Fashion Sunday is quickly becoming the place to shop, eat and be. Now, the duo behind the initiative have made it the place to think and learn too. In collaboration with Let’s Be Brief, this August edition will host photographer Dean Chalkley and designer Harris Elliot of H by Harris who’ll be talking ‘The Return of the Rudeboy’, their exhibition currently at Somerset House.
This month will focus solely on the talks and next month will see Fashion Sunday’s first edit of menswear designers and brands take center stage. Twin caught up with Tiffany Alwis and Sonia Williams, the two girls making it all happen, to find out more about what they set out to achieve.
“From working on our label [Hellespont] and meeting the designers that we’ve worked with, we’ve realised just how hard it is,” stated Sonia. “It’s the retail issue for a lot of small labels, obviously you can’t get a physical store and some have their own online platform but you don’t get that customer interaction or you do random pop-ups and they’re not geared towards the designers, so we thought there’s a huge opportunity there.” An opportunity there certainly was. Each month Fashion Sunday helps emerging brands by giving them a space filled with their contemporaries where they can not only sell their products, but a place where they can learn from their consumers. Getting that interaction with customers is key when starting out. And with a mix of current and past season stock, as well as sample and archive products, mostly discounted, it makes for a perfect place to do a spot of shopping on a Sunday.
“What we’re trying to do is give these designers a hop on, hop off place to use,” Tiffany explains, “and for the last six months it’s been like building the infrastructure for it.” At the beginning, the two of them would be on the phone, ringing up their favourite brands to get them on board, however now, more and more designers are coming to them, asking to be part of this new family. “We’ve created a little unit, brands that are with us all the time… Paper London, Emma Shipley, Finchittida Finch, Jessie Harris, Marina London. A lot of them are becoming friends, doing swapsies.”
“Really good quality, interesting design and people who put a lot of care and thought into the production,” states Sonia are the elements that they look for in a brand. “A lot of the designers we work with try and produce and manufacture in the UK and most of them have a real story about their manufacture.” With interest growing around where clothes are made and where they come from, Fashion Sunday is addressing the question of mass-produced clothing and is “bridging the gap between people who would love this stuff but don’t know how to find it.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH: Dean Chalkley & Harris Elliott at Fashion Sunday will be at Oval Space’s sister venue The Pickle Factory from midday August 3rd. Hackney comfort food legends Rita’s will be serving a selection of favourites from their restaurant menu along with their famous frozen margaritas next to our beer bar on the sunny patio. Get tickets at eventbrite.co.uk
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