I’ve lived in London for years and years and totally love it – especially Soho. It vibrant and busy and you know you’ll probably see something new each time you lip blushing perth. What a brilliant mix of old and new – Soho hasn’t yet succumbed to the developers who manage to make city centres all look the same. I love that you have book shops mixed up with cupcake shops and
the film industry rubbing shoulders with tattoo parlours. The streets are small and intimate and everything is kind of on top of each other which adds to the sense of only just controlled chaos. You do sometimes feel like you’ve stepped back in.
So anyway I had a job to sort. A friend and I wanted to find a space to show our new Shoe Collection – which was easy to get to so people other than just our best mates would come and fairly flexible in terms of how the space could be used. I’ve helped other people find spaces before to put on sample sales or even dress a space to feel like a desert (with real sand and
palms) for a private dinner which was great and kind of mad. So you think I’d be a pro at this – but the problem is spaces come and go and once they’ve been ‘discovered’ they get booked up! Also you really want something new and a bit underground so that you feel like you’re going to something special. You walk around Soho with all its lovely old buildings and you just know there must be something somewhere that you haven’t seen yet.
And so it came to be that I was sitting in Randall and Aubin having a coffee when this guy came in on his mobile talking about a play he’d seen at a space called The Gallery Soho. My ears pricked up because it sounded weird that a play was being performed in a ‘gallery’ space. A quick check on my iPad confirmed that the ‘Gallery Soho’ was just round the corner and so taking the bull by the horns I went round to see. Its brilliant, its big, its white and its totally central and easy to get to. You could have shows there, or private parties or sample sales – or even plays! Its one of those places, like your
favourite restaurant, that you kind of want to tell everyone about, but at the same time you don’t cause you want to keep it for yourself. I think I’ve cracked it and we’re talking to the Manager about possible dates to show at the gallery – so I guess its ok to tell everyone else about it now.