Two decades ago, when Mokrame Guerboukha was an embroider for a host of high street chains, he noticed a padlock on the wall under the Seven Sisters Road railway bridge in Finsbury Park.
He’d been looking for somewhere to open a shop and after making enquiries he finally got to peek on the other side of the door.
He found an abandoned room knee deep in water an dead birds. Now it’s full of beautiful wedding dresses.
“When I came here it was nothing,” he said. “Network Rail didn’t know what I was talking about. There was no electricity or nothing. I don’t think it had been used since they built the bridge.”
He initially paid £1,000 a year in rent. Now he owns the lease and although business has suffered since Brexit, he is still taking orders from far and wide.
“We get local, national and international orders – from Gibraltar and Malta.
“Fonthill Road is known for wholesale so when people leave the station I’m the first shop they see.”
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