Bishopsgate Fashions and the Conventional High Street

Apparently the world’s first pop-up shopping mall will be assembled within the next month at the former Bishopsgate Goods Yard. The historic site will be renamed ‘Boxpark’ and will house 60 recycled shipping containers, spanning two floors. According to the advertising hype it promises to be “a radical, ground-breaking alternative to the ailing conventional high-street”. What the organisers have failed to realise is that such an alternative existed for years when every Sunday a small army of people would sell a range of clothes and household items. One of my favourite retailers was the woman below.

An 'alternative' shop keeper promotes her stock at the Bishopsgate Goods Yard. London 1998.