“They've [my parents] retired and there was nobody to look after their [Chinese] restaurant nearby. So, me and my sister, we took over that restaurant. So we do that in the nighttime and I do my business in the daytime.”

“Everything's hand-made and it's kind of like vintage [...] There's hardly any internet in here. But we make everything [here] [...]and we sell online, and we sell in people's shops. So we do wholesale and retail.”

“There's three of us [in this workspace]. Yeah, so everyone's on holiday at the moment while we refurbish [...] So my skill is actually pattern cutting [...] we draw it and then it's my job to turn the 2D illustration into a garment. So that's what I trained to do ten years ago originally. So every single thing; we've created the structure of everything. Everything is done by us.”

“We send our stuff to just like in small boutiques, like in small towns. We're able to do that because we offer really small quantities, just maybe like 25 pieces. So for small shops, that's easy for them, so we do like, 25 pieces, mix and match, any style, any size, as long as it's 25 pieces. Whereas some wholesalers do 25 pieces per style, but we do mix and match.”

“I use basically my Facebook, we've got about 23,000 followers. So it's not too bad. So that's our main kind of income stream. And then our Instagram had 20,000 [followers], but it got hacked, so we started again [...] But we get most of our customers from Facebook basically. We have a website as well. So we spend a lot of money on, like, internet marketing. Because that's the only way [to sell] really.”

“ I used to have a shop, the retail store, in Manchester. But because my time was so stretched between the restaurant, I had to just close it because it was too much. So we just have our website.”

“So we built this kind of second floor.[...] underneath there is storage, so I keep that for the restaurant, but I keep it locked away [...] and then we have the kitchen here, toilet here.[...] So upstairs is like a design studio, and downstairs is manufacture. So we have all our machines [on the top]. Usually, our machines are in the middle and then the table's in the middle, but because we're clearing everything, so that's when we do the patterns [...] So it's a good space. We're quite lucky.”

“The Arch Company [who owns the arches] keep coming around to do surveys [...] I don't think they've ever noticed [that we built a mezzanine in our space]. Like, they've never been in and had a look.”

“Our space is nice, but around here there's not many other people like us. [...] What I like about it [is that] it's quite private. No-one comes to watch or anything. Sometimes if people live nearby and they want to pick up an order we let them, but we try and not do that, just because we're also so busy.”

“I would love to put one of those [glass facades in Hotel Elephant] on and then people come in; but because the way it [the space] looks at the moment, I don't feel like I want to show it to people, if that makes sense. Because at the moment you have to go through a shutter. If it was more like that [Hotel Elephant] then I would be more [than] happy to let people go in and out.”

“We're not allowed [to change the façade]. We would like to, but as soon as we do that, I think they'd count it as a different kind of space and then they'd charge a fortune. I think because it's a workshop now, they keep it quite low.”

“So we've got a post office but we've also got the actual depot for this area [walk down Ashford Way and it's just a little bit further down]. And it's good for us, if people send things back- We're not always in. So it'll just go there - So it's quite nice.”

“It’s important for me to be close to my home because sometimes I might work there until 11 at night, and it costs me nothing to go anywhere. So [by living nearby] I don't have to commute anywhere, and that saves me time.”

“There's a tailor on Walworth Road that's been there for years [...] [in my previous workspace] it was like a stable yard, so there were lots of artists and makers in there. So that was quite nice. So I do miss that.”

“I sometimes use the photography studio there [in Pullens Yard]; it's quite nice. Because I mean, I used to set up a photography studio inside my studio but there's no natural light. So it's quite hard; so I sometimes use that. [...] They're all quite nice in Pullens Yard, and I spend a lot of time in the cafe, you know, Electric Elephant.”

“It is a nice community I think, Walworth. But because it is changing quite a lot, an awful lot [...] It's kind of bittersweet just because it really benefits my restaurant, you know what I mean? Like, across there, there's obviously quite a lot of houses being built. They'll automatically become our customers. So our restaurant business has gone up quite a lot, but also the rent has gone up, so it kind of levels itself out. But then I'm also worried about my rent over there. But I bought a house [five minutes from here] in 2016. [...] it's hard really, because I'd like to say [the change in the area] is good because it benefits me personally, but then also for example, there's the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, that's coming down now. Like, when we’re really young, me and my sisters and brothers used to like, play in there. And there's quite a lot of businesses that have been there, like, 30 years, 25 years. And so the developers across the road, who are doing Elephant Park, they were supposed to offer a certain percentage to Elephant and Castle- But it's funny, they came to us and offered us a space, which was like, no we can't move because obviously it's too much for us to move. But a lot of the businesses in there [the shopping centre], they just weren't offered space. Because I think the developers were quite, like, snobby about who they want to put in there. Like, they're not going to put in like, a Latin American market- Which is a shame. And then you just wonder where all those businesses are going to go.”

“My dad, he used to get robbed all the time with knives. It was so bad around here [in Elephant and Castle], I remember when I was really young, the Walworth... I mean, Walworth Road's nice now. You can tell somewhere's nice when a Costa arrives. So all the nice shops keep opening there. But years ago, I remember there would be like, shootings. It would be quite bad, but now it's so expensive to live around here.”

“It is kind of hard to have an opinion [about the changes in an area] when everything that happens does benefit you. And you feel bad about it.”

“So I used to work a lot with UKFT, so it's UK Fashion and Textile. And they used to give me grants. So the kind of eligibility was that you were kind of young. I'm 30 now, so I wouldn’t be eligible. So you're young, the items and made specifically in the UK, because they kind of want to promote UK-made products to export, basically. And you just had to be under twenty five years old. So they supported me quite a lot, and I exhibited at things like, have you heard of Pure London? So it's like the UK's biggest fashion exhibition. So it supports a lot of kind of small, up-and-coming businesses. And I mean, these exhibitions, cost like, £5000. So they pay for everything.”

“In the summer it's [our space] good, because you know when sometimes London gets a bit too hot and you go in, it's like air conditioning because it's so cool. But in the winter, we wear, like, heated vests. It's freezing. And we have like, loads of heaters. The annoying thing is like, it kind of makes our insurance invalid. [...] you're not allowed [to have] portable heaters because they're a fire risk. But there's actually no heating in there, so there's nothing that we can do.”

“They're [two] employees [in this business]. So one lady who's been with me for five years now. [...] she's actually from the same village as my dad. So I met her, like, through somebody [...] I used to make everything on my own, and it was too much. So I got her in, so since she's worked with me for five years, I've been able to help her get her family over here.”