In April this year London Fashion Week announced that it was moving from its old haunt at Somerset House to Brewer Street Car Park in the heart of Soho.
A spokesperson, announcing the move, said that it was great to be holding the event in the area. ‘With its position in Soho, it’s at the heart of an area that has long been associated with fashion and creativity in general.’
I don't know about you, but alongside the ‘fashion’ and ‘creativity’ which Soho’s rightly renowned for, there’s one other thing that springs to mind when visiting this part of London: sex.
There’s a battle going on right now in Soho, and you might not see it if you'’e just popping into one of the trendy restaurants or for a visit to London Fashion Week. As big business moves in, the sex workers who have long been at the heart of Soho’s culture are being slowly pushed out.
The broad picture is a story you’ve probably heard before, especially if you’ve been living in one of the scruffier London neighbourhoods: developers spot an opportunity, prices go up, and little by little the landscape changes until it’s executive apartments and artisan foccaccia as far as the eye can see.
In Soho, Tottenham Court Road’s new Crossrail station means that things are being bought, sold, and polished up at a startling pace.
When Fashion Week kicks off, hundreds of designers along with fashion admirers, press, and hangers-on will all be congregating for a weird cocktail. But for those who work in the massage parlours, or as independent escorts in the area, business is unlikely to be booming.
I spoke to Gemma, a sex worker and activist with the Sex Worker Open University, to find out how the corporate infiltration of Soho, and events such as London Fashion Week, will affect her.
Gemma is now an independent escort, but formerly worked in a parlour in Soho, and she tells me that big events don’t always affect business in the way you might expect. ‘Busy events that bring a lot of footfall to Soho can be good for sex workers in walk-ups,’ she explains. (‘Walk-ups’ being the parlours with open doors, where you’d expect passing trade to be most beneficial.)
‘But during Gay Pride, most parlours and walk-ups shut up shop for the day, as it fills the streets with people who aren’t going to be buying sex. I imagine the streets being filled to the brim with fashionistas during LFW is about as useful to commercial sex venues as the extreme influx of drunk LGBT revellers once a year – basically not at all!’
For the developers who see the area as a lucrative opportunity, the ‘wrong kind of sex’ can often be bad for business
But that’s not the only issue for Soho’s sex workers when it comes to big events like Fashion Week. For the developers who see the area as a lucrative opportunity, the ‘wrong kind of sex’ can often be bad for business. So as things get shinier, sex workers like Gemma are more at risk of being moved on.
In late 2013, police raided numerous flats in and around Soho. Their stated aim was to shut down brothels and rescue workers who had been illegally trafficked, but in reality none of the women targeted during the raids were found to have been victims of trafficking.
As a result of the raids, though, 18 brothels were closed and paparazzi shots of the workers shivering on the streets were splashed all over the national press. Although the women turfed out of the flats were purportedly victims who were being rescued by the police, when the police invited the media to report on their operation, papers like the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard had no qualms about taking photos of the targeted women shivering in skimpy clothes on the street.
I remember being shocked at the time that there was such a violent disconnect – between the narrative that the women needed to be ‘saved’ and the simultaneous encouragement that everyone should have a good leer at them in the process.
This seems like a common theme when you’re looking at the way we treat sex work in society – there’s a disconnect between the aims of police and politicians to eradicate sex work, and the simultaneous public desire to gawp at something sexy. The 2013 raids gave the press an opportunity to do both of these things simultaneously – stoking people’s moral outrage while simultaneously titillating them.
This happens wherever culture and sex work cross over – in fashion as well as on TV and in films, with designers and brands frequently adopting this ‘hooker chic’ look in their collections. A video made by Louis Vuitton in 2013 to promote its AW13 collection featured models in negligées and fur coats selling sex on the streets of Paris.
I'm also reminded of the fashion takeaways from Julia Roberts Pretty Woman – at the 25th anniversary of the film this year, the Guardian (and other publications) gave a run-down on how to steal her style – from her ‘working girl dress’ with the PVC boots to her ‘cleaned up’ version post Richard-Gere-romance.
Gemma explained to me that when you start looking for it, you start to see this ‘hooker chic’ in a whole lot of different places:
In Soho perhaps more than anywhere else in the UK, the distinction between sex work as work and sex work as a trendy ‘theme’ is most apparent
‘The fashion industry is one of many that loves to co-opt the signifiers of sex work for kudos,’ she tells me, pointing to a dress by Nympha, which includes a stylised ‘hooker in neon window’ motif on the front.
Gemma says: ‘I have no doubt that LFW 2015 will embrace “Vice Girl” aesthetics, and that the runways will see more than a few nods to “Hooker Chic” this year – fishnets, thigh boots, PVC, etc. That’s my prediction.’
And she’s right. Just looking through the list of designers on the LFW website throws up people like Ashish Gupta, who’ll be exhibiting at LFW for the tenth year in a row. He explained that his AW15 collection was inspired by Jane Fonda in Klute – ‘a story of a bunch of high-class hookers who only dress for themselves.’
So what’s the harm? After all, if you’re looking to pick up something sexy, or you want to create a sexy atmosphere on a night out, surely adopting some of the motifs of those who sell sex is a surefire way of doing it? The problem, of course, is that those who sell sex are often being sold short, or even ignored. In Soho perhaps more than anywhere else in the UK, the distinction between sex work as work and sex work as a trendy ‘theme'’is most apparent.
Writing in Vice in July this year, Frankie Mullin explored the growing trend for Soho bars and restaurants to use the neon and ‘XXX’ themes of sex work in order to gather customers – turning the area into a kind of ‘twee, sex-work theme park.’
Gemma tells me in no uncertain terms that this ‘Disneyfication’ is contributing more and more to a Soho that’s less safe for the sex workers who are based there. The trendier the area, the more likely the hammer will fall on those who work there, in attempted clean-up operations such as the raids in 2013.
‘Two hundred and fifty police officers in riot gear raided 25 Soho flats. These raids were violent – many women were photographed or taken outside in their underwear, and half of the affected flats were closed. People who are into attending stuff like LFW or Lights of Soho [a gallery that displays former sex industry signage as art] or La Bodega Negra [a Mexican restaurant dressed up to look like a sex shop] should take the time to consider that any event or venue in Soho that particpates this trendy “bordello theme” is contributing to the erasure and revanchism that is pushing Soho’s sex workers out – often to places in Tower Hamlets and Romford, where they now work on the streets.’
While London Fashion Week may not have an immediate effect, Gemma isn’t the only one who’s concerned about the effect of Soho gentrification on the safety of sex workers. I spoke to a representative from the English Collective of Prostitutes, who told me:
‘We don’t know if London Fashion week in Soho is a sign of gentrification but gentrification in Soho is a problem. Local residents have supported sex workers because they know that if sex workers are booted out the area, they’ll be next. Sex workers have spearheaded campaigns against this takeover of Soho by the super rich and predatory property developers.
‘Seemingly, working women could stay and work in the relative safety of Soho flats. This is particularly crucial when so many women, particularly mothers, are going into sex work because of the brutal austerity policies of this government.’
It’s not, perhaps, something you’d think about if you were visiting Soho for Fashion Week. While you can’t miss the building site that’s the upcoming Crossrail station, and the trendy bars that’ll be clamouring for your business when you fancy a post-show drink, those who sell sex in Soho are not always publicly acknowledged, despite being one of the core contributors to Soho’s history.
In an effort to fight back against the changes in the area, some arty celebs (Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Tim Arnold) have joined a campaign to ‘Save Soho’. However, while the campaign says a lot about Soho’s reputation for ‘performing arts’ and ‘creativity’, there’s very little mention of the massage parlours and sex workers in the area.
Like the property developers keen to cash in on Soho’s fashionable value, even those who want to save the area are wary of mentioning its long history as a place where people buy and sell sex.
But it’s time we started acknowledging it properly. Part of the problem with our attitudes towards sex work (it’s simultaneously titillating and worthy of pity) is that we often sweep it under the carpet. Buy up the neon signs and use them as dressing for a window display, without thinking about those who sell sex in the parlours round the corner.
When London Fashion Week begins, attendees will head to Brewer Street car park, past massage parlours and sex shops as well as the newer, trendy bars. Perhaps everyone will be delighted with how vibrant and creative everything is, but can we really talk about Soho’s culture without mentioning the sex workers who’ve helped to build it in the first place?
Those who have invested in Soho may be delighted to see headline-grabbing events such as London Fashion Week bringing the cameras and media to Soho, but those who have worked there for years may feel a creeping sense of dread. As business moves in, will sex workers get pushed out to make way for it?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.