Clothes Recycling East London

The history of clothes making and clothes recycling East London. East London is one of England’s original centres of what was affectionately known as “the rag trade” – ie the garment industry. Successions of immigrants brought their skills with them when they settled here and French silk weavers, Eastern European and Russian Jewish tailors, and Bangladeshi fabric merchants made the area their home and the place to go to for fine fabrics and clothes.

Spitalfields is now a very cool area with a busy weekend market selling the work of small designers and jewellery makers, cakes and food from all over the world. In the 17th century, it was the refuge for French Huguenots, who came fleeing religious persecution. They were Protestants, who were suddenly forbidden by Louis XIV to either practice their region or to leave France. Despite this, about 50,000 of them did, and they came to England so that they could practice their religion without the risk of torture, imprisonment or death. They settled all over the UK, and were our first great wave of refugees.

Clothes Recycling East London – the first Refugees

Many of the street names in East London still reflect their Huguenot heritage, and many buildings still exist where they used to live and work. There is Hugenot Place itself, Fournier Street, named after George Fournier, a Hugenot immigrant. Many of the houses on Fournier Street are very elegant Georgian ones. Silk merchants and master craftsmen owned a lot of these and converted them into all-in-one premises: weaving on the top floor, and shops and showrooms on the bottom floor. These buildings have huge windows to let in as much light as possible for the craftsmen to do their work. The silk for Queen Victoria’s Coronation gown was woven in a house on Fournier Street. There is also Fleur de Lis Street, a French emblem, Calvin, Chambord and Crispin Street, all named for French residents, Fashion Street, and Weaver Street.

Jewish Tailoring in the East End

Clothes Recycling East London. Tailor’s shop. Image copyright free via Picryl.

At the end of the 18th century, silk fell out of fashion and the industry declined. By the 19th century, these grand houses became cheap places to live and Irish and Jewish immigrants moved in. Fournier Street and Brick Lane next door became the centre of the East End Jewish community. There had always been some Jewish families in the area but now a large influx moved in, coming from Eastern Europe and Russia.

At one time, 60% of Jewish men worked in tailoring; it was a skill passed down from father to son. Jewish men could not wear clothing made by non-Jewish people. It often contains mixed fibres, which are forbidden by Jewish law. So they shopped only with Jewish tailors. There were also laws around which occupations Jews could take up, and tailoring was one of them. The tailors were very skilled and so non-Jewish men began to go to them too. This is why so many Jewish men worked in the trade.

Tailors were and are almost always men because they make men’s clothing and work with men’s bodies, measuring and so forth, although not an intimate activity as such, would be different if a woman was doing it. Also, it is supposed that another man might know best what would suit the customer. The female equivalent is a seamstress or dressmaker, who works with female clients.

The jobs are intricate and quite specialised. In some father and son teams, the father makes the more complicated jackets while the son only makes trousers, and if there are two brothers perhaps one might make the waistcoats. Sometimes the offspring would graduate to jackets, but some would spend their whole life just making trousers.

Clothes Recycling East London – A Kid For Two Farthings

If you’d like to know a bit more about this life there is a really lovely children’s book by the Jewish Russian descended writer (Cyril) Wolf Mankowitz, who was born in Fashion Street, Spitalfields. It’s called “A Kid for Two Farthings”. This was written in 1953, and it was quickly made into a film by the director Carol Reed. It describes in detail the small flat where a tailor, a trousers-maker called Mr Kandinsky, lives on the ground floor and works in the basement, while a boy called Joe and his mother rent a bedroom and kitchen upstairs.

They all share just one sink, which is at the top of a flight of stairs. The toilet is outside in the yard. Mr Kandinsky has two gas rings. One to heat up his iron for making trousers, and one which he cooks on. In his room is a big bench, all shiny from pressing the trousers, and dozens of cotton reels, books of patterns and hooks with cardboard patterns hanging on the wall. The mantlepiece holds tailor’s chalk. The tailor and his apprentice work closely together in this little room, all eating lunch together. The local market is full of singing birds, salted herrings and hokey-pokey ices.

Clothes Recycling East London – Sweatshops

This book does show how tough life was, but it wasn’t awful. Less wonderfully, many sweatshops sprang up in the area to produce other clothing. Sweatshop workers then as now were semiskilled or unskilled, so were badly paid, and worked hard in unsanitary conditions. Unlike the Huguenot silk weavers who were highly skilled and arrived with lots of money, later immigrants faced harder situations in which they weren’t as welcome. They were often taken advantage of, forced to work unregistered and in bad conditions in order to stay.

Fashion Street

In the mid 20th century, people from Bangladesh moved into Brick Lane and the surrounding streets. They brought their food with them. The area is now famous for curry restaurants as well as the wide variety of fabric and clothing shops associated with their traditional culture.

You can also go to Brick Lane for several vintage shops and design boutiques. Fashion street will always be Fashion Street.

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