With shops closing and gentrification taking hold, can fashion brand JW Anderson revive the punk spirit of London’s Soho?
The edgy label, worn by Beyoncé and Alexa Chung, will open its first flagship store on the corner of Wardour Street and Brewer Street. Jonathan Anderson, the designer, wants to bring the outlier atmosphere back to the area. “I am queer and queer culture has an incredible history in Soho,” he says. “There’s a magnetism to the area; some of the greatest writers and painters of the last 100 years have come from here.”
It’s a statement in itself that the shop will not be located in New Bond Street where many high-fashion brand shops reside. But for the Northern Ireland-born designer, it’s important that the shop does not give off an air of intimidation. “We don’t want it to become an isolated brand,” he says. “We want to do stuff within the community in the store, like art shows, book readings and collaborations with charities.”
Despite the challenging economics of the high street – last year was the worst year on record for retail sales – Anderson speaks buoyantly about the shop. “As much as we live in a society that is obsessed with doom, I feel hopeful about the future,” he says.
Brexit, a further cause of retail consternation is not a concern for him either, he believes the capital will still remain a destination location. “London will always be an attraction to people who live in Britain,” says Anderson. “We’re not building an iron wall around it. We’re going to take what we have and be optimistic about it.”
A very specific sense of purposeful design has always been a defining quality of Anderson’s work, from the intricate structures of his clothes, to his collaborations with the likes of Uniqlo and The Hepworth Wakefield gallery (in 2017 he curated the Disobedient Bodies exhibition at the gallery). And for his flagship store, he is excited about expressing architecturally his view of the capital as a beautiful jumble of opposites.
“In Soho you have this beautiful balance of high and low culture here which is incredibly important,” he says. “When you come inside the shop I want to give you a feeling of something architecturally jarring,” he says. “It is this collage-y feeling that you get when you’re in Soho where Georgina buildings rub up against nightclubs and newsagents. I want people to get the tailoring element mixed with a neon glow.”
Inside the shop as well as stocking the current JW Anderson collection, the space will also house his infamous “penis” key rings, his collectable visors and a range that will not be available anywhere else. “There’s a line we’re working on that will all be made in Britain. We’re quite a lean company but for the line we’ll be using a lot of our deadstock fabrics, so it will be made in Britain and sourced here. We’re a British store and I wanted to do something incredibly British.”
It will be a geographical homecoming of sorts for Anderson who launched his label JW Anderson in 2008 and showed its autumn/winter collection last month in the capital. He began his fashion working life as a visual merchandiser at the Prada store on Old Bond Street.
“I did window dressing there,” he remembers, “and you really understood what the brand was about by going into the store, you had an emotional connection to it. I felt like it was time to work out what our aesthetic was in terms of an in store experience. I’m glad I’ve done that.”
