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Pokit's starting point is that there are no entirely original ideas in fashion, only new contexts. Bayode insists that "you can't reinvent the wheel. Everything has been done, but what a designer or a stylist can offer is a context in which something old but new can be made ...by changing the context you actually can present a familiar product in an entirely new light - which is all we strive to do."
This translates into functional clothes and objects which are refreshingly simple and ego-less. Research is key to the process, as is using the pool of manufacturing skills and experience available in the UK. Pokit shoes are made in Northampton and its leather accessories in Walsall by a saddle making company.
Design always comes first, decoration second. Claire believes: "We're not saying we're creating something completely new, but we might style something in a new way and present it in a new context". Don't expect Pokit to appear on a London Fashion Week schedule, it's just not that sort of label and for Claire and Bayode, catwalk presentations are too old fashioned to be relevant. "There's something authentic about what we do whereas," says Bayode. "I personally find most fashion quite contrived. It's grassroots because we do what we like."
Opening a shop (with a studio space attached) is a natural progression for Pokit. It brings the designers into direct contact with their customers and enables them to offer exclusive products not selected by buyers to those that seek them out. For Bayode it's "a better platform to show people .. these are our ideas and we are not under un-necessary commercial pressure to do things to satisfy the market which sadly a lot of other designers have to do."
Pokit is at 67 Fernhead Road London W9. Telephone 020 8962 8784. The shop is open Tuesday-Saturday 10.30am-6pm, late night Thursday (but telephone to check before visiting). Prices range from £20-£500.
For more info email info@pokit.co.uk, or visit the Pokit website at http://www.pokit.co.uk.
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