Film Gene Limbrick
Production Nell Card

Words Suyin Haynes

Photography Jasper Fry

Walé leads us through the airy, open-plan living space into the garden. His office, at the back of the garden beyond the trampoline, picnic bench and last remaining roses, is filled with nods towards his influences. Skateboards hang on the wall, as do images from his own fashion shoots and a plethora of street and youth photography. A Mitsubishi sewing machine with rolls of black and white thread is nestled in the corner. His parents’ record player rests atop a cabinet housing vinyl (although there’s a much larger collection in the main house) and a well-thumbed collection of art, fashion and design books.

The garden studio is a quiet space to think for Walé, who founded his contemporary gender-neutral streetwear label B-side in 1995. Recognisable for its ubiquitous graffiti print, the label has proud roots in London’s underground music scene. The designer started selling his clothes in Camden Market, opposite a drum and bass store: “[People] would come to the record store, then they’d come to me.” Starting out, he asked DJs from Camden to sell his garments in their stores. At the same time, he asked friends if he could style their unsigned acts.

“As the bands got bigger, I got bigger,” he says, recalling dressing The Brand New Heavies while he was still a university student. More celebrity clients come to mind: Beyoncé, the Beckhams, Usher to name a few. “It wasn’t really like a career for me, it was just something I loved doing,” says Walé, who received an MBE for his services to fashion in 2008. “I used to skate, I used to BMX, and then the fashion came, and it just stuck because it just kept evolving, evolving, evolving, and I was learning more as I was getting more into it.”

As well as Camden Market, living and working in London’s East End in the late 1990s proved formative for Walé. His familiarity with the area first came from doing a work experience placement off Commercial Street at the offices of legendary fashion designer Joe Casely-Hayford, who would send him out to the local fabric shops. Seeing a family-run business with a formidable work ethic was a foundational experience. “That was everything for me. It made me feel that actually, this dream I had could turn into a reality.”

The area’s pull became so great that the young designer moved to Brick Lane, setting up both his home and first studio opposite the famed Beigel Shop and above a cab office: “There was lots of noise, 24 hours a day because obviously the Beigel Shop was open all the time.” He remembers moving in to “a complete tip” with no furniture and using a discarded ‘No Entry’ sign as a makeshift tabletop. “Even though it was quite raw, it was a place where everyone used to come,” he says. “Designers and creatives could afford to live and work there. Everything was at our fingertips. Landlords were saying: ‘Take the keys now, give me the money later.’ It was a special time.”

The neighbourhood was a constant source of community, creativity and inspiration. “I was constantly taking in information,” he says. “Everybody was grown from the same plant, was all trying to do the same thing: learning, going, seeing, touching, feeling.”

On nearby Princelet Street, another location captured Walé’s attention. Number 4 Princelet Street is an 18th-century Georgian townhouse, famed for its faded pink exterior. “I used to walk past it, and it was one of those buildings that just stuck out,” says Walé, who produced a photoshoot with the Spice Girls in the building in the early 2000s. The building is often used for filming and photoshoots and was the location for a B-side photoshoot in 2007. “I just find it quite amazing how it’s managed to maintain its relevance.”

4 Princelet Street may have remained preserved in time as everything around it has changed, but quite the opposite is true of Canary Wharf, where Walé staged one of his first-ever shoots with photographer Jennie Baptiste, enlisting friends from Camden Market as models. “At the time, there weren’t many spaces in London that were just clean, white spaces, blank spaces. Canary Wharf had nothing there.” He shows us some of the old contact sheets featuring a young Roots Manuva. The shoot was on a Sunday early evening, with Walé coming straight from the market with his friends. “I’ve always tried to keep that authenticity of real people like DJs, creatives, musicians. It was all about just people I knew and people that I thought had good taste.”

Contrasts between the past and the present run through Walé’s work, seen through his affection for the Grade I-listed landmark, Guildhall. The space’s ceremonial nature, intricate flooring and grandiose architecture provide a counterpoint to the streetwear style that B-side is known for. “I’m really into the detail,” explains Walé, who has used this location as a backdrop to photoshoots. “When you look at the floor, you just think, ‘How long did this take to do?’”

One of Walé’s more recent location discoveries is the brutalist Silver Building, in Silvertown on the north bank of the Thames. Built in 1965 for British Oil and Cake Mills, the gigantic oblong-shaped building lay derelict for decades before a regeneration project transformed it into a new home for creative enterprises and local businesses in 2019. “It reminded me of a place that used to be very, very busy, but has kind of been forgotten,” he says. “I just loved it and felt like it was one of the last remaining places in the city that had that sort of feel.”

For Walé, thinking time is important. A particularly conducive space for this is The Cloister Garden in Clerkenwell, which a friend visiting from out of town introduced him to in 2019. “I just fell in love with it, and I’ve been going there ever since. I think it’s really important to have a thinking space. That’s what I’ve realised as time has gone on: you don’t always have to be in motion.”

Filled with flowers and medicinal herbs, the garden is an intimate and peaceful enclave in the city. “You see people’s demeanour change when they’re in there,” says Walé. “Everyone’s quiet. It’s almost a place where you can feel the calmness, so you automatically lower your voice.” Even a quick stop proves worthwhile. “It enables me to switch off from everything else. I don’t need to spend the whole day, I can be there for 25 minutes, but each time I go, it helps me to reset.”

At this stage in Walé’s career, making room to breathe and reflect is important. “The way that I worked previously was not sustainable for me personally. I couldn’t keep up,” he says. He now spends more time doing research, going to galleries, and visiting people at their studios. “I love doing things like that. It doesn’t always have to be about what I’m doing. I’m really enjoying just seeing other people’s journeys.”

In a city where everything seems to be moving or changing, Walé has an appreciation for moments of pausing and noticing. Sometimes, he says, he will sit in Hyde Park and people-watch, observing the commuters rushing out of the station. Or on a bus or a train, he will notice the multitude of languages people are speaking and consider the journeys they’ve been on. “It’s very unique in that everything goes in London. Nothing’s unusual.”

Watch the full film here and tell us what you think in the comments, before subscribing to our YouTube channel. Happy watching.