Spitalfields Market

 

Spitalfield’s Market

 

VO
Spitalfield’s Market balances precariously on the fault line where the city meets the east end, and having survived the encroachment of corporate development, it continues to lure fashion hungry bargain hunters every Sunday.

 

VOX
It’s really good, get lots of individual stuff. I usually go to Portabello, first time here. I really like it, and the fact that you don’t get wet as well is quite good.

 

VOX
It’s my first time here, and it’s a lot of fun. I brought my woolly scarf to keep me warm, and I’d definitely come back.

 

VO
Spitalfields also offers as many opportunities for the stall holders as the shoppers.

 

VOX

I am a jewellery designer and I had a stall at Spitalfields for about four years. I trained as an actress but needed something to do when I wasn’t working, so I started making jewellery. And one of my friends encouraged me to come down here and I was like, nobody’s going to buy it, and the first time I came down here I sold every single thing on my stall, everything. I couldn’t believe it.

 

VOX
I went to college in this area at London College of Fashion, and when we started here we were making clothes, but it’s been a great benefit having a studio that’s walking distance from here, that we can be in the workshop during the week, producing our designs.

 

VO
Spitalfield’s is a young designer’s market and not a flea market, but prices still generally reflect good value for hand crafted items.

 

VOX
I use sterling silver, 14-carat gold, and I do a lot of bead work, very time consuming bead work, so things are quite expensive and a lot of people don’t expect to pay that much at the market, but you’re getting a one off piece that probably is the only one in the world.

 

VOX
We make soft furnishings, a range of soft furnishings, from the smaller cushion type objects through to bolsters and daybeds. Most of the larger pieces like the bolster and the daybeds, all of those would be made on a custom built, bespoke basis. It would be considerably cheaper because you’re buying it directly from the person who’s made it.

 

VOX
Generally most of the designers here, young designers, are based in London. And you know, London is kind of known for cutting edge fashion, so certainly if you’re into fashion and clothes it’s a brilliant place to come.

 

VOX
You can actually spend your entire day within the confines of this market, and you’re likely to find a lot of things that simply aren’t available in the high street.