LONDON – For years, Chopova Lowena’s old studio in Deptford by the River Thames has functioned as an unofficial shrine for fans worldwide who would plan a trip to see Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena’s world up close: studio tours, try-ons, and perhaps a purchase a one-off skirt or a piece they’d spotted seasons ago.

Now, the duo is formalizing that pilgrimage with their first permanent store in East London at 84 Teesdale Street between Bethnal Green and Hoxton, just off Hackney Road, in a building that the designers now call home.

The duo believes it’s an ideal spot as it’s right between Columbia Road Flower Market and Broadway Market, and is close to fellow trendy retailers like Story mfg, Twos and Waste Store. They hope it will become a new weeking stop for those who embark on “an interesting walking route in East London of small brands having physical spaces.”

The shop occupies the ground floor, while their studios stretch both above and below, turning the address into a vertical headquarters for everything from design and fittings to late-night hangouts.

“Retail is moving to more in-person shopping, especially in a bad economy. When people are going to spend their money, they want an experience, so we want to provide an experience. The whole store is a clubhouse, a community for everyone to come in and hang out, an all-welcome club,” said Lowena.

The club has been months in the making, starting work in May and, true to the brand’s DIY ethic, building the space themselves with the help of designer and fabricator David Pringle, Chopova’s partner, who constructed everything from built-in wardrobes made from specially sourced Polish pine, a 200-kilogram wrought-iron display table, and a folkloric cabinet bed that doubles as the till.

The result is a fully immersive set, very much in line with a label that has always preferred doing things “in a bit of an outsider way” since the two graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2017 with a joint master’s degree in fashion design.

Inside, the store extends the brand’s folkloric, slightly feral universe in three dimensions.

The inspirations run from village wardrobes to children’s secret forts with peepholes, hidden doors, a secret mailbox for notes and drawings, and TV screens where girls appear to be trying to escape.

A string dispenser in the shape of a girl on the wall lets visitors wind red string bracelets, a Bulgarian good-luck tradition, with boxes of charms to customize their talismans.

Anchoring the space is a skirt bar, where customers can build their own version of the brand’s signature pleated kilt with their choice of buckles, charms, beads, and carefully sourced fabrics for mix-and-match experimentation.

Lead times will range from a couple of weeks to a few months depending on materials, but in return clients receive something closer to couture than ready-to-wear, shipped to their door, finished with a plaque bearing their name and a certificate.

Alongside the made-to-order kilts and one-off pieces will be the Clubhouse collection, an exclusive range of lower price-point merch: T-shirts, hats and forthcoming soaps, plus collaborative T-shirts and small accessories under 50 pounds.

“I grew up in New Jersey and went to New York all the time, and the early-2000s Marc by Marc Jacobs in Soho was so important. It’s where you could buy a pen, flip-flops, or a printed T-shirt and then go next door for a $700 bag. That high-low mix and the idea that everyone could get a piece of it was really inspiring. We want to do that as well,” said Chopova.

The store will open to customers on Friday, and trade four days a week, Thursday through Sunday. The whole company will collectively look after the shop with the help of two part-time sales associates.

Strategically speaking, the store allows the brand to sell direct at wholesale-level prices without margin dilution, and experiment with pieces that never quite fit a wholesale model: tiny runs, reclaimed 10-meter bolts of special fabrics, hyper-specific collaborations. The brand currently sells to more than 50 retailers globally, including Bergdorf Goodman, Nordstrom, Maxfield, Dover Street Market, LN-CC, and 10 Corso Como.

For the duo, expanding into permanent retail isn’t a step toward the mainstream but a way of staying niche on their own terms. They were adamant this isn’t the first step toward a polished Mayfair flagship or a high-street rollout.

“We don’t really have that ambition. We don’t want to be mainstream. I think our strength is in niche, and we kind of want to keep it small and niche, and really double down on ourselves, our direct-to-consumer, our personal connection, making special clothes,” said Chopova.

Instead, they see Hackney Road as a proof of concept for special drops and custom activations that can eventually travel as “a custom skirt or T-shirt pop-up” to cities where demand is already strong, such as Tokyo, Seoul, Los Angeles and New York.