Last year the Government announced a bold plan to take forward a Mary Portas-inspired scheme to rejuvenate the high street. In all, over four hundred applications were received from towns hoping to become ‘Portas Pilots’ (I should know, as I assessed about 10 percent of the bids in the first stage) with a potential pot of £100,000 available to each one to transform their local retail centres.
While London missed out altogether in the first round, three areas of the capital were selected in round two – Lower Marsh and The Cut near Waterloo, the area around Chrisp Street Market (if you’ve ever travelled from Stratford on the DLR it’s always announced when you arrive at All Saints station) and finally Syndenham, Kirkdale & Forest Hill, which is home of the much-loved Horniman Museum. Awarded an additional £137,000 by Boris, the SEE3 team are really going great guns with their proposals and they’ve asked me to mention something very special that’s taking place later this week – Forest Hill Fashion Week, which starts on Friday 15 February and runs through until next Tuesday.
Louise Brooks, the Project Manager explains the background to this interesting concept: “Forest Hill has become a hub for designer-makers and fashionable boutiques in recent years and so it is an ideal time to stage a celebration of local design talent and style. And of course the event will see the opening of our latest pop up shop SEE Boutique on Dartmouth Road with pop up tenants Love Ur Look selling their fabulous reproduction vintage outfits.”
Highlights of Forest Hill Fashion Week will include:
- A ‘fashion icons’ themed launch party at the Sylvan Post, involving live music and fashion-themed entertainment
- Paulina Palian will be running a ‘fashion upcycling’ event at The Montage looking at how you can jazz up old clothes and give them a new lease of life
- A clothes-swap and beauty event at Doopodoopo
- ‘Bottle To Bangle In 60 Minutes’, which will show visitors what you can do with plastic water bottles to create a stylish piece of wearable recycling
- The Design Marketplace featuring the work of students from Goldsmiths, with stalls and interactive art installations
- Local couturier Katharine Harrison is hosting a catwalk event at Canvas and Cream on Tuesday 19 February (she’s normally associated with both London and Paris Fashion Weeks, so this is quite a coup!)
You can find out about all the things that will be going on at Forest Hill Fashion Week here. If you have a wider interest in what the SEE3 Portas Pilot team are doing, follow them on Twitter and Facebook for updates.
About Pete Stean
