Home From Home
When I was a teenager growing up in East Sussex, going to a clothes shop was like going to a nightclub. By 'shop' I mean boutique - though that word has always seemed a bit embarrassing. The clothes Mecca was the short-lived but dazzling emporium that was Biba. On my occasional visits to London to see my dad I would go to Biba and mostly wander around, too shy to try anything on and definitely too insecure to shoplift - even though it was famously easy and the word on the street was that all the girls who worked there had been chosen for their looks and not their skills in preventing the multiple thefts.
When I came to open my own shop in 2015 I chose the villagey atmosphere of Chiltern St in Marylebone. My uncle Stephen used to have a shop in Chiltern St that sold door knobs. My father used to take me for breakfast at a wonderful Patisserie called Sagne, which no longer exists. It was the first time I ate a danish pastry - a rare and extreme pleasure inducing experience. Danish pastries were unheard of in those days and baked, along with other mouthwatering delicacies, on the premises.
I decided my shop should be a home from home, somewhere you might want to hang out and sit chatting with a friend while they try things on. Maria Speake from Retrouvius had already designed my flat and she knew what my shop home should be like. Being cosy in a shop is a great feeling. We have a garden and on the rare days it is sunny, you can sit out there and have a cigarette. What a joy.
