Secret Dalston: LN-CC

Last week, while on a “fashion walk” around London’s east end, (that’s another story) I had the experience of visiting Dalston’s LN-CC - Late Night Chameleon Café - a concept boutique/event space/art gallery tucked away underneath an otherwise non-descript building on Shacklewell Lane. It opened last year and has fast become a figurehead for fashion in east London, offering a welcome relief from the all the over-priced pseudo vintage tat and influx of high street brands that permeate Brick Lane and Shoreditch. On this occasion, the group I was with was able to chat to the boutique's John and Charlotte, (John is the creative director) who explained a bit about the development. While the project has seemingly moved incredibly quickly, from conception to realisation, this growth is the organic result of a group of like-minded and creative people, which is why the whole thing works so well, without seeming pretentious or contrived (always a risk with these concept stores). The whole team has a long background in retail, and knew exactly what they want to do to try to evolve the business a little bit, while still retaining a workable shopping experience.

The interior is designed by artist Gary Card, chosen by the team because of their desire to see an artist that they love given a permanent installation space, and the result is a wonderland like maze of Perspex and wood, tunnels and a treehouse. The buying transcends “it” items and current fads or trends – you may well find things by major designers there that other buyers might pass by, which is perhaps because the pieces don’t necessarily fall into whatever trend is being peddled by magazines at the time. Everything feels like it’s been chosen because it’s special and different in it’s own right – no filler to be found here. Charlotte told us that they are soon to be expanding the womenswear section into a brand new room, which is exciting news for me and will definitely see me back there when that happens. My particular object of desire was the Maison Martin Margiela feather clutch bag, which I’d seen before online and was just as taken with in real life.

The reason for my ending up at LN-CC this time was actually not with the intention of doing any writing specifically on them, but I find it such an interesting place that I couldn’t resist. It’s completely worth a visit, and don’t let the “appointment only” thing put you off, its just so that they know there will be someone around to welcome you and give you a bit of info about the shop. It's probably one of the most interesting and modern places for fashion around at the moment, and I predict that we'll see some pretty good things from it in the future.

The Margiela clutch...