Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style
Written by Nicholas Diamond-Krendel, co-founder of Luxury Leather Goods Brand Paradise Row
Source: Fashion City Wholesale Couture, Museum of London. Image shows the ‘Wholesale Couture’ section of the exhibition.
“What’s the difference between a tailor and a lawyer? A generation.”
So the old Jewish joke goes. The excellent new ‘Fashion City’ exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands follows the journey of amkho sher un ayren ('the simple people of the scissors and ironing board') from lives of hardship and privation as immigrants in the East End of London to the bourgeois respectability of West End couture and the fashionable boutiques of London’s Swinging Sixties.
But like the joke itself, such a characterisation seems strangely reductive, implying a clear trajectory when there was none, glazing over the individual tales of winners and losers, of independent designers and multi-store chains, of men and women, even Jews and non-Jews who are also part of this non-linear journey.
And that is where this exhibition excels. Michael Marks, Sir Montague Burton, Sir Phillip Green. These and many other august names of the Jewish shmata business are not the focus of this exhibition. Their stories have all been well told in Wikipedia entries and in the board minutes of their PLCs.
Instead, step forward Malka Fiszer (Anglicised to Millie Fisher in keeping with the widespread practice of Jewish migrants downplaying their roots to better assimilate into their host nation) who built up a successful umbrella business on Hanbury Street, only to find herself hostage to changing fortunes, losing her business and forced to pawn her wedding ring and even her bed.
There is the story of the unnamed tailor of Hoxton who, according to the experts and historians who brought this exhibition together, produced the finest bit of workmanship on display in the entire exhibition. There is no label on this simple blue three-piece suit, the craftsman’s legacy preserved only in each stitch and thread which endure.
Then there is the story of the Moldau family, the children of which came over on the Kindertransport to continue the leather goods business their family had built up in Vienna before the factory was seized and Aryanised after the annexation of Austria in 1938. The business flourished through the 1950s and 60s, producing under both its own Molmax label and for the likes of Harrods, Burberry and Liberty. In a particularly poignant revelation, I later discovered that this was the family of the exhibition’s own curator, Dr Lucie Whitmore, who had grown up unaware of her Jewish ancestry, her family, like so many others, uneasy talking about the events that had brought them to these shores.
Some of the most moving bits of the exhibition cover the interaction between Jews and other migrant groups, themselves part of their own similar and yet unique tale of displacement, reinvention and perseverance. The story of the East End is often told in successive but distinct waves of immigration, but here we have the snappy, pencil-moustached Jamaican, Winston Giscombe and Bengali couple Anwara and Ashab Begum, who supplemented their own income working for Jewish garment makers in Whitechapel, before starting their own businesses, some of which remain to this day.
There are sections on Moss Bros and Chelsea Girl (now River Island) as well as lengthy tributes to the likes of Cecil Gee, David Sassoon and Mr Fish as we move into the modern era; however, if the exhibition lacks one thing, it is perhaps a section on the present day. Where are these brands now? Of the ones which remain, how have they adapted to changing retail habits, the decline of the high street and the rise of a new generation of makers?
Only a few doors down from where the Fishers set up their feted umbrella shop on Hanbury Street is London Undercover, a contemporary umbrella store stocked across the world and founded in 2008 by a descendant of Jewish immigrants. Indeed my own journey as a fifth generation child of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants has taken me on the inverse journey to that described in this exhibition, moving from west to east London and from a respectable career in a multinational law firm to co-founding an independent luxury leather goods business, Paradise Row, just streets away from the house on Ford Square in Whitechapel where my great great grandparents had started out. And so the story continues…
But this is really to kvetch. The omission of contemporary brands as well as other iconic names of post-war fashion can easily be forgiven given the constraints of museum space. This is not the V&A or the RA, operating on comparatively minuscule budgets and within the constraints of a Grade I listed wharf building. Particularly skilful is the way the huge timber joists of this former warehouse have been repurposed into the ship through which you enter the museum, recreating the feeling of arrival experienced by successive waves of immigrants, the sense of foreboding, of not knowing what to expect, with only the possessions they could carry. Family testimonies are played over the speaker, a reminder of the precious oral tradition of immigrant stories handed down from one generation to the next.
And it is these videos which hint to a deeper purpose here. Remarkably, this exhibition started life not as an exhibition at all, but as a project to archive the previously dispersed collection of clothing, accessories and other ephemera in the Museum of London collection. Yes, there are gaps, but this somehow feels to miss the point. It is the ability to connect the exhibits to the precious oral testimony of what will be the last generation to have known these brands first hand that is the real achievement of this exhibition. Unlike so many of their family members left behind, the likes of Sophie Rabin, Netty Spiegel, Peggy Lewis, Otto Lucas and so many more will now be given their rightful place alongside more familiar names in the annals of British fashion.
My great great grandmother with my grandfather outside their house at 26 Ford Square, Whitechapel. Within a generation, the family was living on Portland Place in the West End.
You can find out more about the exhibition here and the book here
Check out Paradise Row on LinkedIn and Instagram
Image clicks through to YouTube and demonstrates how to make a DIY skeleton halloween costume.
Textile waste and Halloween
The #SewSpooky campaign, funded by NLWA with campaign support from Hubbub, aims to encourage more people to make costumes and to pass on their used outfits to friends and family, giving them another lease of life. While half of the people NLWA surveyed weren’t sure about using a costume that had been worn before by someone they didn’t know, 73% were happy with the idea of receiving a used costume from family or friends. Since launching the campaign in 2017, the campaign has taken costume swaps and making workshops to universities across London, as well as for families and children.
Hubbub collaborated with the Fairyland Trust in 2019 to update this research. The data showed that Halloween is the UK’s most celebrated event after Christmas and New Year’s Eve and dressing up for the occasion is on the rise.
Key data suggests that:
Each year an estimated 39 million people dress up for Halloween in the UK.
90% of families buy new costumes every year, with 73% happy to wear a used costume from a friend or relative.
In a survey of 19 retailers, the research found that 83% of Halloween costumes are made using non-recyclable oil-based plastics; meaning they're set for landfill.
So, for just one day close to 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste is generated – the equivalent of 83 million plastic bottles.
Based on a sample of 30 Halloween costumes sold through Amazon which showed an average weight of 361g (297g plastic), and a previous Hubbub survey finding 7m Halloween costumes are disposed of each year, this indicates 2.079m kg or 2,079 tonnes of plastic waste is generated in the UK each year by Halloween clothing/ costumes.
This is equivalent by weight of waste plastic to 83 million Coca Cola bottles over one per person in the UK.
Aoife Allen, Director at Hubbub said:
“It truly is a Halloween horror to see the number of costumes that are only worn once before being binned, when it’s so easy to save used costumes from a nasty end and pass them on to friends and family. Our Sew Spooky campaign also includes lots of quick and easy ideas for spook-tacular costumes that a child could make, which can make for a fun half-term activity.”
The European Commissions bans the sale of glitter
The European Commission has banned the sale of loose plastic glitter, like that used in arts and crafts, microbeads and some cosmetics or that where glitter detaches during normal use. The purpose of this ban is to replace plastic glitter with more environmentally versions, such as biodegradable, soluble, natural or inorganic glitter. This new regulation comes in response to the ever increasing microplastics being found in our oceans.
Schools fully stocked with free period products, but girls are failing to access them
The third consecutive research paper on period inequality in the UK, Period Equality: Breaking the Cycle, reveals that while significant progress has been made in making menstrual products more accessible in education settings through funding them for free, over half of students (52%) did not find period products freely available in washrooms and a further one in seven (14%) did not know if they were available.
While period equality schemes across the UK have been lauded as a success with extremely high engagement from schools – in England alone, 99% of secondary schools have ordered their quota of products since the scheme began, the new statistics highlight issues getting products to girls, and keeping girls in lessons.
Kelly Greenaway, period equality lead at phs Group, said:
“It’s important to recognise that huge advances have been made in giving girls access to free period products in schools across the UK. What we must do now is close the gap between providing schools with all the products they need and getting them into the hands of any girls that need them, for whatever reason. We know from our own data providing schools with products, that they have more than enough for their girls, so we need to tackle the misconceptions around free access to products in washrooms, and the stigma and shame that goes hand in hand with failing to have open conversations about menstruation.”
Open consultation: Simpler recycling in England
Following support at public consultation, the Environment Act 2021 amended the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to include new requirements relating to the separate collection of waste in England. In 2021 the government consulted on the detail to go into regulations, including on the materials in scope of collection, exemptions, and implementation dates. This consultation seeks views on related policies regarding the collection of waste from non-domestic premises and information to potentially be recorded on the new waste tracking service.
Event: Internationalisation
Discover how you can take your business overseas!
The Newable Advice team are facilitating a free Breakfast Club for London-based businesses that may need help with access to innovation development, secure future growth and take their products and services overseas.
Exporting products is an essential component of a high-growth business. This event will help companies understand that no matter what stage of the lifecycle their business is in, there are always different types of Internationalisation. Advisors can provide advice on how to access export finance and support through the required steps to deliver export protection and become an international business.
Churchill Fellowships now open
Applications for Churchill Fellowships focussed on arts and communities are now open. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to discover new approaches and best practice in other countries in order to support positive social change in UK communities of all kinds through arts, culture and creative practices. Applications can be made via the link below until 5pm on 14 November for projects to begin from August 2024.