The Trampery’s fashion incubator in London Fields is currently home to some of London’s most vital designers, including James Long, Lou Dalton and Jonathan Saunders. After a year of negotiations with the landlord, rents were expected to go up this September from £125,000 ($195,000) to £230,000, ($360,000) but the landlord has just announced that the rent will in fact be increased by an enormous 400% to £500,000 ($781,000.)
This blood-chilling rent rise has forced the Trampery’s fashion incubator, as well as bike-shop-cum-coffee-house Look Mum, No Hands!, to close. With designers set to be booted out of their studios just weeks before showing their collections at London Fashion Week, the Trampery’s fashion incubator is appealing to the retail industry to find alternative accommodation.
“It is essential to us that The Trampery be found a new home,” says British Fashion Council CEO Caroline Rush. “The Trampery is an incredible facility for start-up and developing designer fashion businesses. Its studio space, shared equipment facility and networking spaces make it an ideal place to develop a designer business,” Rush continues, explaining that, “Many of the businesses that currently rely on the Trampery facilities are part of London Fashion Week.”
The Trampery founder Charles Armstrong warns that this kind of rent increase has far-reaching consequences for the UK capital. “If we reach a point where early-stage businesses and entrepreneurs simply can’t afford to locate themselves in London any more it will cause long-term damage to the city’s economic fabric,” he told The Memo.
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Image courtesy The Trampery and Joshua Tucker