Here in London, it’s a well-established fact that Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena-Irons are among the most competent world builders in the city’s fashion scene. Since founding their namesake label in 2017, the best friends and design partners have become known for staging shows, creating campaigns and publishing books that perfectly express the contrasts and quirks that define their work. Think: sports halls turned into pep rallies and galleries moonlighting as mini-golf courses, all lined with looks bearing tumbles of ruffles, needlepoint dog motifs and jangling with salvaged vintage charms.
While their next show is on the horizon at London Fashion Week spring/summer 2027, this week brought the most significant step in their world-building mission yet – their very first physical store. Housed on a side street a short stroll from the buzz of Mare Street and Bethnal Green Road, the shop offers as great an immersion into the brand’s wild and whimsical universe as you could imagine.
A broad bench flanked by a brushed steel horse’s head; twisted, wrought iron railings stocked with flocked poplin dresses; a hulking cabinet bed that houses the store’s till. A Polish pine display system, punctuated by secret doors, glinting horse brasses and cut-outs giving onto screens depicting shrunken girls ‘trapped’ within. If that sounds like a bit of a trip, that’s because it is – it’s as wonderfully whacky as the ever-shifting eddy of references at Chopova Lowena’s core.
While the store’s build is certainly impressive, even more so is the fact that the duo did it all themselves. Well, not quite – while Chopova and Lowena-Irons were naturally crucial in shaping its vision, the store’s materialisation wouldn’t have been possible without David Pringle, the former’s boyfriend, who is a designer and art fabricator. “We designed a lot of it together, but he actually built almost everything himself!” she says. “It’s a crazy thing to be able to produce this whole thing single-handedly with help from two people who have no idea how to build anything,” Lowena-Irons laughs.
The store’s opening marks the realisation of a longstanding dream for the girls, who’ve long “felt that a natural progression for the brand and business would be to have a place where people could physically experience the clothes,” Chopova says. More than just a place to sell their wares, it creates opportunities for the pair to show up for the cultish audience that has built around the brand over the near decade since its founding exactly on their own terms. “We can meet people trying on the clothes, stage fun events and make sure that people experience the Chopova Lowena world the way that we want to. We get to do anything we want with it, really.”
That may be the case, but there’s a clear sense that Chopova and Lowena-Irons are as invested in creating a space that serves their community as much as – if not more than – their own interests. That’s clear from its framing. Rather than a Chopova Lowena flagship – or even a Chopova Lowena store – this is the Chopova Lowena Clubhouse, the steward of which is Petal, its mascot. It’s a nod to the sporting undercurrents that have always been present in the brand’s narrative, but that’s not to say you need to be on the A team to gain access. “It’s a club that welcomes everybody!” Lowena-Irons says, a fact well-attested by the plurality of figures you see wearing their clothes out in the wild. “When you see someone else wearing it, you feel a connection, and it creates a sense of community,” Chopova adds.
Splashing cash isn’t the sole objective of a trip to the Clubhouse. “We’re also drawn to themes of girlhood – just hanging out in your bedroom and being comfy, and things that feel really homely,” they say, adding that the events programme will include drinks evenings, book clubs… even dating nights: “Things that allow people to meet other people of a similar mind.”
Even if it isn’t your life partner, some of the like-minded people you’re almost certain to meet on a visit are the girls themselves. While they won’t be manning the shop floor around the clock, the Clubhouse is but one facet of Chopova Lowena’s new HQ. Below lies the brand’s studio, its creative nerve centre, while their atelier sits in a nearby building. This vertical consolidation of their business will fulfil their dreams of being able to “pop up and say hi” to visitors, creating personal liaisons that “are so important,” Chopova says. “Being able to meet and talk to people, to understand what people want, is going to be really special.”
They couldn’t be more perfectly positioned to engage with their audience, old and new. With their Bethnal Green location, they’re but the latest in a slew of independent London-based brands and multi-brand retailers that have set up shop in the vicinity: Waste!, Jake’s, Kiko Kostadinov, Story Mfg., Twos and APOC to name a few. “It’s a really great community to be a part of, and we really wanted to be close to that,” Lowena-Irons says. “It really feels like there’s this new thing happening, this new walking route of stores that’s so fun. When we did, it made us feel like we loved London again.”
Beyond local inspiration, the space also unlocks fresh creative possibilities for the designers. “We’re already inspired to do so many things we wouldn’t normally, perhaps knowing that they wouldn’t land with wholesalers, or we couldn’t make enough of them,” Lowena-Irons says. “The store gives us the freedom to make things that are completely for ourselves. We can make special things that would be really expensive at retail price and sell them at a price that we control.”
As well as limited-edition pieces that will travel straight from the studio to the shop, the best testament to this more flexible way of working is the store’s skirt bar. Centred on a haberdashery unit restored by Lowena-Irons, painstakingly covered in over a thousand vintage stickers sourced from collectors worldwide, the bar offers customers the opportunity to fully customise their own versions of the brand’s carabiner skirts – from the colour and width of the deadstock leather belt down to the beads that line the fabric’s pleats.
This, naturally, is among the Clubhouse’s more premium offerings, with the resulting skirts priced to reflect the bespoke service. The girls, however, have been concerted in their efforts to ensure that a full gamut of fans can fully participate in the shop experience. Alongside custom pieces and the main collection, the Chopova Lowena Clubhouse also stocks exclusive merch designed specifically for the store. Featuring Petal in various guises and punny slogans, the capsule’s tees, baseball caps, underwear, socks, bandanas and more were designed as more accessible touch points to the brand.
Speaking of its motivating logic, Chopova reminisces on teenage trips to the Marc by Marc Jacobs store in New York’s West Village, an outlet that sat next to the mainline flagship, but that offered a dynamic array of merch – like the iconic “Protect The Skin You’re In” tees and campy lipstick pens – at pocket-money prices. “Being able to go to this sister store and access this product at a more accessible price point, you still felt you were part of the thing.”
That sense of camaraderie, of being part of something, coloured the atmosphere at last night’s opening event, where members of the brand’s community convened to toast the opening – and their newly attained club membership (Clubhouse ID cards were even printed as ID cards as proof).
It’s a spirit that will carry on over the course of this opening weekend, of course, but also far beyond it. What makes that feel so certain is the timeless foundation that the brand is built on, one that anyone can relate to. “Friendship is the basis of this brand,” Lowena-Irons says, “and friendship is a huge thing that we stand for.” Check out what some of the brand’s best friends wore to celebrate this new chapter of one of London’s best-loved indie brands.
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The Chopova Lowena Clubhouse, 84 Teesdale Street, London, E2 6QA. Open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 11am - 6pm, and Sundays 12pm - 5pm.
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