Wear it #insideout

Who made your clothes?

A simple question but one that customers, retailers, and even the brands themselves have difficulty answering.

This very enquiry reveals a lot. It bares the story of a fashion supply chain that is broken because there is a lack of awareness of whom is the face picking the cotton, preparing the leather, dying the fabric, collecting the seeds.

It exposes an industry that is premised on serving the customer with cheap and evolving choice at the expense of the health, wellbeing and quality of life of its workers. A trade where we are more concerned about the dollar amount and the value for money than the human narrative behind the article.

This is at the heart of what 69b stands for; a local women’s fashion boutique on Broadway Markets in Hackney, East London, which prides itself on delivering directional, ethical and sustainable fashion.

Started by Merryn Leslie - stylist and fashion editor for big names such as Vogue, Missoni, US Harpers Bazaar, Michelle Lowe Holder and Sandy Dalal - she wanted to do something much bigger in the fashion industry. She wanted to make a difference so decided to launch 69b, which exclusively stocks designers engaging in sustainability.

I was fortunate to speak with Harley Ray Barron, 69b’s art director, and Christelle Blary, the store’s manager.

“Sustainability isn’t all hippy, hemp, brown and beige. It can be fashionable and creative, all the while protecting the environment and its people. We have more than 70 brands which showcase this now, including Partimi, Esencia, Marimekko, Studio Jux and Reet Aus, all of which either upcycle, use organic cotton, vegetable tanned leather or vegan products,” said Harley.

Harley recently completed a fashion degree at university where she learnt just how appalling the industry is behind the scenes.

“We really do know so little about the conditions of labour of the people making our clothes, including their level of safety, health regulations, how much they are being paid and the rights they are allowed.”

“And that’s just the start of it. Then there is the materials and where they are grown and produced, and whether people are exposed to chemicals and pesticides,” she shared.

Christelle has studied fashion since the age of 15 both in France’s countryside and in Paris where she then went on to become a freelance custom designer creating sustainable garments to measure for her customers. She says we are accustomed to a fast fashion model now with high street stores receiving new stock weekly, which is a ridiculous standard to cater for.

“Fast fashion is much like the fast food industry. You don’t want to eat junk and you don’t want to wear junk.”

A passionate spokesperson for sustainability, Christelle says she often gets frustrated with people’s complacency around the clothes and products they buy.

“I get into heated discussions about the meaning of sustainability and why we need to act now to create change. I am sick and tired of hearing the excuse that it’s too late. It’s never too late. We live in innovative times and have the available knowledge and intelligence to really turn the industry around but there is resistance."

Christelle comments that this resistance comes back to guilt.

“I think people know they are guilty of contributing to the problems we see today and decide to just switch off instead of taking personal responsibility,” Christelle states.

But the tides are slowly changing and this has definitely been the case at 69b.

“There is more engagement and interest in sustainable and ethical fashion. Big brands are starting to be more transparent about their products and customers are asking more questions,” says Harley.

Christelle adds: “At 69b, we encourage our customers to know their product, to research the brand, to know who made it, and to become familiar with sustainable brands in the market. This is the best part of my job. Knowing that I am having an impact on the people who shop here who will then share their new knowledge with the their friends and family, and the ripple begins.”

“People are starting to realize that sustainability is not just a word. That it’s a lifestyle. That it’s a way of thinking. It means simple design, practicality, reasonable money value, high quality and buying less.”

Today is a monumental day for 69b and for others in the fashion circle alike.

Collaborators and partners are calling for a revolution. An overhaul. A global movement.

It is Fashion Revolution Day; a day that calls on all people to declare that enough is enough following a landmark catastrophe, which took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh a year ago. A factory complex by the name of Rana Plaza collapsed killing 1133 people and injuring over 2500. This is one of many horrific social and environmental disasters, which occur every year because of the defunct fashion industry we currently support.

It’s a day to highlight the true cost of fashion and to understand that we aren’t just purchasing a garment or accessory, but a whole chain of value and relationships.

It’s an opportunity to re-write a positive narrative where people, the environment, creativity and profit are appreciated in equal measure.

69b is supporting Fashion Revolution Day by encouraging us all to be contentious customers and ask the question: who made your clothes?

Ask the retailer at the store, send a letter to the brand manufacturer, post a photo, tag a video.

Be more curious. Find out. Do something.

Wear your clothes inside out today and take a photo of the label. Share it across social media with the tags #insideout and @fash_rev

See how you can make a difference here.

In June, 69b will launch their new website – an online retail e-commerce hub - where people can buy sustainable from anywhere in the world. The emphasis will be transparency and traceability with each brand’s story profiled, and most importantly, who made their clothes exposed. Stay tuned!

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Story by Leah Davies

Leah is a passionate storyteller, a multi-skilled communications specialist and a devoted human rights activist. She writes to ignite meaningful connection, to arouse curiosity, to push boundaries, to live large, to speak up, to create change.

She is deeply fuelled by a desire to create ideas and build visions to make this world a better place. A place where we can each equally follow our dreams - regardless of the place we were born, our religious affiliations, our sexual identity, our access to education. Everything in fact to do with the status quo. After studying the causes of conflict and division in society, Leah now uses storytelling to unite people, to create community and to open opportunities for collective action.

Her website, Paper Planes Connect, is a place to celebrate our difference and to unite in our sameness.

Moniker Art Fair 2013

Last week saw Alternative London Tours continue its relationship with the amazing Moniker Art Fair to provide exclusive tours of the area and the art fair itself.

Just as last year, these tours proved a huge success and filled up quickly. As London's original street art tour provider we took the lucky few around Spitalfields and Brick Lane for a bespoke street art tour before heading into the fair.

This year the fair teamed up with the Other Art Fair and took over a humongous space in the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane. Anyone that has joined one of our tours will know how significant this building is both historically and culturally in the East End, so for us to take customers inside for the first time was a rare treat.

For those not aware of the Moniker Fair it is a refreshing alternative to the other larger conventional art fairs such as Freize. This year favourite artists of ours included Jo Peel, David Shillinglaw, Mau Mau, D*Face, Vins, Amanda Marie and of course the legendary London Police.

The fair included talks from artists, food, drinks and an incredible array of art and books available to purchase for all budgets. We were lucky enough to pick up a couple of prints from London Police and a special one of from Jo Peel.

If you missed it this year, be sure to join next year when we hope to be teaming up with the fair once again to provide these very unique East End Tours.

Guardian Travel Top Ten Guided Tours!

We are pleased and privileged to announce that Guardian readers have voted Alternative London Tours as one of the top ten guided tours in the world! Thanks to everyone who voted for Alternative London, this is an amazing accolade which we're very proud of. If you are interested in joining one of our East End Tours please see our website: www.alternativeldn.com

See the full list of tours that made the top ten here: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/sep/09/top-10-guided-city-tours-readers-tips

Article for Freestyle Magazine

We were recently asked to write a piece about East London and its street art for the awesome Freestyle Magazine. Here's what we wrote:

East London’s street art scene is an incredibly dynamic and ever changing entity – much the same as the area in which it thrives.

As with other places around the world, the street art scene here started out as a way for outsiders and non-conformist artists to express themselves in the public domain without feeling the need for anyone’s approval and showing a complete disregard for other people’s judgement. In doing so they discovered a unique platform to engage with an audience - whether that unsuspecting audience wanted to be engaged with or not.
 

Ironically, at the same time that traditional letter style graffiti was reaching new heights artistically and being exploited commercially, it was causing increasing discomfort with the authorities and becoming ever more frowned upon by the general public. With late night security being implemented in railway stations and CCTV cameras appearing just about everywhere, writers were afforded less time to paint and this inevitably resulted in more and more arrests and prosecutions.

During the early nineties people looked for new ways to work and stencils and paste ups fast became the new mediums of choice. These methods allowed artists to do the lion’s share of the work at home or in their studio before executing the final piece onto the streets in a matter of minutes – even seconds. Street art exploded.

The styles and artists at this point still however had many similarities to the spray paint art that preceded it; artists painting freehand characters, like the Burning Candy Crew, wanted to ‘get up’ in unreachable and unprecedented spots – taking back space which they felt was rightfully theirs. They challenged ideals and made their own rules. Political statements and satire was rife with leftist and anti-capitalist overtones within the new street art movement. There was a feeling of a new punk-style spirit emerging within the East End. People asked new questions of society like; ‘if an advertiser can put up a billboard, why can’t we paint a wall?

In the meantime the Shoreditch party and squatting scene was reaching its pinnacle. In the wake of Blitz bombings and unwanted, abandoned ex-industrial buildings, an outsider’s playground resided by a new creative community had emerged. People could go out all night without a plan, without knowing where they were going or where they’d end up but having some undefinable feeling that in some way it was theirs. They belonged to it - and it belonged to them. Hangouts like the (old) Dragon Bar were rammed every Friday with people drinking, scoring and painting the walls and toilets. People scoped out abandoned spaces and made their own parties. There was a plethora of clubs, squats, legal and illegal parties on any given night all existing under the radar of the mainstream. The new street art movement and Shoreditch went perfectly hand in hand.

Shoreditch inevitably became popular, more bars and restaurants began popping up – as did their prices. This inevitably had a detrimental effect on the creative scene and prices began to push out the people that had created it. People flocked to a cool new place, and bit by bit began to tame it and shape it into something more manageable for the mainstream. From the authority’s point of view, like any counter culture movement things couldn’t be contained so they became controlled.

At the same time street art began to feature on people’s radars. The quality of the art grew to new levels, which in turn made it more accessible to the masses. Like skateboarding, breakdancing or playing the guitar, people took up street art because it was cool. Galleries began selling street art, most were and still are artist run and started out because of their genuine love for it and desire to give artists a platform to reap the rewards they deserve. Others obviously had their own agenda, but either way this allowed street artists to travel the world to paint walls and use the gallery system as their financial vehicle. The floodgates had opened an in came some of the world’s best street artists to paint the walls of East London – and then the Tate Modern.

This explosion of art on walls and a new street art economy made those that were elected to represent the people of East London increasingly uncomfortable. To them this was happening in an area that needed extensive re-development, an area mapped out as the new silicon-valley but more importantly an extension of the financial district. If you’re going to build five new skyscrapers in three years, the people that are going to work in them need somewhere to live. East London found itself in unique position due to its geography. Anywhere else, this creative district would be celebrated, but not when it’s in the way of a new real estate goldmine. 

The area has recently done well to adapt to becoming the ‘tech city’ during the week and a mini Essex on a Friday and Saturday night. People have always moved in and out of this area; from the Huguenots in the 1650’s to the Jews and The Bengalis - it’s always been transient. The danger this time is that it is under a greater threat from greedy developers that are on the verge of changing it forever and the latest arrivals are too ignorant or just don’t care enough to do anything about it.

East London’s street art scene has now seen a permission culture emerge which has completely adapted the street art landscape and this works in two ways. Firstly: it gives an artist the opportunity to spend time and effort on a piece of work without the threat of prosecution, so the level of art is at times, staggering. Secondly: we now have ‘gate keepers’, who are trying to make a quick buck out of the scene and feel they have the right to curate the streets like it’s their own private gallery. We then lose political statements at a time when we need them most and artists sell to the highest bidder. It’s no longer street art, merely pretty pictures on walls. Artists repair their pieces like they own them, when the whole point of street art is to be ephemeral – tags are just as important as those staggering murals, people need to understand the scene as a whole before they get involved.

I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with and work with some of the best street artists in the world. When my favourite artists say they’ll never do a commission because they don’t want to be told what to do and keep their work cheap for the masses it gives me the highest level of respect for them. When I’m on a rooftop watching them paint illegally with the skyscrapers bearing down on us I know who they’re doing it for – themselves, the community. At heart they are outsiders and non-conformist artists out to express themselves in the public domain without feeling the need for anyone’s approval and showing a complete disregard for other people’s judgement.

A world renowned street artist once said to me ‘street art is a bit like punk music, it’s for anyone that wants it and everyone that doesn’t – you don’t have to be a virtuoso to create it or an expert to appreciate it’. Band wagon jumpers will come and go but as long as there are artists with attitudes like this, the street art scene will be safe.

As for Shoreditch, who knows? But as long as we still have projects like Red Market and others giving us an alternative playground, people painting walls and still feeling like we belong to it and it belongs to us, we’ve got a chance.

Gary Means, Alternative London 2013.

News From Our H.Q

There's been a lot of painting going on around the Alternative London H.Q

over the last few weeks. Here's a little update of some of our highlights.

Fintan Magee was over from Sydney and looking to hit some big walls in London. The Red Gallery wall where we are based is the largest street art wall in the capital and we were more than happy to help him fund his project as it hadn't seen a fresh lick of paint since Jo Peel's animation back in March (featured in previous posts).

Grids and sketching begins

The view from above - this is one seriously high wall.

Colouring in.

 The finished piece titled 'Sink or Swim'

In the meantime three Brazilians were getting to work in the shape of the amazing Magrella, Alex Senna and one of our all time favourites, Cranio! 

Magrella hit the high spot but half way through the piece ran out of time with the lift hire! Unbelievably she managed to scale the 25ft wall on a ladder to get the piece finished. Unfortunately we weren't there to witness the final extremely dedicated act, but here's the finished piece.  

Alex created this beautiful monochrome piece out the front, one of many on his London visit. 

And last but not least, Hin showed up to give our stairs a much needed makeover. This is a trick one to photograph and really has to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. And while you're here you can check out one of his unique painted spray cans exclusively for sale from Alternative London. 

Beatrice Tate School Mural

Last week Alternative London was privileged to be involved with a special project with Beatrice Tate School in Bethnal Green. Our task was to help the students create a farewell mural as they are currently in the process of moving to a new school which can better cater for their needs.

This is the first time that we have worked with young people with disabilities and we were inspired by their willingness to get involved and participate in this unique project. Every single student got involved, regardless of their level of ability and everyone played an important part in painting the mural.

After a couple of workshops at our H.Q to give the students some spray paint and stencil practice, we headed up to the school on a bright and sunny Friday morning to get started on the final piece. The staff and students made us feel incredibly welcome and it was clear to us that this is an exceptional place for them to learn.

Josh got the mural started by sketching out the letters. Then we handed over the stencils and spray paints to the students with Judy and Josh guiding them into place. There was also a bit of freehand thrown in, and plenty of colour.

Everyone involved, not least the team at Alternative London, were immensely proud of the finished wall. BT4EVA!

The Making of Pipe Dreams

In March Alternative London co-produced Jo Peel's incredible animation pipe dreams. Check the video of the three minute animation:

Owen Richards & Franklyn Banks captured the making of which can be seen here: 

We still have a very limited number of exclusive DVD and print packs over at our shop: http://altldn.bigcartel.com/

Our Neighbourhood

Alternative London is proud to announce its involvement in this years' 'Our Neighbourhood' project.

We'll be teaming up with the Red Gallery to offer free workshops to the pupils of local school, St. Monica's. All of the kids will have the opportunity to create a piece of stencil and spray-paint art.

Each stencil will be used to create a large scale mural at the school's summer fete. After the event, the piece will be displayed alongside a busy East London street - outside the Red Gallery and Alternative London H.Q - amongst some of the world's finest street art.


The project creates an important link between East London's creative businesses and local children.

We'll update more info in due course.

Alternative London Bus Gets A Summer Makeover

To mark the summer opening of the Red Market - where our converted double decker is based - we decided to give our H.Q a splash of seasonal paint. 

The first task was to clean the windows after the bus was previously used as part of Jo Peel's Pipe Dreams animation.  

Next step was a couple of coats of white paint. 

Then the fun began with some acrylic paint bombs...

and continued with the super-soaker. 

Next up we pierced a few spray-cans to get some big splashes of colour. 

Then the task of tying it all in and blending the colours together. 

The final piece. 

Job done. It probably won't win any beauty contests - but it was bloody good fun! 

Certificate of Excellence 2013

We're proud to announce that Alternative London has received the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence for the second year running!

This prestigious award is in recognition of Trip Advisor's top ten percent rated businesses in the world. We'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has taken one of our tours or workshops over the last year - especially those who have taken the time to give us such positive feedback afterwards. 

Our guides and staff have worked incredibly hard to make sure that their tours and workshops are the best they can be and it's fantastic to be recognised for this. Here's to another great year and with more hard work and a bit of luck, who knows - maybe three years in a row... 

Big thanks from the team at Alt Ldn.