“Seven Sisters is one of the genuinely most diverse places left in London,” the designer Martine Rose explains over email. “There’s still an old West Indian community here, along with South American — Brazilian and Cuban mainly — Mauritian, Greek, Turkish, Cypriot, Chinese, Nigerian, Romanian, Polish in and around the surrounding areas. It represents what is great about the city and I hope it will manage to weather and retain its identity in spite of the inevitable signs of gentrification creeping in.” It was this identity that inspired by Rose’s autumn/winter 17 collection. With the show itself set in Indoor Market — barbers, salons, money transfers shops and food stalls included — there was no escaping the sights and sounds of Seven Sisters.
“I’ve been in Tottenham for ten years, so it was time to do something here,” Rose confessed backstage post-show. “I wanted people to come to the market to see how amazing it is.” Transported far from the blank canvasses of expected central London venues, the show-goers were treated to Rose’s reality in addition to her subverted reimagination of male archetypes, from bankers to bus drivers.
In collaboration with Soho-based curiosity shop of cool Machine-A and Dalston-based independent publishing house Ditto, Rose extends this celebration of the characters and communities of the capital in a limited-edition zine, Don Pedro. Produced by Harry Fisher, lensed by Britt Lloyd and styled by Kate Iorga, Ditto’s art direction collages the collection with imagery, typography and symbolism from the market based on snippets of conversation with Rose. This publication, like the show before it, is a tribute to the area that has supported and inspired her work. “There is an inevitable osmosis that happens from just being here. It is a condensed London microcosm, so in my mind, it’s London on the whole that still inspires me.”
Credits
Text Steve Salter
Photography Britt Lloyd, courtesy of Machine-A