ABSTRACT
In The Style of the Century, Bevis Hillier concluded that tastes were polarising. He thought that, for some, irritation with city life prompted a retreat to handcrafted simplicities, whether found in rural isolation or the outer suburbs. Others, persevering with city living, surrounded themselves with high-tech accoutrements. Disillusioned with life in slick West London, the South African designer Rae Hoffenberg went east and found herself among the derelict warehouses of the old London Docks, which had been abandoned for a more accessible development down river. Excited by the hulking 19th century shells and the expanses of river and sky that filled their windows, she bought her first Docklands building. Fashionable areas within established stores might have been expedient ways to satisfy youthful cravings but they lacked the glamour of the independent pioneers of King’s Road and Carnaby Street.
