Rivieras Leisure shoes, first worn on Spain’s Costa Blanca in the fifties and celebrated for their superior comfort and streamlined design are set for a resurgence. Their low-top slip on style, leather soles and mesh upper set them as an optimum choice for summer footwear.

Shop the Rivieras edit

Cutler and Gross have collaborated with START favourite Erdem to create a series of sunglasses inlaid with the designer’s signature lace fabrics. If the aim was to acheive optical perfection, we say ‘mission accomplished‘.

Shop the Cutler and Gross Shop in Shop

Shoreditch’s gentrifiation continues with Start’s newest neighbour opening for business from Friday 18th May, 2012. The new kid on the Rivington Street block is none other than Soho Hix East London’s sister restaurant, specialising in steaks and chicken. Personally, I was hoping for the perfect place to knock back a few lunchtime oysters, but I suppose that’s a little bourgeois of me. Heck, let’s not pretend this is SW4.

The Tram Shed, which is a large Grade II listed building will host the foodie’s dream establishment and rumour has it, cookery classes and a farmer’s market on weekends.

This space will be one to watch.

Forget all memories of how painstaking dull double maths on a Friday morning used to be and let START introduce you to a new lesson…Flash Sale Equations. All you need is our promotion code MIDSEASON12 and an eye for styling and you can enjoy 30% off our favourite SS12 womenswear brands. But don’t forget the flash sale ends on Monday 14th May. Enjoy!

Shop the Flash Sale selection now!

Our debut magazine is live! Sit back and enjoy the SS12 issue of START.

Designer Philip Start began his career in fashion retail working for prestigious jeweller Gerrard before making his move into menswear. Always interested in fashion, he spent the Sixties under the influence of Carnaby Street and Kensington Market before emigrating to Canada where he began a determined career in menswear

He returned to London in the late Sixties and, in the late Seventies, set up his own business, Woodhouse, for which he is well known. In 1975 Woodhouse took up premises on Oxford Street and quickly expanded to nine stores nationwide. In 1989, Philip sold the business to Sir Philip Green only to buy it back in 1991 as part of a joint venture that included BFC Chairman Harold Tillman.

In 1999, Philip sold Woodhouse for the last time to Specialty Retail Group (SRG) but continued as a shareholer and consultant until 2002, when he removed himself from the business completely.

Later in 2002, Philip established START with his wife Brix Smith Start, which soon grew to two separate premises. In 2008, Philip took over a third premise on Rivington Street and used it as the base for his own tailoring label, Mr. Start.

Philip Start in the Mr. Start Tailoring Store on Rivington Street, London

Through Mr. Start, Philip draws from his reputable and extensive experience in retail to create refreshing and wearable collections, inspired by his understanding of the way men dress. The suits are slim cut, creating a look of casual precision. The ethos is modern and architectural, creating an accessible, everyday elegance. The definitive fit is subtle yet certain, epitomising ‘Shoreditch luxury’.

An image from the Mr. Start SS12 Lookbook

Shop the Mr. Start Edit

This May, START and Cutler & Gross launch a Shop in Shop—visual displays in both our womenswear and menswear stores, including more than 100 Cutler and Gross optical and sunglass frames, handpicked from the brand’s SS and AW 2012 collections as well as their line-up of collaboration frames.

Cutler and Gross Campaign Images

For decades, Cutler and Gross has relied, in part, upon their reputation being trickled and whispered within style and fashion circles in London like verbal quicksilver, from the days of Grace Jones sipping champagne in their shop to the cult-like C&G followers such as Jarvis Cocker, Tinie Tempah and Madonna. If you know about Cutler and Gross, you know about style.

Jarvis Cocker’s Iconic Cutler and Gross Opticals

For the last 42 years Cutler and Gross have specialised in handmade eyewear, manufacturing in their own factory in Cadore, Italy. The frames are a heady mix of colours, materials, shapes and eccentricity. But what matters most to Cutler and Gross is provenance—the specifics of design and the frame’s original use. This is reinforced by the absence of a logo on the outside of the frames, maintaining a quiet elegance and firm, yet graceful classism.

Messrs Cutler and Gross

The First Cutler and Gross Store

Over the years, Cutler and Gross has teamed up with several established ready-to-wear designers such as Comme des Garçons and Maison Martin Margiela as well as with burgeoning young designers such as Thomas Tait and Martyn Bal to create limited-edition collaborative frames. This includes several seasons with Erdem, incorporating French lace from the designer’s collections into their frames’ unique acetate, and three seasons with Giles Deacon who, along with design director Marie Wilkinson, have created collections inspired by everything from Scooby-Doo to illustrious swans.

Giles Deacon in his Cutler and Gross Aviator

Shop the Cutler and Gross edit.

Super modern, minimal and collectable, Start is now home to 3 delicious colours; red, lilac and green. All three purses open to lilac velvet interiors and are made very practical with their slim gold shoulder strap.

Just yummy.

For more information, please pop in to Start,
email us at onlineshop@start-london.com, or call us on 020 7033 3951 /

For Start’s full selection of this season’s bags, click here. /

For SS12, we’re excited to announce the debut issue of the START London E-Magazine. Before we launch Volume One, we decided to leak few collages and backstage videos to give you taste of what to expect. The first preview is a collection of images from an editorial shoot at the empty Brockwell Lido swimming pool. The brainchild of stylist Kayleigh Layton, the shoot is inspired by 1950s glamour while maintaining a modern relevance, clashing vintage pieces with contemporary favourites Acne, Maison Martin Margiela and Carven to name a few.

Click to shop the Rising Tides Edit.