I have had my free day planned out for a while now, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do and where. I have a huge interest in fashion, both on the sides of streetwear type clothing like Gosha Rubchinskiy, or high end Dior or Maison Margiela couture. I find the cultural impact of these two sides of fashion colliding to be really exciting, so I wanted to try and explore both of them. There is also something very architectural about the way that some designers work or how some stores and exhibits are designed, but I didn’t end up sketching because of such a tight time frame. I started at Selfridges, exploring all sorts of brands, including that of Virgil Abloh, who studied architecture at IIT and is one of the most popular and influential high end designers at the moment. I then moved onto a store called Dukes Cupboard, a small vintage streetwear store tucked away in a busy part of Soho. The amount of development in this area is crazy, as the streets surrounding it are all under construction. It reminds me a bit of the short north, with its never ending construction and revitalization. Next door is a store called Machine-A, which is spent a lot of time in, analyzing and drooling over clothes from Craig Green, Raf Simons, Calvin Klein, and more. A sales associate and I were chatting, and he and I were both very interested in how fashion and architecture can tie together in some ways. We had a great discussion, I spent more money than I wanted to, and I was on my way to Dover Street Market. The store is south of Soho, tucked away from any busy streets, but it gets an insane amount of traffic. The store alone has nearly 400,000 Instagram followers. The footprint of the store is small, but spans four floors, split up into smaller spaces based on the designer. If it wasn’t so busy, I would have sketched in there, as each of the small exhibits were all very different, but great in their own ways. Rick Owens, for example, has a very brutal type of space in the store, but Gucci has a colorful and inviting space. Seeing around 30 differently designed spaces all congregated into one building was both overwhelming, but awesome. You can see the way that the space mimics the clothing in terms of aesthetic, or the way that DSM has arranged it all to create a flowing procession through the store. I later went up to the Camden markets, but Dover Street Market and Machine-A were highlights of my day for sure.
A quick shot of the Rick Owens part of the store, with foam added to the walls and furniture designed by him and his wife added to the space.
I never know you have such an interest in fashion, and it is really lucky that you can go so many shops in one day. I love those street styles too, but sadly I can never handle those clothes. I love Diablo style, but I can never handle those clothes neither. I love high fashion too, but I do not have enough money to buy them. I hope you can handle whatever you like well. Also I would highly recommend you to go to Brick Lane Market if you interested in vintage clothes. There are thousands vintage shops over there, and lots of them are really cheap. Moreover, vintage shops in Notting Hill are also amazing.