by There are lace gowns, glinting diamantes and enough sequins for several episodes of Strictly Come Dancing: no, it’s not the Met Gala, just a seedy north London street where a silent battle is being waged to protect a hidden fashion treasure.
Almost 100 fashion shops, with names such as Bien Avenue, Cinderella and the now sadly defunct FFUK (short for Fashion Fashion UK) are crammed into about 250m of Fonthill Road, behind Finsbury Park station.
The local council designated the street as a “specialist fashion cluster” in 2020 to prevent the gradual transformation into flats. However, its retailers are struggling to survive as the area around them is rapidly gentrifying, driving up rents and making some of their most loyal customers less welcoming.
Some of the most eye-catching frocks and costumes are available on this fashion street and it’s a far cry from Bond Street, Oxford Street or even hipster hotspots like Brick Lane.
Today, many of the boutiques specialize in wedding dresses and outfits for proms and other special occasions – but mainly at bargain prices.
“Fonthill Road, it’s flamboyant and unique,” says Andrew Paschalis, Islington council’s local economy officer. “You’re not likely to see dresses like that in many other places.”
“People come with a certain budget and we have to work on a small margin. They wear a dress once for a few hours and then they don’t want to wear it again,” says Suvel Ahmed, owner of Alia Couture and several other shops on the strip, which sell prom dresses priced from £100 and up. more than £600.
Bargain prices could be part of the reason the road is flying under the fashion radar of most shoppers, according to Vickie Christensen, chairman of the Fonthill Road traders’ association. “It’s the best kept secret in the world of fashion. A moon dress can be bought for £100. When someone else has spent a fortune on the same kind of thing you are not going to tell anyone. Women don’t.”
The stores are run by entrepreneurs with roots in a multitude of countries, from Cyprus and Turkey to Africa and South Asia.
Shoppers come from a wide range of backgrounds. Those from cultures where glamorous, dressy weddings, smart church attire or modest clothes that cover limbs and cleavage are especially drawn to the street. The tailoring skills to meet those needs are still present here.
People with a background in the Caribbean, Africa and Cyprus or Turkey have long been shoppers alongside those of white British heritage, Irish Travellers, the Middle East and South Asian communities. A more recent diaspora, including Afghans, Uzbeks and Latin Americans, is also scanning the rails.
“It’s a microcosm of London. We have every nationality under the sun and it works,” says Christensen. “You get grandma and grandpa for prom dresses. You usually see the whole family come back to where they were before.”
Once close to a slum – with local photographer boy Don McCullin describing the area as “battlefield” when he grew up on Fonthill Road in the 1940s and 50s – he was part of the fashion industry from the 1960s.
The street has been home to shops and light industry since its first development in the 1880s, when one local writer described the abundance of fried fish shops.
Its links to fashion emerged when entrepreneurs fleeing Cyprus in the 1960s and 1970s bought property for wholesale outlets and factories. In the 1980s Fonthill Road was full of small manufacturers as well as wholesalers catering to small and large retailers, prompting complaints of double parking and burger vans.
Until the late 1990s, Fonthill would be besieged by Saturday morning shoppers when the dozens of small wholesale outlets opened their doors to the public, who could pick up the latest fashions at low prices.
“It was very busy. Five of us used to work on Saturdays,” says Paschalis, whose father had a shop on the street since 1985, about a clothing factory where more than a dozen people worked.
“When it changed from wholesale to mainly retail, that’s when business took off.”
John Arpaci, of wholesaler and retailer Love Fashions, which his father opened on the high street in 1966, says: “We’re trying to sell things you don’t get in M&S, H&M or Zara. We are more niche.
“We have a suit for the office, garden party or church. We have traditionally done a lot of exports to Africa. The elite came over to buy and sell. People buy presents for mothers and aunties.”
Love Fashions makes a small number of its suits locally and Arpaci says: “I would love to see more production in the UK.”
Fonthill Road has suffered many blows, the first and biggest blow being when British retailers switched to buying most of their clothes from overseas, pushing out small local producers and wholesalers such as those in Fonthill Road.
Since local manufacturing and wholesale have largely disappeared, most of Fonthill’s retailers source their goods from Turkey, with the predominance of wedding dresses emerging around a decade ago.
Christensen said the 2008 banking crisis, the pandemic and the rising cost of living have hit hard.
“Covid was the nail in the coffin for a lot of people. They are really struggling,” she says, adding that many are supported by the creation of apartments above their shops, and that rental income helps offset the costs for retailers below.
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Vickie Christensen, manager of London Fashion Centre, describes the high street as ‘fashion’s best kept secret’
“We’ve lost a few people. People are struggling right now and it’s because rents are high but turnover is not high. Banks used to be more flexible with terms. They are not as good at looking after smaller businesses and the problem of distance is going on again.”
Lynda Tarim, from Lynda’s Boutique, says: “We work harder for less profit. I talk to most of my neighbors and most of them can’t afford the rent.
“I had three or four stores and now I have one. I have five members of staff left and previously had about four in each store. What is the future of this street? In 10 years it’s finished.”
Her rent has gone up, and others in the street have seen even bigger rises as the surrounding area has gentrified, particularly since the opening of a huge luxury apartment block as part of the station’s redevelopment nearby, with new chains and restaurants incl. Marks & Spencer and Pret a Manger.
The long construction work on that complex has also added to the pressure on the Fonthill Road mistakes, and some businesses say it has not benefited much.
Ahmed says: “Every year we’re going down, business is going down in terms of sales and profits.
“Everything is changing in terms of restaurants [opening up nearby] but it is not attracting the right kind of customers.
“There is so much competition online. Social media like TikTok and Instagram are destroying our business. Manufacturers in China are selling directly to customers. Retailers are suffering a lot.”
Loucas Agrotis, owner of the established street fashion store Loriana, is more optimistic about the future. He says the arrival of new apartments and restaurants has brought more passing trade and young people to the area, which has encouraged a number of different types of retailers to open up.
A nearby project, supported by Islington council and industry group Fashion Enter, to help nurture young designers using local production has also created new buzz. The FC Designer Workspace rents out sewing machines and workspaces and runs workshops on upcycling and garment making. Some of the work is sold through the FC Designer Collective store on Fonthill Road.
Agrotis says he would love to return to the buzz of the 1980s: “It was hectic but it was fun.”
