The influence of John Simons"In the dull, pebble-dashed sandwich between the A40 and the A4, the high sixties hardly touched at all, unless you counted Olive's daughter, Jilly, perched on the back of her boyfriend Tony's Vespa in black and chequerboard smock from Biba with Mary Hopkin droopy-dog hair, the Vespa farting its way to the Boathouse in Kew or the Ivy Shop in Richmond or the Hammersmith Palais." (extract from Tim Lott's 'The Scent of Dried Roses')Here is John Simons' own account of the legacy of The Ivy Shop and his further adventures in men's fashion :"I suppose my obsession with clothes goes back to when I was 7 or 8. I came from a family where a lot of the men were batchelors. There was a barber shop in Dalston Junction and it became a meeting place for all of the smartest men - my uncles always had brand-new shirts and ties. These things began to make an impression on me.I used to go to a shop called David's on Charing Cross Road. It's long gone now but it was where people bought all the latest clothes that were perceived to come from the States. I saw lots of musicians there, which spawned an interest in me for big band music and jazz. I soon began building up this vague, mystical image of this other world, America.At 16 I enrolled in the School of Distributive Trades at St.Martin's School of Art. I bought my first saxophone and began plugging into the whole post-war re-birth of modernism through jazz, art and fashion. These were the 3 basic ingredients of this pie.The key music then was modern jazz - Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott, these sort of people. We went to The Florida, The Flamingo, The Mapleton, The Lyceum... Then I started to go abroad, and I began to think of myself as a beat mod. I enjoyed the pseudo-intellectual Kerouac side of it, you know, carrying an LP cover under your arm.At 23, ambition started to creep in. We began copying American clothes, getting little old ladies to make them up for us. Next to the Hackney Empire we opened a shop and called it Clothesville. We'd take things like the Burberry raincoat and give it a twist, do it in corduroy.During this time I used to travel to Richmond to the L'Auberge coffee bar. On one visit I noticed an empty shop, so myself and my partner, Jeff Kwintner, went for it. The Ivy Shop opened in 1965.Our aim was to sell the best American clothing . Carnaby Street was happening at the same time, but we appealed mainly to working-class guys whom we used to called modernists, which is what we were. I think the Ivy Shop definitely had a hand in defining mods. There was a Carnaby mod before we arrived, but we appealed to people who were sharper. Ours was a terribly self-conscious look. We had sussed that if you take an everyday object from its environment, it has a more exciting aspect. We were taking these everyday objects which the Americans took for granted and we were getting an incredible charge out of them.Then in 1969 we opened a second shop in Brewer Street which became The Squire Shop. In 1971 we opened The Village Gate in Old Compton Street and another in King's Road, but soon after I had an acrimonious parting with Jeff Kwintner and I drifted a bit. I kept The Ivy Shop and opened several branches outside London.In the late Seventies I started wholesaling loafers, and thought about getting back into retail. So I thought I'd open another shop, this time in Covent Garden. J.Simons was never intended as a retro shop. It runs along similar lines to my previous shops : a mixture of classic old styles and classic new ones. There was a determined effort to create an East Coast American look : Brooks Brothers, J.Press etc. I suppose ours is quite a purist vision. We obviously reflect what's fashionable and make concessions - after all, we're not in the V&A, we're in Covent Garden.We stock most of the things that I had in The Squire Shop in the 60s, like Harringtons, American chinos, flat-fronted trousers, Sebago loafers, the Ivy League Oxford button-down shirt.Modernism is my obsession : Alvar Aalto furniture, plywood furniture, West Coast jazz. I still love clothes. I can be very smart, but I often just wear a cashmere crew-neck and a pair of jeans and loafers. I still look for second-hand clothes. I'm really no different to what I was when I was 16. I've never really been interested in designer clothing. That's not to say it's not important, it's just something I'm not too bothered about.Funnily enough I never worry that I'm going to lose my eye. It should have gone by now, I know, but it hasn't."
John in The Evening Standard in 1989. Note also the presence of the legendary J.Simons 'shoe-stretcher'.
John in his shop mid-1990s
The Ivy Shop, 10 Hill Rise, Richmond
J.Simons, 2 Russell Street, Covent Garden, London WC2B 5TD tel 0207 379 7353 fax 0207 240 4788
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