London’s East End has long been host to the city’s textile industry, which was able to thrive and influence global fashion thanks to the area’s skilled and talented migrant communities from Flemish artisans from the 1300s, Huguenot weavers from the late 1600s, to Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities from the 1950s. This fantastic exhibition turns the spotlight on the Jewish community, and their role in cementing London’s place as a global Fashion City.
In Britain, the Jewish community’s roots in the textiles and fashion industry resulted from a ban in the 1600s-1700s which barred them from practicing certain professions such as medicine and law. This led many Jews to build their livelihoods around the garments industry among other trades such as commerce and banking. They soon became London’s leading feather makers, seamstresses, milliners, tailors, umbrella makers, shoemakers, and photographers.
Many of these bustling trades were centred in the East End of London in the Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Shoreditch areas which had a high Jewish population. Many had fled antisemitic persecution from pogroms in the 1880s, economic hardship before WW1, to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Jewish schools in the East End offered trade apprenticeships alongside Hebrew, Torah study, and the curriculum followed by Christian and non-denominational schools in London. Likewise, non-Jewish schools in the area such as The Shoreditch Technical Institute opened in 1906 and provided crucial training for those in the garment trades and the wider fashion industry.
Throughout the exhibition, visitors get a window into this vibrant community through the museum’s immaculate set design that mimics shop fronts in the late 1800s to early 1900s. We are introduced to umbrella makers Juda and Malka Fiszer outside their shop on Hanbury Street in 1919. Max Moldau -who ran a successful family business making luggage in Vienna called Molmax- was forced to flee in the late 1930s and eventually settled in London. Molmax’s bags -which the company supplied to world-renowned brands like Burberry, Dior, Harrods, and Bloomingdales- are displayed as if they would have been advertised in the 1930s.
Likewise, the Jewish community did not only help transform fashion’s manufacturing scene, many also revolutionised the high street retailers in London’s glitzy West End. Entrepreneurs such as Michael Marks and his partner Thomas Spencer created the Marks & Spencer that’s now ubiquitous on UK streets. In the 1930s, they were the first company to open a research laboratory for garments and prided themselves for producing fashionable and durable clothing. Chelsea Girl -later River Island- transformed the shopping experience by presenting its clothes on hangers instead of ‘folded up behind a counter’.
Similarly, couture designers like Michael Fish and David Sassoon helped reshape fashion through their collaborations with public figures. Mr Fish was renowned for creating dresses for men, making clothes for singers like David Bowie and Mick Jagger. David Sassoon on the other hand, worked with Princess Diana to create some of the 1990s’ most iconic outfits.
By focusing on individual stories of shopkeepers, designers, and manufacturers, this exhibition brilliantly showcases the Jewish community’s contribution to London’s reputation as a global Fashion City.
Don’t miss this major exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands before 14 April 2024.
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