might choose to take time out from the world of high finance to speak with me. Living in Spitalfields, the City of London is on my doorstep and yet the financial world remains a blank enigma that I witness whenever I walk over to the Borough Market and find myself wandering like a ghost among the men in suits hurrying with such inexplicable purpose between the glittering palaces.“The city is designed for the abstractions it pedals,” explained Alex, “When you walk out onto a trading floor, you are walking from the real world into an abstract world of numbers that is deliberately unknowable.”
I was not any wiser. So I asked Alex how, like Charlie the protagonist of his novel, he came to work in the City after studying English Literature at Oxford under the celebrated liberal critic and writer Tom Paulin. Ten years on, Alex can admit, “I had my head turned,” with the candid qualification,“It’s ridiculous to make these decisions at twenty.” Alex’s novel is a testament to the seductive power of the City, a tale of an intelligent young man from a middle class background encountering an elevated milieu at university and then following his peers into the ambivalent world of finance. Somehow I was expecting a glittering tale of ambition and greed like “American Psycho” or “Bright Lights, Big City,” but Charlie in “This Bleeding City” has more in common with Leonard Bast the young clerk in “Howards End,” with a fragile emotionalism that retains the reader’s sympathy even as you question the character’s choices.
For a few years, Alex lived in Wilkes St and worked for ABN Ambro in the glossy new building on the site of the old Spitalfields Market. Now that he lives in Kensal Green, he looks back to this time in Spitalfields when he and his housemates celebrated their birthdays in the private bar at The Golden Heart, “I loved living here so much, nowhere else in the city does the fun life come up against the work life so closely. From my office I could look down onto Spitalfields Market and see people coming out of The Golden Heart. It was galling to be here when the crash came.”
“Having things fall apart among people who were so overworked, and putting in such long hours yet who had so little vocation or feeling for their jobs, combined with the necessity to blank out all the finer things, no time for their friends or family, meant that the fragile self-fulfilling optimism which existed turned to panic and despair very quickly.” said Alex darkly, evoking the psychology of the crash that he witnessed at first hand, in one of his famously erudite sentences.
As we walked past the ABN Ambro building where Alex saw it happen, I reminded Alex that this is also where they filmed the car commercial in which a lost young man carries the contents of his desk out in a box that breaks scattering his possessions onto the pavement, prompting him to break into song affirming the power of positive thinking, before he gets into his shiny new car and drives off to the Highlands of Scotand. Whenever I see this commercial, I always wonder what he is going to do when he reaches the wilderness. In confirmation of this notion, Alex pointed out the two shops selling bicycles and camping gear that he always noticed, strategically positioned directly opposite the entrance of ABN Ambro in case any employees should require a quick escape.
Beneath the bright surface of Alex’s intellect I detect a quiet melancholy that feels a little strange to discern in someone who has achieved success early in life. I think Alex lived a lot between the ages of twenty and thirty, years coinciding with the disappointing first decade of this new century and colouring his vision with an elegiac tinge that belies his youthful nature. As we walked through the narrow streets from Spitalfields towards the Bank of England to take the photographs, Alex talked about Kenneth Grahame both as a very successful banker and equally as someone who needed to explore that other world of Ratty and the whimsical riverbank characters in Cookham, far from the city – contrasting Grahame’s career with Eliot as the poet forced to do something grubby. Hearing Alex’s internal debate dramatised in this way, I was compelled to ask the obvious question, “Are you a novelist or a banker?”
Graciously acceding to my impertinence with a shy grin, Alex replied, “At dinner parties I am a novelist rather than a banker.” In a city as expensive as London, it can be a struggle to make a living as a novelist unless you are bestselling author, especially when you have a wife, two babies and a family home in Kensal Green to support, but with “This Bleeding City” creeping up the WHSmith top ten in Liverpool St Station I hope it will not be too long before the Dr Jekyll can triumph over the Mr Hyde in Alex’s career, even if he spends the rest of his writing life exploring their struggle within his own psyche.
Jim Heppel, New Spitalfields Market
I left my home near the Old Spitalfields Market early and walked East for an hour through Bethnal Green and Hackney Wick, as the dawn came up and the empty streets filled with people, until I reached the New Spitalfields Market where I had the honour of a breakfast with Jim Heppel, the Chief Executive of the Market Tenants’ Association, at seven. Jim joined the Spitalfields Market on 11th February 1983 and retires this week after twenty-seven years service that included masterminding the move to this new site on Walthamstow Marshes in 1991.
In spite of the vast scale of the trading operation, as Jim stood grinning like a schoolboy to have his scarf tied round his neck by his secretary I realised the atmosphere in the Tenants’ Association office was closer to that of a small family business, with plenty of affectionately cherished quirks and idiosyncrasies displayed by the long time employees. Without a doubt, Jim is the least corporate executive I ever met.
As we set out across the car park from the office towards the market structure that loomed in front of us, filling the field of vision entirely, I could see the trading aisles crisscrossed by a hundred fast-moving forklift trucks, receding into the far distance beneath the yellow vaulted steel roof. At the entrance, I was dazzled by the spectacle of armies of traders dealing more fruit and vegetables that I could dream of. Then, once we entered the trading area, people ceased their labours which were all-engaging the second before and came over to shake Jim’s hand in recognition of the unique role he has played in the history of the market.
It was a touching sight to witness these men open up to Jim with exuberant smiles and to recognise that the market enjoys a vigorous life as a human community which is as vibrant as it ever was. But even more remarkable to me at first was the strange air of familiarity about the whole scene. The stacks of crates, the busy traders, the trashed boxes and spilled produce, even the scavengers scrabbling for stray tomatoes in the car park, I recognised all these from my memories of the old Spitalfields Market and Mark Jackson & Huw Davies’ photographs taken there in 1991.
As we walked through the market, I found myself looking over my shoulder at the forklift trucks careering like dodgems in every direction but Jim walked with relaxed assurance, owning the space as if he were a ring master at the centre of his own personal circus, entirely unafraid of collisions with acrobats or stray elephants. He wanted to be photographed beneath the clock that was all they brought from the old market yet, as I was introduced to men who were six generation fruit and vegetable sellers, I realised the market itself is an enduring social organism that has greater longevity than the buildings and their fixtures.
Back in Spitalfields, even nearly twenty years after the move, there remains a sense of absence that something which defined the place for centuries has gone. But the market has not disappeared, I am happy to report that like the island which sailed away it still exists and thrives. More than this, the island has grown to become a continent, because while the old market provided ten acres of trading there are now thirty-two acres, providing employment for fifteen hundred people. And, although in recent years supermarkets have taken 80% of the fruit and vegetable trade, New Spitalfields Market has been re-invigorated by new traders of diverse ethnicities who now make up 60% of the tenants.
In this microcosm of the world, fruit and vegetables from every corner of the globe are traded by European, Asian, Afro-Caribbean, Turkish, Chinese and Egyptian traders (among others), creating a marketplace of Babel. A dignified Hasidic Jewish gentleman passed me clutching a Horseradish root in one hand while his behatted colleague proudly carried a box of fine pink Pomegranates, in preparation for Passover, and reminding me how essential fruit and vegetables are to the cultural vocabulary of almost every people. It filled me with a vertiginous sense of wonder to be at this turning point of the world, where so much produce passes through, coming from farmers on its journey to the people who will eat it.
After breakfast in the Floral cafe, Jim and I retreated to the peace of his office which was empty of people by nine in the morning after the night’s work. He explained that Spitalfields Market was created by a royal charter in 1682 signed by Charles II, which meant that only Parliament could alter the charter when the move was proposed, and so Jim spent two and half years in Westminster seeking the approval of both the House of Commons and House of Lords on behalf of the traders.
Jim is a phlegmatic yet good-humoured man with whom it is very pleasant to spend time. He seemed remarkably placid for someone who has spent his life bringing conflicting parties to agreement and managing the move of the market that caused plenty of controversy in its time. In these last days now before his retirement, I was touched to sit alone with him as he explained modestly that it all happened because he failed his eye test for the Merchant Navy. Instead he found himself working as Secretary to the Traders’ Federation at the old Covent Garden Market and then in 1974, when that moved to Vauxhall, he had the opportunity to travel around Britain visiting all the regional markets. These visits and the sense of markets as communities of people that he experienced on these trips, touched Jim in some way, because at this point in his story he changed his tone and turned to me, realising what he really wanted to say.
“I fell in love with the industry and the trade. As you walk around the market, it’s like a small village where you know virtually everyone and everyone knows you. We’re off the road here in our own private world in the New Spitalfields Market. I think the traders can be a bit insular because it’s a very competitive business and since market prices can alter by the hour – every price is negotiated every time like the old stock exchange.” After this discreet summation, Jim considered, to add what he had learnt,“One of the most interesting things now is that it is such a mixture of people, Christians, Muslims, Hasidic Jews and other cultures too – yet if anyone spills a load, everyone comes to help. Outside there is religious conflict but here in the market everyone works together.”
Once upon a time the small streets of Spitalfields were crammed with articulated lorries every night and on the restricted site there, the market could never have held its own against the supermarkets. It was the move achieved under Jim’s brave stewardship which permitted expansion and ensured its survival.
We have learnt to despise the marketplace as an image of the world, but Jim changed my mind because in contrast to the corporate dominance of the supermarket, the New Spitalfields Market thrives as a collective enterprise of traders which exists supplying smaller independent businesses. Over coming weeks, I am planning some return visits to interview the proprietors of the oldest family businesses here and learn their stories, now I have found my way from Old Spitalfields to New Spitalfields.
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
Hot Cross Buns from St John
For reasons that do not merit explanation, I cannot eat chocolate – which means that Easter celebrations revolve instead around baking, Simnel Cakes, Easter biscuits and especially Hot Cross Buns. This weekend, Justin Piers Gellatly at St John Bread & Wine in Commercial St baked the first Hot Cross Buns of the season, but I almost forgot on Saturday morning because I was too preoccupied sitting in bed watching the Blue Tits flying in and out of the birdbox outside my window. Then, in over-affectionate playfulness, Mr Pussy, who is moulting his Winter coat now and getting frisky, succeeded in drawing blood from my fingers with his sharp claws as I was pulling my socks on, before I ran over to St John to get my hands on a couple of the hotly anticipated buns.
The lovely pair of buns fitted snugly inside a small brown paper bag from St John, clenched in my sweaty fist as I made my way home to enjoy them with a cup of tea, before the rain clouds burst upon Spitalfields. I think there is an archetypal perfection to the archaic criss-cross design of Hot Cross Buns that is the bakery equivalent of those Elizabethan half-timbered buildings. Even as I unrolled my crumpled bag to admire them, an aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg greeted me, a scent that drifted through the house as I sliced up my precious buns and put them under the grill.
Purists might expect me to wait until Good Friday for Hot Cross Buns (first recorded under this name in 1733) as symbols of the Christ’s crucifixion, while Pagans enjoy them as mystic illustration of the four quarters of the moon, the symbol of the goddess Eostre. Whichever way you choose to look at it these buns are delicious toasted on one side with a little butter.
There is a chunkiness about these specimens from St John that is especially satisfactory, with the cross applied in sweet chewy dough speckled with nutmeg and the whole thing glazed nicely to catch the Spring sunshine. I have been disappointed sometimes with Hot Cross Buns that are too insubstantial, the ones you buy at the bakery in four or six and they get squashed flat if something gets put on top of them in the shopping basket, before dissolving like Spring clouds into cotton wool upon first bite.
On Saturday, there was no disappointment in the air as I bit into the buns that have real substance. The sweet fluffy texture of the spicy dough is enlivened with raisins and candied fruit, and contained by the thin glazed sugary crust that has just enough bite to be interesting without ever becoming challenging, while the whole thing is offset by delicious thick strips of chewy pastry that make the cross. Sweet but not too sweet, spicy but just spicy enough and substantial without becoming heavy – Justin Piers Gellatly has excelled himself again, demonstrating exemplary judgement in balancing all the qualities of the Alchemical mix that go to make the perfect Hot Cross Bun.
On Sunday afternoon, I returned to St John and left again with another small brown paper bag clenched in my fist containing two more Hot Cross Buns. This time I ate my buns untoasted and with a little Spring Rhubarb jam, providing a refreshing fruity contrast to the chewy dough, perfectly suiting the brief spell of sunshine that accompanied my Sunday tea. Now I have a week of potential ahead of me. A Hot Cross Bun with a slice of cheese is an old favourite and, moving beyond that, I can add Blackcurrant jam to the slice of mature Cheddar on my Hot Cross Bun. You can be reassured, I have accommodated to the lack of chocolate in my Easter celebration magnificently, without any significant gap in the densely woven tapestry of my personal existence in Spitalfields.
Columbia Road Market 28
Whenever there has been a day of sunshine, I have managed to snatch a few hours in my garden to undertake a little tidying up, reinstating the edge of beds where the rocks and scallop shells have sunk into the ground, and pulling out weeds before they get a chance to become established. My garden had been sad and neglected for months, but now it looks cared for again and is ready for the long anticipated rush of growth we shall see over the coming weeks. Already the pattern of sunshine and showers is upon us, and when I look down from the upper windows onto my garden there is an exciting contrast between the rich black earth and the green of new leaves that grow more vivid every day, almost glowing with fluorescence. I think it is all about green at this time of year and I know of no other place on earth that can match the variety of tones which create the symphony of green that is the English Spring.
Today I was at the market by eight and the possibilities now are quite overwhelming, so I found myself compiling a mental list of plants that I hope to add to my garden over coming months. This week I bought these sublimely scented Lily of the Valley (Convallaria Majalis), three pots for £5, with the ambition to create a drift of them in coming years under a Japanese Maple that my predecessor planted. I think the fragrance of Lily of the Valley is almost my favourite scent in the world, along with beeswax, sweet peas, lemon verbena, tea roses, frankincense, myrrh, and my cat’s ears.
Dino's Grill & Restaurant
This swaggering Italian with the Fred Flintstone stubble and the Antonio Banderas hair is Matthew Ribeiro of Dino’s Grill & Restaurant, 76 Commercial St. You may recognise him from last Wednesday when he delivered a bacon sandwich to Jimmy Cuba, the music dealer in the market, and experienced some of Jimmy’s playful rough and tumble in return. Since Rossi’s Cafe closed this year, Dino’s Grill is now the last of the cafes to remain in business out of all those that once served the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market.
If you are weary, and the howling gale is blowing down Commercial St and you need a bolt hole, this is the cafe to escape to for a quiet cup of tea.The unremarkable frontage and the wholesale clothing stores on either side ensure it is a place where nobody goes to be seen and thank goodness for that. Once you get inside and take your place in one of the snug Formica booths, no-one can see you from the street and you can let the world recede. There is a pleasant geometry and sense of order which is calming, the honey-coloured interior induces repose and posters around the walls introduce sufficient gentle diversion, should you require it.
Quite simply, in Dino’s Grill you can relax because you are not on show, it is an unreconstructed place where everyone is a regular and tourists never stray. The clientele comprises office workers, tradesmen, and builders. Dare I say it? It possesses an exotic quality that only true connoisseurs can fully appreciate, it is not fashionable – in fact, this cafe is almost unique in Spitalfields because it is completely unpretentious.
Opening in 1958 as Nando’s Cafe, it was run by Peggy Bragoli and her husband Nando Bragoli who was the chef. The couple lived upstairs above the cafe where they brought up their son Dino who was also born in 1958. Such was their pride in their boy that in 1972 when he began to work there at the age of fourteen, they renamed it Dino’s in his honour.
Innumerable stories confirm that Peggy was the leading light, even if she never got her name on the front of the cafe. You can see the only picture of her below, taken in 1996 with Matthew, who is the current proprietor. He remembers Peggy fondly, evoking her spirit by raising his eyebrows, waving his hands and deepening his voice for dramatic effect,“She was like the devil, she would do everything, run here, come back – a small woman but a very hard-working person! To begin with, they used to open at four in the morning and shut at seven in the evening. In 1993 once she retired, she would come and work for free. She wouldn’t accept anything from me because it was her life to be here, she’d say ‘No, no please!’ when I tried to pay her. And in 2003 when she returned to Piacenta in Italy, she cried because she didn’t want to go, it was her husband who wanted to leave.”
“I started working here in 1992 and I worked very hard, and they loved me like I was family, I was the only employee and I used to go to them for Christmas.” continued Matthew in an open-hearted spirit, in explanation of how he came to take on the running of the cafe.“Business is steady now,” he confirmed, adopting a professional tone before admitting,” I had a very bad year in 2009. Many of my lunch customers are from RBS and about fifty got the sack last year, now they have other jobs they come back to me. I am lucky because Dino is my landlord and he understands. The rent increases around here are crazy, every year my office customers change because companies move in and out as the rents rise. If you have the freehold you can survive in Spitalfields but otherwise forget it.”
For years, Gilbert & George dined at The Market Cafe in Fournier St. Then, when it closed, they transferred their patronage to Rossi’s Cafe in Hanbury St and now that is also gone they come to Dino’s Grill twice a week. There was a brief limbo after Rossi’s shut when I spotted them dining at The Luxe but it just did not seem right. Now they can now be reassured that no further accommodations on the catering front will be necessary because the Bragoli family bought the freehold of 76 Commercial St in 1964 for £4,000 which means that the future for Dino’s Grill is secure.
I followed Matthew as he sprinted up the stairs to the first floor kitchen with a familiar ease that I could not quite match. There I met Enzo, the head chef, who works here with his assistant preparing full English breakfasts, liver and bacon, steak pies and pasta sauces made fresh every day, all ready to be winched down in the dumb-waiter and served piping hot to hungry customers. “Spaghetti Al Dino” is the popular house speciality, spaghetti with Bolognese and a Bechamel sauce with cheeses, topped with ham, eggs and mushrooms, and baked to perfection in a metal dish.
I was touched when Matthew handed over the photograph of him and Peggy behind the counter in 1996. Even here, working three years after her retirement, Peggy doesn’t spare a moment to look up to the camera to show us her full face because the coffee machine is a more crucial object of attention. There is something all-consuming about running these small cafes, providing a loyal service to regular customers, and now Matthew is gripped too, as he confessed to me, “I couldn’t stay at home, even if I chose. I don’t think of myself as coming to work – I love it!”
Matthew Ribeiro in 1996 with Peggy Bragoli.
John William, fashion editor
In Nicolai Gogol’s drama “The Government Inspector”, Khlestakov, the young playboy from Moscow who turns up to cause hullabaloo in a provincial town is described as having hair that resembled “a rabbit on fire.” For many years I puzzled, trying to imagine what this could be like, until I met John recently and saw his hair. Conservatively short around the sides but with a spectacular mass of long curls erupting from the crown and spiralling recklessly in every direction, it is like a fountain in the wind or even, you might say, like a rabbit on fire.
Although, as editor of Pigeons & Peacocks magazine, John William presents an appearance that is striking to behold, there is far more to him than meets the eye on first impression. Upon introduction, when John talks, it is with a maximum number of exclamation marks, so it was no surprise to me when I received an email from him that commenced in the same way, “Hello!!! John here!” I can only admire how John has made audacity into a style because I surmise he is at heart a shy person who has adopted this demonstrative self declaration as a means to overcome his natural reserve and engage with the world openly. As such, John’s construction of himself represents an heroic and engaging triumph of style, qualifying him as a one of life’s true fashion pioneers. He is a true original voice in the barren wilderness of conformity crying out, “Hello!!! John here!”
On the day we met, dressed down for the working day, John was rocking a chunky eighties sweater with images of cocktail glasses, carnival streamers and harlequin masks knitted into it, accessorised with a gold chain round his neck displaying the name “Divine” (referring to the star of John Waters’ masterpiece “Pink Flamingos” who is John William’s personal inspiration). Baggy trousers rolled up to his ankles revealed two-tone wet-look and suede brogues with Forget-me-not blue socks. Yet in spite of his loud clothes, when John settles down to a conversation he speaks quietly and thoughtfully, presenting his opinions lucidly.
Speaking of his unremarkable upbringing in Liverpool, John revealed, “I knew what I wanted to do since I was ten, at thirteen I bleached my first pair of jeans, cut them up and safety pinned them back together again, and it was the first example of the power of presentation – because it completely changed the way everyone saw me and taught me the power of constructed identity. Monthly, I wrote to every fashion magazine from Sleaze Nation to Vogue asking for an internship and when at fifteen I was invited to do work experience at Dazed & Confused, I worked at McDonalds until I saved up the money to come to London for the first time.”
Clearly an operator, John was disappointed by the lack of initiative shown by other students on his fashion journalism course and went out and won commissions, submitting a portfolio of his published work at the end of the year. With equal aplomb, he persuaded the London College of Fashion to give him the budget they would spend on their prospectus to publish his magazine, Pigeons & Peacocks, and allow him freedom to pursue his own innovative editorial policy. An enlightened decision that has proved to be a sympathetic reflection upon the college itself.
I wondered if John’s ambition was to pursue the fast track of success in fashion journalism, but he dismissed it. “I don’t want to be Anna Wintour!” he protested, as if the unlikely transformation were literally at hand, before he proceeding to elaborate upon his own more egalitarian philosophy of fashion, “Pigeons & Peacocks is not prescriptive, it is a collection of diverse opinions and stories, I want people to feel they can become involved and I get emails from fifteen and sixteen year olds submitting ideas. It’s not about selling someone the shoes they can’t afford or the sweater they don’t need. Fast fashion is horrible and people are wising up to it. As a weirdo, at least you are spared the pressure to accept the package that is being sold to everyone else through advertising, because as a weirdo you don’t want it in the first place. I think that whole Tom Ford idea is embarrassing now. Who’s got that money to spend? And who wants to live that life that’s presented top to tail and floor to ceiling?”
John is twenty-two and articulates the voice of a generation who have seen the excesses of consumerism and reject the waste of resources and the human exploitation it represents. In its place he proposes a manifesto of do-it-yourself creativity that does not involve spending a great deal of money but requires thought to decide who you are and how clothes can be part of your individual expression. I was inspired to meet someone who has grown up through the sordid events of recent history and emerged idealistic.
When he proudly rolled up his sleeve to show me the fine tattoo on his arm of Casper, his beloved blue-eyed Siamese, and the one on his shoulder that reads “I want to be the girl with the most cake”, I could not help smiling because there is a rare playfulness about John that is equally disarming and appealing in its candid emotionalism. All John’s thoughts are in motion, pursuing his ideas about people and the culture of clothing open-mindedly, to see where it will take him and what he can learn.
Pigeons & Peacocks is currently preparing an East End issue that looks at the role of clothing and style in the diverse and complex cultures here, far beyond the realm of fashion. We look forward to it with eager anticipation.
