Maisie Hon-Jacobs pays a visit to the hybrid clothing store at 92 Burton Road selling hand-picked vintage threads and making custom items for the likes of Billie Eilish.
An exciting clothes shop has opened at 92 Burton Road, next door to Peddler Market. It’s a hybrid of a vintage hand-selected collection (Fish Bowl Vintage) started by Owen Powers, alongside handmade original pieces from Morgan Sidle’s independent clothing brand, Made by Atelier.
A sneak-peek inside the Kelham Island store.
Morgan’s current collection ‘LOVE WAR RIOT’ takes influence from the 80s punk scene, a hand-crafted style dating back to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s first shop, ‘Sex’, opened on London’s famous King’s Road in 1974.
Morgan does all photography, brand managment and video himself
Morgan’s designs resemble a modern take on Vivienne Westwood’s Seditionaries clothing and t-shirts, an iconic style consisting of screen-printing graphic, colourful and often controversial mixed media images, with slogans famously associated with the Sex Pistols, like the recurring ‘No Future’. In a clear homage to this style, Morgan focuses on deconstructing oxford shirts with a familiar flair, giving them a new identity. Elsewhere Vivienne Westwood’s influence can be seen in the use of tartan, and the do-it-yourself style so central to the punk movement.
Morgan has taken an unconventional route into fashion, having taught himself everything he knows. He also handles all aspects of brand management, creative direction, sewing and printing himself, explaining how his ideas don’t thrive under instruction or being tested.
Printing and sewing is largely done in-store, the shop doubling up as a studio.
His approach to clothesmaking has been a journey of trial and error, fun and genuine passion. It is refreshing to see a clothing brand revelling in the rebellious and chaotic side to fashion, straying away from the mass-produced micro-trends inevitably heading to landfill. Morgan hopes to see his Love War and Riot collection worn around the Steel City.
Excitingly, he is also currently working on a personal commission for none other than Billie Eilish, whose associates got in touch with Morgan in the hope of getting Billy’s very own custom Oxford shirt made.
The vintage side of things is all up to Owen Powers and ‘Fish Bowl Vintage’. Owen set up Fish Bowl in his second year of university, but his interest in vintage fashion soon took over from his studies, so he dropped out of university to take on running the shop full-time. Three years later, Owen is travelling around Italy and searching for Italian brands to supply his retail space.
A look into some of Fish Bowl’s exclusive pieces.
Fish Bowl stocks brands such as CP Company, Missoni, Benetton, Armani, Best Company, Stone Island and any others that fit Owen’s vision. He focuses primarily on the 1980s to early 2000s, a period when he believes designers had more freedom of design, pattern and functionality; resulting in original pieces that stand the test of time.
They are up and running! Pop by the next time you’re in the area.
The duo are excited to be running their own studio together, telling me about their big plans to make their mark on the Sheffield scene. With their youth-led style straying and rebelling from the glossy mainstream of fast and unaffordable fashion, you can see the history of rebellious youth culture movements living on in their Kelham Island studio.
